Dani Abraham – Cops, Camels & a $7,300 Movie

Producer and co-director Dani Abraham sits down with James and BJ for a conversation that covers a police standoff on a Burbank set, a Birthright trip to Israel fueled by cheap tequila, and how a possessed board game shot in Dani's own apartment for $7,300 became Stupid Games — a PG-13 indie horror that landed on the CW, racked up Letterboxd reviews, and proved that $7,000 is basically the same as $0 when it gets your movie made.

Key Topics

• The 6:45 a.m. gun situation — four cop cars, a swapped license plate, and a first AD who still wrapped an hour early
• Birthright Israel origin story — how James and Dani met, camel rides, hangover hikes up Masada, and bottle service that cost less than the tip back home
• Making Stupid Games — a $7,300 budget, Dani's own apartment as the set, a Jumanji-meets-Game-of-Life concept with a demon, and co-director Nicholas Wendell's vision that got him a million-dollar budget next
• From Knowing Aaron to Meeting Marsha — Dani's unreleased 18-year-old Young Filmmakers Club feature found on an old hard drive, and her upcoming Meeting Marsha premiering at San Diego Out Festival
• Stupid Games one-year screening — still available on Tubi, CW app, and Amazon Prime
• Eric Roberts on everything — Jean-Claude Van Damme fanboying over him on the Darkness of Man set, Q-card mastery on Scissors, three movies in one day, and why he's the lifeblood of indie film
• Forget About It — James, BJ, and Dani in pre-production on Gordon Ressick's script, now reimagined as a puppet film
• Dani joins the slate — live on air, Dani agrees to help James pick next year's 12 filmmakers; DM @daniabe with your logline
• Advice for aspiring producers — make your movie; the stakes are only high in your head

Hana Mae Lee – MAGICK MTN. & Directing Her First Feature

Hana Mae Lee drops into the tracksuits to talk horror roots, her debut feature, and the scrappy, organic magic that happens when you give a powerhouse creative total freedom and a hard deadline. James is hearing most of this for the first time — he still hasn't watched a single frame.

Key Topics

• Horror origins: Nightmare on Elm Street at age six, graduating to The Tenant, The Evil Within, and Terrifier 2 — and why psychological horror still hits hardest
• Jump scares decoded: James breaks down the exact scoring formula that makes them work (and why it no longer works on him)
• MAGICK MTN. — Hana's debut directorial feature: a black-and-white, death-rock rock-and-roll fairy tale set in Laurel Canyon and Joshua Tree, with three interlacing stories, Aleister Crowley, Eva O, Super Heroines, Ross Williams, Lord Murk, and Cleopatra Records' deep catalog (17 tracks used)
• Making the film: crew of two (Hana + partner Hal Sutton), shot over 18 days, zero professional actors — architects, a fashion designer, a punk rocker — everyone a real friend with real IP
• Full creative control: James greenlit the project, was never shown a script, never recut a frame — and received the finished hard drive the day of this recording
• The Cleopatra Records deal: free access to the entire library, including six tracks from Anne Timyassui's band Voyeur, songs from Hana's brother's band Resistant Exists, and an original by actor Ben Price
• Hana's music in Boris Is Dead: her single "Weapon of Performance" (from debut album Atmospheric Paradigm) made it into the film — she found out it was staying at the premiere
• How James's micro-budget greenlight program works: pre-sold to distributors, director gets full creative control and the lion's share of the back end
• James's first film: My Pure Joy — $7,000, camera in one hand, boom in the other, two and a half hours long
• BJ and James's production companies: Robotic Donut (horror/action) and Bent Rest (LGBT-focused), with projects like Bears vs. Karen / Bears vs. Zombies and Forget About It (BJ's first voice-acting gay role)
• Hana's path into the industry: Elite Model Management rejection, Dragon Models and Talent, a Honda national commercial, Mr. Brightside and Hilary Duff music videos, then Mike and Molly, Pitch Perfect, and Workaholics all in the same month
• Playing villains: why it never feels like work — from The Babysitter to Sean Whalen's Swipe to A Company of Thieves (Onur Tukel)
• MAGICK MTN. premiere: World Premieres this September the 22nd at Fantastic Fest
• Advice for breaking in: slide into the DMs of filmmakers whose work you love — that's how Hana met Onur Tukel and how she and James connected

## Unique Chung | The Tracksuit Podcast Unique Chung — hair and makeup artist, influencer, trained actress, and founding member of the Dirtbag Crew — sits down with James and BJ for her very first podcast appearance. What starts as a warm reunion between set family quickly spirals into conspiracy theory deep-dives, a heartfelt origin story, and a frank breakdown of what really happens in the makeup chair. ### Key Topics - **How they all met** — the Mondrian pool party, GG Saul Guerrero, and the birth of the Dirtbag Crew at a monster truck rally - **Jim Carrey & the Mandela Effect** — James's theory that Jim Carrey single-handedly implanted false pop-culture memories via *The Mask*, *Ace Ventura*, *The Cable Guy*, and *In Living Color*; the Jimmy Kimmel Illuminati rant and whether the laugh track was faked - **Conspiracy corner** — CERN, the ice wall, hollow moon physics, black holes as a matrix on-ramp, and *The Whyfiles* fish - **Casting without auditions** — James breaks down why he never auditions actors, how watching a full performance beats four sides in a room, and the friendship fallout that happens when he doesn't hire someone - **The Workout & Complex Texas** — BJ on the pressure of hitting every mark with no second takes, shooting out with Kevin Dillon, and auditioning six (eight?) times for a role he didn't book - **Unique's origin story** — Loxa High School for the Arts (rival to James's Hamilton), a theater teacher who spotted her, the clinic waiting room moment that made her mom keep her, and why she wasn't named Cedric - **How she fell into makeup** — a church pageant, a natural-makeup hire, and a special-effects class she only took because theater was full - **The makeup chair as intelligence hub** — actors spilling everything, a wardrobe dog that got dropped and sent someone to the hospital, and why the makeup artist always knows the set's temperature before the director does - **Horror talk** — Chucky as a three-year-old introduction, *Pinocchio Unstrung*, *Obsession*, Backrooms, and why scary movies only fully hit in a packed theater - **Unique's dream role** — a murderer nobody suspects, possibly in a film called *Unique* - **Future plans** — app and invention ideas she won't say on mic, a makeup brand, a beauty school, and reopening her mom's boutique Ice Queen - **Fantastic Fest chaos** — a serial killer targeting chubby dudes in Austin, James sober-wrangling a drunk crew the night before his first-ever boxing match **Find Unique:** [@vain_vixen_makeup](https://www.instagram.com/vain_vixen_makeup/) on Instagram