Hasraf ‘Haz’ Dulull Producer /Director

George Olver (GO): Today I'm delighted to welcome Haz Dulull, a visual effects artist that you probably all know. We’ll be talking about his remarkable journey and successes. Haz, welcome to the Movidiam podcast.

Haz Dulull (HD): Hi, thanks for having me.

Haz, you're a very, very interesting character to all here at Movidiam because you seem to have done it all - and almost on your own. It's a quite remarkable journey you've been on. Can you tell us where it all began for you, and where your interest in visual effects came from?

I think it all stems from when I was 12 years old, and my dad bought a VHS copy of Blade Runner. I remember watching that and thinking ‘this is amazing’. At this point I didn't know what was involved in doing something like that but I just knew I wanted to be involved in creating worlds. And my imagination has just run wild since 12, right through to school, college and so on.

And I think it was around the time when I was at City University in London. Back then there wasn't really a lot of access for visual effects…if you wanted to get into film-making, you had to go to film school. And my parents were really strict. They were, "Look, you should really get yourself a job!" As most parents would!

So, I kind of compromised. I did Computer Science and then I also mixed it up with technology and art. So that was a bit of a compromise. And I ended up making a video game level, which ended up getting me a one-year internship over at a video games company in Camden in London, called Davis Studios. At university, I did something called a sandwich course, so it's three years of study and a one-year work placement. Everyone else was working at IBM and Oracle and so on but I decided to go into video games because I just like the idea of mixing coding with art.

What was really cool was I ended up working on game cinematics rather than the actual in-game content. And this is going to show my age but this is going way back, to PlayStation One. What was very interesting was every time a game level comes up you tell a bit more of the story. Even though it was racing games we were talking about, there was a lot of Fast and Furious-type action sequences. And back then, you did everything. So if you could animate, edit, you basically did the whole thing.

I think that's where, later on, my independent filmmaking ethos came from, working on PlayStation One games. Back then, PlayStation One games were very, very limited, texture-wise. You had a texture resolution of something like 64 by 64 pixels, which is tiny. Even our mobile phones have way better pixels than that. And we had to figure out how to texture things and how to make things look cinematic from very limited video memory.

I did that for several years. I worked for several companies like Nintendo, Kuju, Codemasters and then I got to a point in my games career where I thought I really should just stop mimicking working in film. Why don't I just go and work in film? I created a showreel of all my game cinematic work, full CG sequences, and sent it off to a bunch of visual effects houses, like Framestore, MPC and all the usual suspects in Soho. And I came back with tons of rejections. And I'm like, I don't get it, I've got these really cool CGI sequences!

Someone at MPC rang me up to say, "Listen, we really liked your reel as a CG artist, but we're visual effects. The thing about visual effects is you're marrying live-action with CGI to make it a seamless experience for the audience, so the audience shouldn't really tell what's visual effects or what isn't unless it's a fantastical movie. So what about you just go away, film some stuff, and combine it with CGI, and come back to us."

And I did. I used the mini-DV camera and shot a bunch of stuff, and composited some game graphics onto it. I mean it wasn't the best; if you were looking at it now, no one would give me a job! But MPC gave me a job - but I had to start from the bottom. Even though I had years of doing cinematics for some of the big game titles, I ended up starting at the bottom. So I started as a rotoscope artist, which essentially means you're cutting out things, frame-by-frame, in order to put things behind or in front of the live action element.

I also sense that you're extremely good at understanding where your work sits in the world, and how to promote it, which is such a key thing for a creative artist. You've got to get your work out into the world and talk about it and get people talking about and get an audience. And these audiences have evolved. More recently in your career you've hit some pretty big distribution with some of the successes. 

You mentioned access - having access to the technology and access to equipment. Now this is the thing that's been the paradigm shift in the last decade or so. You used to have to have huge facilities, huge studios, to develop the sort of work that you are now coming up with on a relatively tight resource, and small amount, or powerful but small equipment. So the equipment's been democratized. 

