Pop-Culturalist.com

Burt Binder rides into the spotlight as one of the industry’s most thrilling new voices. His debut feature film, Halfway to Amarillo, has gained acclaim for its compelling narrative and stellar performances during its festival circuit run. And, it is now available wherever you stream movies.

In this must-see comedy, Michael Coleman (Binder) is working on a novel that will make or break his career. Halfway through, he completely loses the plot and comes down with a devastating case of “Writer’s Block.”

At his lowest point, the main character from his novel, an outlaw named Eli West (Luke Jones), leaps out of the novel and throws a wrench into Michael’s life. As if that’s not bad enough, the villain, a crooked sheriff named Morgan Ambrose (Peter Giles), follows in quick pursuit.

Pop Culturalist was lucky enough to speak with Burt about Halfway to Amarillo, creating a space for this talented group of actors to play, his love for Westerns, and more.

PC: You grew up in this business. Did you always know that you wanted to pursue a career in the arts? What was that turning point for you when you realized this was the path for you?
Burt: I always knew that I wanted to do something in this industry, unless I developed a major passion for something else. I always loved movies, which led me to create short films. Then I started writing and acting, and I loved that. It always seemed like that was the plan; it just happened that I loved doing it.

PC: Outside of your own family, who or what has had the biggest influence on your career?
Burt: In school, I did drama because my friends were all doing it. I did this scene, which my English teacher had seen me perform. She was the one who told me that I should pursue this professionally. That got me started on the acting path, which was in the eleventh grade. That teacher meant a lot to me.

Peter Giles, who is in the film, is one of the funniest people that I know. It’s strange, but my sense of humor changes based on who I’m friends with at the moment. His sense of humor has almost changed me as a person because it’s raised the bar for what I find funny as an actor. He’s been a huge influence on me.

The Coen Brothers have also been a huge influence on me.

PC: There was a point in your career where you were trying to fight being a hyphenated talent. Why was that so important to you? Now having written, produced, edited, and directed, how have your experiences behind the camera made you a stronger actor, and vice versa?
Burt: I was trying to fight that. It was almost a fear that I would be pulled in one direction. I’ve seen so many actors/directors who stop acting once they’ve started directing. I didn’t want that to happen. I love acting. It’s my favorite thing. So I was really fighting the hyphen because I wanted to feel like an actor and not someone who makes cameos in their own things. I want to play real roles. I felt scared of giving up my career as an actor. But what I’ve found out is that all those different facets give me so much more freedom as an actor. I have more control over what I get to do as an actor when I get to play. Honestly, the exact opposite has happened.

I feel like I’m a better actor because I have written. When I read other material, I see it as an actor, but I also see it as a writer. I’m like, “This means this. This is setting up this.” That’s been so beneficial. It demystifies the process, and I can focus on getting what the writer was trying to say across through my performance.

Embracing the hyphen is very important and only going to become even more important. The idea of doing one thing is an outdated model. There are a few exceptions, but it feels very much like a product of old Hollywood where it was like, “You do this. You do that.” Now I feel like the more freedom people have to create, the more jobs they take on, and the more skills they’ll get to learn. Now I’m an actor/writer/director/social media marketer. I’ve definitely learned a few things that I never thought I would have, but that’s what it takes.

PC: Halfway to Amarillo is available now to stream. It’s such a unique blend of genres, three-dimensional characters, and really sharp writing. What initially inspired the story?
Burt: What inspired this story was a lot of impatience and waiting for permission to create. I have a friend, Warner Hiatt, who’s actually in the film, and he is a musician who self-produces all of his albums. He writes, produces, and releases things. He’s such a one-man band. I was so jealous of that freedom and his ability to create. I’m always jealous of a musician who gets to sit and jam out in their room. As an actor, you can’t really do that. You need other people. That inspired me.

I had been writing, but I was writing with the intention of having someone read the script and say, “We want to make this.” But with this movie, I needed to write something that I could pick up a camera and make myself. In the worst-case scenario, if I had to, I was going to film this on an iPhone in my apartment with my friends. I somehow convinced Peter Giles to do it because I wrote that role for him.

I’ve always wanted to do a Western. It’s my favorite genre. But that’s a genre that requires huge sets, costumes; you need so much to do a Western, so I kind of cheated. [laughs] I brought the Western characters into modern-day L.A. So I was basically trying to do a Western without doing a Western. That’s what inspired it.

It was right after the vaccine had come out, so everybody was trying to get back to work. Many of us were having a harder time getting back to work. So the people who were a part of this film shared that same impatience and wanting to get back to work. That was a big part of it.

It was a lot of stars lining up. It all came together in such a great way. I’ve never, since or before, experienced something coming together like that. I wrote the script four months before we started shooting. Every other script that I have, I’ve been working on for five years. It was so great. I loved every aspect of it.

PC: It’s a really well-written script. One of the best parts of independent filmmaking is that everybody’s there because they believe in the project. What was that process like putting together your creative team behind and in front of the camera?
Burt: I keep bringing him up, but the first part was getting Peter Giles. We’re friends, and we’ve been talking about writing something together. It would start and stop and start and stop. This one, I wrote by myself. Usually, when I’m going forward with something, the quickest way for me to get something done is when I don’t tell anybody that I’m doing it. [laughs]

I finished it and handed it to him. I was like, “Can you read this script?” He read it, and he was like, “You want me to play Ambrose.” I was like, “How did you know?” He knew that I wrote that for him. Once I got him, I was like, “I’m going to make it.”

