Asian Film Festival Dallas 2016

It is 5.51 on the East Coast, 5 minus 3 is 2, so that means it is 2.51 on the West Coast. It is the 17th of July in the year of our Lord, 2016, and know you are not going crazy. We are back.

We took a two week hiatus, we're going to talk about that a little bit later. It is season 7, episode 1. 351 times sequentially, this voice has welcomed you to the clubhouse podcast.

We are live and on the air. We're happy that you're listening no matter how much you... Which way you do it, whether you're live on you stream, or if you subscribe on iTunes, we're just happy you're here.

My name is Rob, and technically this is the second episode of the season, but you've got to roll with me on that. We are coming in hot for season 7, we're going to explain why in just a moment, joining me to my left, because I know this probably sounds a little bit echoy, because we're not in studio, but we're going to explain that in just a moment, to my right is my co-host, and a man who once again has outdressed me, but it's summertime, so I'm okay with that. He is Chad, welcome sir.

Good evening, sir. Glad to have you back, man. People are going away, man.

He's seated to your right. He's normally seen the cross from you. Very interesting.

The cross from Chad is the official fact checker of this show, and a man who for the second day in a row has got his Pittsburgh colors flying. You may know him as fun, don, go, but his mom and name have done for it, I'm going to call him Don Ford, welcome sir. But it's not still our stuff, but that's coming out.

But you're wearing your colors, and it does reference Pittsburgh on the back, but in all those who have been progress is the Steelers, so you can't say, well, that's his pirates. This is the Pirates Pirates. So let's talk about what's going on.

This is the very first season premiere that we've done on the road. Yes, it is. Usually we would have our season remorse, because by the way last week was the 7th or the 6th official anniversary of the show.

This is the first season premiere that we've been out on a road. We are at the Angelica Film Center where we've done many, many of the road shows. Indeed, in the last few years, but we're here for something we've never covered before.

Don, I'm going to let you talk about it. We are here for the first time at the Asian Film Festival Dallas, the first time of many times to come. So in other words, we have new friends that we know what they've signed up for.

Oh, they did it. Yeah. I kind of condom into it.

You are. We're just a little thing. You know, I never told about the wheels off and all that stuff.

The wheels are never on, sir. Exactly. It's been three weeks, but I checked the season finale great show, had a great time on that show, didn't find any corrections.

So we got that going for us, which is nice. Now, normally we take a few minutes, warm up the show, but we already have a guest ready to talk to us, and I'm going to let him introduce himself. Hello, everyone.

This is David Gibson, and with the Asian Film Festival Dallas, Director of Operations, and the Lee Programmer for the Festival. See, we're starting, we're starting off top, top, top, top, top, top, yes exactly. This thing, this is what Dave bore, this is Dave bore, believe me.

And this is going to talk right into that thing, sir, but he can hear me. We started out Thursday, so I do believe this is Dave bore. And there's still five days to go.

Five days. So this is a fairly long festival. This is not just a touch and go kind of deal, talk to us first off, first off, welcome to the show.

First off, you know me. Don's got to do it. Got to do it.

Got to do it. We're all quick. I already saw two world premieres, two world premieres, there we go.

And we're going to talk about probably at the end of the show. Oh, he'll get there. Okay.

All right. Got to go by. That's it.

You don't want to bury the lead a little bit there. So Dave bore, how would things be going so far in compare, because this is how many years have passed has this been now? This is our 15th year.

15. Okay. So in mid teens, so it's learning to drive a little bit.

All right. All right. All right.

It's kicking in. Absolutely. So tell me how things have been going.

Have there been highlights? Have there been low lights? Absolutely.

The best part of the film, the film festival is actually we have two world premieres. And so just as Don was saying, the worst world premier was our opening and high film, a samurai hustle return. So we show a part one two years ago and we have part two and we're showing again this Thursday.

So if you've missed it in the first opening of film, it'll be back on Thursday. So you can come out Thursday and see it again. So as far as how our festival is going this year is going great, we have a steady crowd.

Everybody's 11. The films that we're showing, we've got 33 feature films, 34 shorts from all countries. So if you come out just pick a time, you will not be disappointed.

I guarantee you. And there's been a lot. I mean, we got here a couple of hours ago to get set up.

A lot of foot traffic coming through the Angelica. So it's, I mean, this is, I mean, 15 years, people know what this thing is. I know it's only day four.

I know you got five days to go, but has there been any moment so far that it's just absolutely just blown your socks off? Yes, it's going to be last night, chunking hot pot showed last night for the first time. And we had a packed house and everybody came out of the film like, that was amazing.

That was the best film I've seen so far. And then immediately after that, we showed in the room. And then that was like one of the most amazing films that one of the guys that it's seen also.

And so he pretty much said that, hey, you guys, everything that I've seen so far in your festival has been great. Most festivals, they have one great film and then you might have a film that's okay. But this year, everything we're showing is awesome.