Absolutely. Basically, after working in visual effects for a number of years, you start to really become familiar with tools. We use things like Nuke and obviously all the Adobe tools and so on. And as the years went on, the technology became cheaper and more accessible.

And that's how I started off making short films. In 2013, I made a bunch of short films and one of them went viral. And the reason I was able to make these short films is because I was doing them on my laptop. I was using Adobe Creative, Abode Creative Cloud or the Adobe tools, and I was downloading video footage from stock footage. And cameras are cheap - you can shoot stuff very easily. I was able to make a short film that looked like a cinematic experience. And I ended up getting a Hollywood agent and manager because of that.

And that's because of the accessibility of technology, allowing filmmakers to not be restricted by barriers any more. Eight, ten ago you had to hire a film camera, right? Film costs so much money, you have to use loose ends from other projects. And then you have to go to a post facility and get it edited and graded, then you have to look for a visual effects house. And it's a big financial commitment.

Whereas today, if I want to figure out how to use a tool, I just go onto YouTube and someone is bound to have created a tutorial for it! And the knowledge is out there. The knowledge used to be so restricted that you had to go to special facilities to learn it. And I think that is one of the big reasons why things have democratised massively in film-making - the knowledge is out there and people are willing to share.

Totally. I've just received, live from the community, this caption - ‘when you don't understand, you depend on reality. When you do understand, reality depends on you.’ And I suppose that's the sort of journey you go on - once you've got these tools and these understandings, you can create this opportunity and these worlds for yourself.

Absolutely…but those tools are merely tools to help you tell your story. The thing that will probably never change regardless is the idea, the idea, the core, the kernel of the idea. Your story, your characters. Those are the fundamental cores that have been in cinema since the '30s, and will continue to be. And if you look a lot of stuff out there, there's some amazing stuff on Vimeo, gorgeous looking CG short films, or hybrid live-action CG short films. But then a lot of them don't really have any substance. You're like, ‘oh, it looks great, it looks like a high budget movie, but what is the story? Who are the characters?’

And that is probably the negative side of things: when technology becomes so accessible and CGI becomes so affordable to do, people get lost into that world. "Oh, we'll get to create great-looking monsters and great looking camera moves and really great worlds!" But then they forget the fundamentals. Whereas it used to be that when you were restricted, you were so reliant on good characters and good stories. 

That's a really interesting point. So just because you've got the ability to make worlds doesn't mean that you've got the ability to have a narrative arc. And I think, like everything in life, it's the expertise comes from blending so many different skills.

I think so, absolutely. Before I went to make movies, trying to get my first movie made was extremely hard. My first movie was going to be... Well, obviously it was The Beyond, but before The Beyond, it was Project Kronos, based on my short film which went viral and I got picked up by a Hollywood agent and stuff. But studios were bidding for it, so there was a bidding war. And a studio called Benderspink won the bid, and I was given money to write the script. And one of the biggest hurdles came from financiers who were really concerned. They were like, "Well, this guy clearly can make things look great, he's a visual effecter, but he's just a technician. Can he really tell a story? Can he work with actors? Can he really get performances?" 

And how did you get through that? 

When Project Kronos was optioned, it was by a major Hollywood studio. So there were some really heavy-hitting producers. But even at that point, financiers were like, ‘okay the producer's great, but how do we know this director can pull it off?’ And even though I'd done short films with the actors and performances and so on, there's always still that hesitation. I got to a point in 2015 when I was still working in visual effects - I was a visual effects producer - but was also working on shows like Poldark and Dickensian and Channel 4's The Aliens, as well as other feature films, and working at facilities like Prime Focus and Lexhag, and so on. I’d got to a point where I had representation in the States, I had this deal…but this movie was going to cost 35... The version we were writing was $35 million. Who the hell was going to give a first-time filmmaker $35 million then, let alone now?

So I got to a point where I had some money saved up to buy a house... So you know where this is going, guys! I thought you know what? I can't wait around to prove to someone or go through development hell. I just decided to take the money I had saved up for a house and put it towards making my first, debut feature film. And it's probably the best decision I made. Probably the scariest as well. That's fine. But the best decision about that was that I used my own money, so I wouldn't waste anything.

