Today we’d like to introduce you to Brian Netto and Adam Schindler.
Brian and Adam, please share your story with us. How did you get to where you are today?
ADAM: Brian and I met in fourth grade in Minnesota and became immediate friends. We were bored one summer day and we ended up picking up one of our parent’s VHS cameras. No idea where the idea of making a movie came from, but we spent the entire day filming a terrible rip off of Child’s Play with a Cabbage Patch doll. It just steam-rolled from there. Filmmaking has been our passion ever since.
BRIAN: Neither of us went to film school, but Adam started up a student film organization at Augsburg College in Minneapolis and I was the first – and maybe to this day, only – student to receive a Film Studies Minor at the University of Wisconsin-River Falls. I can only speak for myself but at the time, I still wasn’t 100% sure of filmmaking as a career until I did a student exchange program for a semester at a small college in New Jersey. I got an internship with Deborah Schindler Films (no relation to Adam!) in Manhattan who had just done HOW STELLA GOT HER GROOVE BACK. It really solidified for me that film was something I wanted to do as a career.
ADAM: After college, we decided we were going to make a go of this “filmmaking dream” so we saved up some cash, packed up a U-Haul and drove out here to LA.
It was definitely tough early on. We had no real connections to the industry, so we started interning at production companies. Basically, working for free four days a week, spending the other three days working at Border’s on La Cienega (yes, we worked at the same place as well). My girlfriend (who’s my wife now) had a healthy job and literally paid all my bills those first few years. Bless her heart. This whole time, we were grinding away at scripts. Features, shorts, etc. As we moved up through the ranks at our respective production companies, we were able to connect with a manager who had read one of our spec scripts and saw some potential in our writing (Marc Manus, he’s still our manager to this day).
We continued to churn out bad scripts, trying to sell one until we decided that we really came out to LA to be filmmakers and not just struggling screenwriters, so we came up with a concept for a film we thought we would be able to mount ourselves and that film project turned into DELIVERY.
BRIAN: DELIVERY was a crash course in filmmaking, where we did a little of everything, including casting, catering, editing, and – because we also financed the film and owned it outright, 50/50 split – got a seat at the table for the eventual sale of the film and how it was marketed. It was shot for under 50k right here in LA – mostly the Valley – and went on to play nearly 20 film festivals across the world. It far exceeded our expectations and helped us literally get our foot in the door. That led to a pitch (that we didn’t get) but ultimately the producers were so impressed with our presentation that they helped us get our next picture – INTRUDERS (fka SHUT IN) – off the ground. It was a far higher budget, far more producers and proved to be a great overall experience on that next tier of indie filmmaking. INTRUDERS played at a number of festivals as well and was eventually released by eOne/Momentum Pictures in a limited theatrical run, before finding success on VOD. It was a thrill seeing something we shot on Starz and Showtime. And both films are now available Amazon Prime.
ADAM: Throughout this whole time, we continued to foster relationships and meet people. Always willing to take a general meeting, as we know/knew that these meetings are the lifeblood of any type of success in the film industry. Fostering connections. One of those meetings took place right after DELIVERY came out and eventually lead to our latest project, our Minnesota-set episode of Sam Raimi’s 50 States of Fright for Quibi. A producer who liked DELIVERY and stayed in touch with us throughout the years brought us onto the project. It kind of feels “full circle” in a weird way, being our episode takes place in Minnesota, although we still believe this is just the beginning for us. We’re still in the first lap. And we’re excited to see where the next several years take us.
We’re always bombarded by how great it is to pursue your passion, etc – but we’ve spoken with enough people to know that it’s not always easy. Overall, would you say things have been easy for you?
BRIAN: Smooth? By no means. There are no overnight success stories in this business, I’m convinced of that, so we took comfort in the fact that for everyone that seemingly pops up out of nowhere – the Robert Rodriguez’s or Diablo Cody’s of the world – they’ve been grinding in the shadows for a long time before anyone knew their name. It just SEEMS like they came out of nowhere.
Our first film, DELIVERY, was the first time where we sent a script out and we had people calling US instead of the other way around. But that’s rare when you have something that people respond to so strongly in a positive manner. Normally what we’re doing is pushing a boulder up a hill and it all depends on how many people you have helping you push (i.e., recognizable on- screen talent, producers, etc.) and/or how heavy that boulder is (i.e., how large is the budget and is it a genre people actually pay money to watch).
The industry has also shifted pretty precipitously over the past few years. Whereas our playground had primarily been in the indie genre space, those films are harder and harder to make, and their budgets keep shrinking. Those stories are now being told in the TV and streaming space and that’s very much its own little pond that we’re dipping our toe into as we speak.
Look, we’ve now made two feature films that we’re incredibly proud of and wrote and directed an episode of an anthology series produced by one of our filmmaking idols – Sam Raimi – so we count our blessings as often as we can. It’s a grind, and some days are better than others but we truly love being creators and we love the journey as well.
So, as you know, we’re impressed with Type AB – tell our readers more, for example what you’re most proud of and what sets you apart from others.
BRIAN: Type AB is our production banner and grew out of our desire to expand our bandwidth a little bit; right now we’re focusing primarily on projects that we developed and will direct ourselves but ultimately it’s our hope to bring other filmmakers that we admire into the fold to foster their projects.
Our passion has always been genre films; horror, sci-fi, thrillers, crime, etc. Those are the sorts of films that we gravitated towards when we were young and they feel like home. We’re still young filmmakers but it feels like our brand thus far is elevated genre; food for the eyes AND brain. The projects we’re currently developing – a Nolan-esque haunted house thriller in TURNKEY and a large scale sci-fi thriller featuring a new A.I. led underground railroad in CANAAN – touch on relevant themes and ideas housed inside smart genre exercises. Again, these aren’t so much business decisions so much as we’re focused on making the sorts of films WE want to see.
ADAM: I think what sets us apart is our ability to world build and assemble the proper team. They say directing is just managing people and I agree 100%. It’s taken us a bit to understand what our strengths are as creators and to start to lean into them, so we’ve just recently (as in the last few years) starting pitching projects, not to studios or producers, but other screenwriters. Getting them on board to help develop a project out with Brian and I as the creative leads. This allows us to get some of these ideas we have in our heads on paper that 1) we’ll never get around to writing ourselves and 2) are probably best written by someone else who has the proper voice for the project. It’s been a fun enterprise and really fulfilling seeing these projects start to come to life.
So, what’s next? Any big plans?
BRIAN: In the next few years, we’re hoping to delve a little deeper into the TV/streaming world. We had such a great experience working on Grey Cloud Island, our Quibi episode, and would love to continue working in that space. TV sets move fast, but you come across such a wide range of people in front of and behind the camera. In the more immediate future, we have a pair of feature projects that we’re trying to put together with a team of talented producers. Not to mention we’re actually adapting our Grey Cloud Episode into a feature film. It’s a spin-off that would follow the female warrior that we’ve dubbed Pigtails; she’s become something of a fan favorite, so we’d love the opportunity to give her an entire film to do her thing.
ADAM: Two words. Patience and resilience. In this industry, there are many perceived highs and many many lows. It’s true, it only takes one “yes” but you have to be prepared for the 999,999 “no’s”. It’s taken a ton of time and experience dealing with the highs and the lows to learn how to navigate them. We always try to stay at an even keel. Never get too high, never get too low about stuff. Things will play out the way they are supposed to.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.typeabinc.com
- Email: [email protected]
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/typeabfilms/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/typeabfilms
- Twitter: @TypeABFilms
Image Credit:
Alex Fitzalan
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