I think I got everyone else involved when I sent them the script. They were all like, “Oh, you just want to make this.” It was very clear in the film’s DNA that this was something that we could just make. It was written in a way that we didn’t need anyone else to make it. Josh Smith was our DP. My dad came on as a producer. He was able to get Josh Smith to read the script. Once that happened, it was like, okay, we have a movie, and we went ahead and made it happen. And Ricky Cruz also came on as a producer. It all happened really quickly. Once you get one person to be passionate about it, they’ll get another person, and another person, and it grows. Then you have a full crew.

PC: It’s a testament to your writing. Your character in the film believes the best writing comes from deadlines and pressure. Having shot this film in ten days, do you think that also translates into acting and why you were able to get so many incredible performances across the board?
Burt: The amount of pressure that he was putting on himself isn’t conducive to writing. Yeah, on our set, it was tight, and it was stressful at times, but it was fun. I don’t think anyone felt like they only had one take. It really felt like you had enough time. It felt like an efficient set that had to keep moving, but we were never rushing to get everything done.

I think a lot of the reasons why the performances were so good is because you have people like Peter, Luke Jones, and Lindsey Smith. It goes back to why I wanted to make this movie; these are people who have been working and training as actors for so long, they didn’t need me. They just needed a stage to perform. That’s what I wanted to do. These are all these talented people and if I could just write them a role that they can show that in. That’s unfortunately how it is in Hollywood. There are so people that are talented, ready, and have so much experience, but they don’t get to show that off. So if I could just do that, that’s all I wanted. The fact that you even brought up the performances is all I wanted. It was such an opportunity to say look what we can do.

PC: I imagine as a writer, you also have such a strong sense of who these characters are, but when you cast your actors, you want to give them the freedom to make them their own. How were you able to create the space for your actors to do just that? Did any of their interpretations surprise you?
Burt: It was trusting that I cast the right person in each role and trusting that they’re going to have and give their opinions. I’m focused on so many things on this movie. You have to let people bring their expertise.

For example, there are scenes with Peter Giles, who I literally wrote with his voice, where he says the line, and it’s not how I imagined, but it’s better. It’s different. I’m like, “Oh, I thought he’d say it like this.” But then he says it like this and it’s better.

Then Luke Jones, for example, he came in four or five days before we started shooting because we had another actor. We ended up having to bring him in, and he brought a vulnerability to the character that I didn’t see. It’s funny. I didn’t truly appreciate it until I started cutting the final cut of the movie and looking at the close-ups and what he was doing. That’s why there are a lot of shots of his eyes. He brought this wounded, dramatic element to the character that was there but wasn’t in the script. He’s such a good actor that he brought that depth to the character.

As you watch him talk about his parents and what he’s lost, it’s like, “This is a wounded child who has never healed.” He brought what I thought was going to be a comedic performance and brought another layer to it. That’s something that wasn’t necessarily on the page that I could have anticipated.

PC: That has to be so satisfying for you as the writer. This is also your directorial debut. Did anything surprise you about the experience? What was the biggest takeaway?
Burt: It takes a long time. [laughs] It takes a lot longer. When we were shooting this, I was like, “I can’t wait until people can see this next year.” We wrapped this on August 16, 2021. We wrapped, and it just came out. It takes a long, long time.

So much of directing happens after you shoot it. When I thought of directing in the past, I thought of someone on set telling everybody what to do. So much of directing is the music choices, and with this being a comedy, it’s about the rhythm. The control that you need to have as a director is so much more encompassing.

If you’re someone who is embarking on their first movie, whatever you think this is going to be like commitment-wise, money-wise, how much it’s going to cost to make it happen, how hard it’s going to be, like double or triple that. It’s so hard but it’s so incredible.

I wasn’t going to direct this movie. I didn’t want to. It wasn’t my plan to direct it. We had another director lined up and we were fully cast. But that director had a show that got picked up. He had this amazing opportunity that he had to take. The choice came down to either I direct it or we scrap it until we can get everything lined up together, which can very much mean never.

I had no idea what I was getting myself into, but now I couldn’t imagine anyone else directing it. You have to make so many decisions throughout the process, and I couldn’t imagine anyone making different decisions. It would have been a different film.

PC: I imagine for your cast, it’s also really beneficial to have the writer-director in that same role for clarity. This film has made its way around the festival circuit and it’s been incredibly well received. What do you think is resonating most with audiences? Is there a scene in particular you’re excited for them to see?
Burt: The centerpiece in the film is this long, almost like couples therapy scene in the middle of the movie. You have the two characters on the couch, and they come to a realization. It’s where the movie starts to shift. This might not sound like a lot to some people, but for a ten-day shoot, we spent an entire day to shoot that one scene. That was a tenth of our shoot. That was the scene that gave me the idea. That’s the scene that people have been most receptive to.

I hope that if people do like the film, there’s a simplicity to it. I tried to keep it really simple. It’s almost like a fairy tale. There was a whole scene explaining why it’s happening that was cut out. I just assumed that I had to explain it. Someone was like you should get rid of that. This was the other director who was attached. He was like, “If you watch Groundhog Day, they don’t explain it and you don’t miss it. You don’t need it.” He was like, “You should cut that out. We don’t need to know why they’re here. We don’t need to know where they went and why they’re gone.” Again, there’s a simplicity to it that I think people might enjoy.

To keep up with Burt, follow him on Instagram. Watch Halfway to Amarillo wherever you stream movies.