And because I was a visual effects supervisor on a number of movies and TV shows, I got to work closely with great directors as well as directors that end up not being good, because you could see from their experience on set how they weren't working closely with the crew, or how they weren't working as well as the actors would like them to.

All of that education came from working on the set. So when it came to making my first feature, which was The Beyond, based on Project Kronos, I decided to really focus on drama and character, as opposed to a big visual effects movie. 

Have you got a house yet?

Yeah, put a deposit down for a house, absolutely! This is a super happy me, because... I mean you've got to have a partner as well. My partner who really believed in me and you know, it's her money as well, she was like, "Look, okay, we could buy a house, or we could make a movie, but just don't F it up." And that's kind of like... When your partner in life tells you not to mess it up, that's kind of like Kevin Feige from Marvel telling you not to mess up a Marvel movie! That's some serious pressure right there!

So thankfully we made our money back. Back in March, we got our sales report back. Not only had we made our money back, we were in profit, we were hugely in profit. And our movie was number two in the iTunes charts next to Blade Runner and Wonder Woman. And this wasn't really with big name actors. It was basically because the trailers showed there was a story, there were other worlds, because it's about making first contact with extra-terrestrials, it's a sci-fi movie. And it's a genre, and this is very important, but it's a genre that was highly in demand. 

And how do you find that those genres in the market shift and change? Does it ebb and flow? Suddenly people want out-of-this-world movies, suddenly they want visual... Movies that are... Or, you know, Blair Witch-style things or... There is a sort of ebb and flow to the genre appetite, isn't there?

There is, there is. And you're absolutely right, and I'm glad you picked up on that, because one of the things I did before I decided to spend any money on the movie was to ring up a bunch of distribution companies. Because over the years you've built relationships, going to LA, you're meeting all the studios, people like Legendary, Paramount and other distribution companies like FilmNation and Blumhouse.

And I basically just rang them up, said, "Listen, I'm making my first movie." They're like, "Oh great, who's financing it?" I'm like, "I am." They're like, "Oh... Okay... Well we've got to just give you some harsh reality, then." And I was like, "What are you guys looking for in two years' time?" Because it's better to ask what you're looking for in two years, as opposed to what you're looking for next year. Because it takes a year to make a movie, and then half a year to get it out and promote it, so you're looking at two years.

And they said, "We want sci-fi. But for the love of God, please do not do another found footage movie. We have so much found footage out there, and people just keep giving us tons of found footage. That time's gone. Do sci-fi, but if you're making a low budget sci-fi, don't try to make Star Wars. It doesn't matter how talented you think you are, or how great your visual effects is, there's a reason why Star Wars cost that much. Look at making something that's grounded."

And they referenced a couple of movies. They referenced movies like Chronicle, by the director Josh Trank. They also referenced movies like District 9, and even though it had a bigger budget. The way the movie opened, it had that very documentary vibe. And it was based on concept. So they gave me this really good hit list.

And they said, at the end day, we love movies to do with space exploration, because that's a very big, common thing going on in our world at the moment. We love very strong characters. If you can make them female driven, even better. And then basically I was given a checklist. And as I was writing the script and putting the movie together, I kind of referenced that checklist.

So no, it's no surprise that when the movie came out the distribution companies were fighting to get a deal, and we ended up going with Gravitas Ventures, which is an amazing distribution company. And it was an easier movie to sell. As opposed to trying to make a movie that I thought was cool, and didn't have that checklist, or I didn't have that knowledge, of knowing what's out there.

And you're right, things could change. They could've given me that checklist and then, by the time the movie came out, because a bunch of sci-fi movies tanked, no one wants sci-fi. But luckily, sci-fi movies are on the up. 

Timing, timing. All about timing.

It's all about timing. Do you remember in the home video days like DVDs, horror was a big thing. The reason why the horror genre did so well is because of the home video market. You made a slasher movie or horror film and they did so well. Sci-fi is this generation's horror, from a distribution point of view. But like everything, the bubble's going to burst at some point.

So the thing about sci-fi that I find is that it's one of those genres that you can pretty much break the rules and reinvent them. Whereas if you're making a thriller or a romantic comedy, there's certain rules that you kind of have to adhere by. Whereas, with science fiction, the world's your oyster, because you want to set a movie a hundred years in the future, no one knows what it's going to look like. It's depending on you as a filmmaker to present that.

In my case, my sci-fi movies always set like five minutes from now, or five years from now, where it could happen. Kind of like the Black Mirror vibe. And those movies are very interesting because people like reality…a lot of comments come back saying ‘oh, you know, this really feels like this could happen tomorrow’.

And so that's one kind of sci-fi. And it's very easy to market that from a distribution company, because you're not reliant on visual effects, you're really reliant on good storytelling. And that's the thing that I always wanted to make sure is there. I didn't want to be seen as, oh, that's the visual effects guys, so his stuff has got to have tons of visual effects.

And in terms of your progress, this latest success you've had with Netflix and getting your film up there, can you tell us how that came about? Because that was quite a remarkable journey in itself.

It was something that we didn't really see coming. The thing is that The Beyond had a worldwide deal with Gravitas Ventures. So what that means is they owned worldwide rights for sales. Whereas a lot of other movies, you can have one distribution company that looks after the UK territory, and you have another distribution company that looks after North American territory, China, Turkey, and so on. Which is why when you see a lot these movies, they have 10, 15 different logos popping up at the start, because these are each a distribution company that has all the different territory rights. For The Beyond, Gravitas Ventures had the entire thing. So we were like, oh, okay this is it now, they're going to do their thing, it won't end up on a streamer site.

So remember I was telling you we made a profit and so on... In July 2018, we were like 300% in profit. It was ridiculous. It was great. But then in August, Netflix asked Gravitas Ventures to present a bunch of movies on their portfolio that could potentially be Netflix streaming titles that they would license, and The Beyond was the first one they picked. They're like, this is great, we need sci-fi, it's got a documentary vibe, this fits Netflix really well.

So they gave us a licence deal for 12 months, for something like $250,000 or something. And that really helped massively considering the movie was made for less than a hundred! And the movie being on Netflix made a big difference. Because here's the thing: it's less of an effort to watch a movie on Netflix, as opposed to going to iTunes and paying for it, or going to Amazon, or PlayStation Network, or so on. So we were realising more people were talking about the movie because of Netflix.

But also, my second movie is on Netflix as well. Unfortunately, it's on Netflix in the US, and that's a different type of movie. Obviously Origin Unknown with Katee Sackhoff is a much more traditional movie. It was a story that I wrote. My second movie is actually supposed to be my first movie. 

I was getting all this attention from Hollywood and so on. Obviously they always ask you, "What else have you got?" And I'm like, "Well I've got this movie, it's about Mars, it's about this object that appears on Mars. And it's about this AI working with this mission control to figure out, what is this mystery on Mars?"

But at the time - this was 2013 - no one wanted to make a movie about Mars, because movies like Last Days of Mars and Red Planet just didn't do well in the box office. Even though I think those movies are great, by the way. So everyone's avoiding Mars. And then when Ridley Scott releases The Martian and it does so well, it was around 2015 or 2016, everyone's calling us like, "Hey, do you still have that Mars project that we turned down?" Because that's how the Hollywood works, man! It's all based on what the latest trend is.

That's interesting. And when you went back to the studios, after the success of The Beyond, and having been the sort of independent filmmaker, financing these things yourself, what was their response to interacting and working with you, as opposed to fully financed deal?

It was a very different conversation now. Before I had made a bunch of short films I was like, "Hey, can anyone give me my first break?" And it's a different conversation. Success in Hollywood, or success in this industry, is based on the numbers. I hate to break it to you, but that's how it is. It's based on the numbers.

And obviously you go to the studio, they go, "Oh my God, yeah, that's that movie that did really well." The sales... The conversation they have with you, it's very different. You know, "We'd love to talk about your next movie."

That makes sense. 

Yeah, and you're a trusted filmmaker. 

Well, you're proven across the creative, the business, all the stages that you have to be. I mean it's a very, very challenging road, and you've got to develop a whole lot of different skills to get there. And then these are skills that you're beginning to share with others, certainly from the technical perspective in your masterclass program.

And before we get to that though, Haz, you were very early in helping us with this development, or looking at some of the Movidiam platform, and how people are interacting and talking to each other online to build teams... What's your view of the evolving landscape there, of how creatives are coming together, maybe in the commercial space, or advertising business... You know, there's a lot of change going on, isn't there?

Yeah, there is. And I think people start to realize now that most projects fall or fail or struggle because of the simple thing called communication. And I was one of the users of Movidiam. I remember, I used Movidiam on my second movie, Origin Unknown, when we were working with a bunch of freelancers, and it was a good way to test it. And one thing we realised was having all your notes in one place really helps. We're in a landscape now where we don't need to be having one studio, fill it up with a bunch of artists, to work. I'm not restricted like that now.

As a filmmaker, or even producer, if you want the best digital matte painter, or the best animator, and that animator lives in New Zealand, you're like, great, you can still hire him, because we can still work remotely. But then when you start getting into that sort of way of working, you've got to maintain communication flow, notes, and so on. Things slip through the crack.

Things get more challenging.

Yeah. So I think Movidiam is really interesting because it's a really great communication tool, but at the same time it's not just a tool for communicating, but you have access to a community of freelancers. Whether it's cinematographer, artist, and so on. So from a producer's point of view, there is less work to do, because you just go on to the community, see who's available, anyone matches the need and availability, you reach out to them. And because they're so used to using that toolset, the communication is much easier.

Because I find, working with visual effects artists, and being a VFX artist myself, is... Every time there's a new system to adopt, or a new tool set to adopt, it's work. 

And even at Movidiam, getting the artist to say, "Hey, could you use Movidiam to send your notes and send your latest dailies, or your latest playlists." There's a lot of training that needs to be done. But once you have that system in place, and you make it as user friendly and less effort, it just becomes part of the workflow.

Well I think it's very interesting, isn't it? More stepping away from the filmmaking side of things, you see commodity assets. You know, the car, the spare bedroom, being put on the digital curve. But the human capital piece, and the film business is so... Human capital is central to the film business. You need very inspired, great, creative people, business people, accountancy people, across the whole thing. And that human... Because it's a project-by-project world, it needs to form and disband to maintain cost, a low cost profile, ultimately.

So I think what we're seeing is a macro trend, is this human capital coming online, into digital, vertical market networks, where people are interacting with each other. And of course when you do that, then the people that want to buy those services come there too. So it's this marketplace concept.

Absolutely. Yeah, you've hit the nail right there, it really is a marketplace concept. For example, I'm putting together some test sequences for a studio project that I'm pitching on, and it's so easy now. I can reach out to artists that I'm fans of, I may not have worked them, but I have access to them because I've seen their work on places like ArtStation. And reach out to them, and you get a response pretty quickly. Whereas back in the day, you had to go either through and a creative agency to get access to a certain artist, or you have to go with a particular visual effects company, because that artist works there.

Most people now are freelancers because of the flexibility to pick the projects to work on. And I think that whole marketplace approach to making films and creating content, it's very exciting, and at the same time, it's liberating, from a producing point of view. 

Yeah. Haz, this has been so good. Just before we wrap up, I'd love to touch on the masterclass, and the concept there about how you're actually educating other people, and have built this program that goes behind the scenes on your projects. You're selling access to these tutorials and classes. Where did that come from, and how successful is it?

Sure. Well, first off I would never see myself as a lecturer or a teacher. I have a lot of respect for teachers and lecturers, which is why I think it's a craft on its own to be able to educate, which is amazing. But for me, I spend a lot of time in Los Angeles, I go three to four times a year. You're constantly meeting studios, executives, you're pitching on projects.

And every studio I go to, every meeting I go to, there's always this one question that comes up. Whether it's from an executive, or whether it's from producers or financiers, it's like, "Hey man, we saw your movie The Beyond, and we heard it's low budget, but how the hell did you pull that off? Were people working for free?"

And I have a conversation with them, like I'm having a conversation with you, and I say, "Hey look, no one works for free when you're making a commercial movie. It's unfair. Everyone's paid, but the trick is, or the smart thing is, if you've only got money to afford an artist for three days, then make the best use of those three days. Don't try and hire an artist for three days and you're giving them 20 days’ worth of work to do in three days, because your budget is limited. That's not the smart way of doing it." 

And then I started breaking down my process, right through to how I get the script broken down, how I get teams together, how I go look for locations, and then how I utilise visual effects. Right through to how I market, and how heavy I put PR, using existing relationships, based on my short. And I kind of gave this half an hour broad strokes. By the time I finished, most of them were fascinated, but at the same time they're a little bit bedazzled, like, "Really?"

So I've got to a point where I kept repeating myself over and over again. I'm like, you know what? Clearly people need to know about this. Originally I was going to write a book but then I went through my hard drives, and I've got terabytes of B-roll footage, behind-the-scenes footage, and just so much of it, because I always have a C camera. Whether it's a GoPro, whether it's just a camera just rolling, because I always like to use it as witness camera. Especially when you're working on visual effects movies, you want to see what the camera isn't seeing, to help with animation.

So I've got terabytes of this footage, and it really shows my process. It's kind of weird watching myself work from that sort of lens. These are the sorts of problems I was trying to solve. So I thought why don't I just put together this masterclass? But then I thought, well, do I want to talk for hours and hours?

So we did a bit of research and what the biggest research I found was... It was interesting. Although I did research on masterclasses and stuff, the research I looked at was to do with people's attention span. And the attention span research that was coming up was basically... The generation we live in today, people want bite-size information. Kind of like commercials, in a way. And they don't want to be dedicating so much time to soak in all this information, because then it feels like it's work, or it's a chore, I'm going to school.

So I thought: what can I do to make bite-size masterclasses that are fun, but at the same time, you don't have to follow the entire thing? So if you are interested in distribution, go do the distribution chapter. If you are interested in how to utilise locations to maximise your production value, then go to that chapter. Or you can watch the entire thing.

So I started constructing this thing, and the reason I started to do that is because I had a bit of time. Last year was a whirlwind for me. I had two movies came out, one theatrical. Did a big Disney show called Fast Lane. So this year was a bit of a come down. I'm like, oh, you know, I'm not really shooting much. I'm in what you call development. So you're developing projects now. And development takes time, and you're not really shooting anything. So I'm like, well, I may as well make good use of my development time by putting this masterclass.

And it's been great. The masterclass came out in September. And it's been great, because people have come up to me and said, this is a masterclass not telling you how to make films, it's a masterclass showing how you made your movies, which is what we're way more interested in. Because if you think about it, there are tons of online classes out there that show you how to do cinematography, or there's loads of filmmaking classes out there that shows you how to make a movie.

But there isn't anything that's based on the director's experience on a movie that's been a commercial success, but showing the steps from the beginning, to production, to post, to distribution and marketing. There isn't anything like that.

So interesting.

Yeah! And the closest thing I found, which I was a fan of, is the masterclass series online. And I remember watching the one by Ron Howard, and it was amazing. It's Ron Howard, sitting in front of the screen, with a bunch of stuff he's showing you, and he's kind of mapping out how you block a scene. But you're hearing it from this established director's experience.

And that was one of the things I said to myself, many years ago: if I was to ever do a conference, or a lecture, or something, I would want to at least have some kudos. I would want to at least have a ton of experience to share. I didn't want to teach in a very theoretical way, which is what a lot of these online classes do, which is fine. But for me, I think it's more interesting if someone says this is the guy who did the Netflix film. He made it for very little money, yet it looks like this. How did he pull it off? And that's what this masterclass is.