And for our fans to think that about our festival, that is the greatness that it is. Right now, you've got one playing that I know Don's going to be seeing here in a couple of days, Bitcoin heist. Tell us about that film because I'm very, very intrigued by this.

Yes, so a lot of people are like, what is a Bitcoin? So most of us know what it is, like digital currency, which everybody thought was going to be the thing. It is going to be the thing.

It's going to be the thing. It is the thing. It's the thing on where you are.

This festival thinks that it's still going to be the thing. So they're like, okay, it is going to be in 2020, everything is going to be Bitcoin that's going to be the currency preference. And so this film just follows a couple of people that think that they can steal big coins from the currency banks of the future and it's like mission impossible meets Ocean 11, his type of deal.

Okay. So I didn't be at nom and so it is great. It's by a director, which is a festival friend and fan, Ham Tran.

So we showed his journey from the fall and our fifth year, 10th year, first year, 15th year of films and so we bought and his film, this newest film, Bitcoin I so is excellent. Something that I'm very intrigued by, especially with this particular festival. We got people in the chat room already saying hello, talk about having a film festival like this, this time of year, because in the summer there's a lot of competition from mainstream film, from independent film, talk about how, you know, in 15 years you've obviously been able to grow this thing, but talk about how you kind of deal with navigating those waters as well.

And so fortunately we don't have any competition or competitive film festival at this particular time in Dallas, but we have to look at the film festivals throughout the country and Canada and overseas and so if we want to show great films, we have to program around that as well as what's going on in Dallas. So we pretty much are in a good slot to wear another bigger film festival in another country is not taking the films that we want to see. And so July works for us as well because it's hot outside and people want to come in and say they need to put a cool theater and so it's great, this is a great time for us and we're loving our time slot.

And to talk a little bit too about, I kind of lost my train of thought here, I mean you're going up a lot of against a lot of mainstream films as well, right? So everything's here at the ice mode, I was gonna ask now, everything's here at the Angelica, correct? So people that they want to come to the film festival, they can come by a pass and you can really just kind of stay all day, you don't have to shuffle from theater to theater, which is nice too.

And the Angelica, we love the Angelica here in downtown Dallas, right, in Mockingbird station. Talk about the facility and how we've been able to accommodate everybody that's coming in and out and you know, about the volunteers working as well. So the Angelica has been great.

We moved here about five years ago from the Magnolia, but when we moved here is just the accommodations, there's more things to do around the theater, and so if someone wants to take a break from watching films, they can go down and grab a bite to eat, and then come back and get right back into it. Now as far as the pass is, you can get a VIP pass and then you can see every film, go to all the parties, by the way, we have a closing night party at the foundation room. So, I'd be at the House of Luce.

At the House of Luce, the foundation room. So I have the foundation room at House of Luce. It's going to be after our closing film, the wailing.

So see us there if you don't want to come watch the film, come party with us. But the Angelica is great. They accommodate us for all the sizes that we need in the theater, in the amount of crowd that we have seen the films, and then anything else we need.

So we love it here, we'll be here for a long time. And such a great facility, and they really know how to make the traffic work too, which is nice. There's not a lot of confusion.

Everything we're here, we're here, we're here, plenty of parking. I'm just going to say it. I love the T-shirt this year.

Oh, yeah. I love this year's T-shirt. If you haven't seen some of the people here at the Angelica wearing it, it says, I love subtitles.

Right. And we only have one film this year that does not have subtitles. Wow.

How many films are in the festival this year? 33 films. Total, including the short.

Yeah. Short, 34 short. Okay.

So 67 did my, then my public school math work right on that. Yeah. Okay.

What's going to be nice about that is over nine, eight or nine days. You really get the chance. You don't feel like you're, you're, you're, you're boxing, well, I've got to see this movie right now.

You have the chance to really kind of plan the festival out, because we have, there's a lot of festivals out there where, you know, I get kind of bummed out because I miss films because I've got to make a decision that maybe they show it more than once, but all of a sudden, and when they show the second time, there's another movie I want to see too. Exactly. But here you really, it's very linear.

Right. There's not a lot of overlap. And so we, we will only show a film twice, and then I do the scheduling, and I try to make sure that if someone wants to see action, then the contrast to that is going to be something like drama.

And so I'm not hitting the same genre at the same time and making people freak out of what am I going to see. And so, and then we'll show it in the later part of the week. And so like I said, a person could literally come here on Thursday and see the best of the best and just stay in the theater all day.

So, we encourage you guys to get a VIP pass because that's the ticket. That's what you want. So, after Thursday, you got, you got photo bomb, it's over there.

There's a reason this is an audio medium, and that is one of those reasons. That's so bad. Now, you saw the reflection.

I saw it. He thought he got away with it. So after Thursday, do you give yourself some time to breathe or is it already we're diving in for 2017?

Well, my list for next year has already started. So I take suggestions from everybody that talks to me about film. But I do take a break, and all of us take probably two months all.

And then after that, we're right back into it. Definitely no Vembers when we start. And then after that is, you know, just ongoing film watching up until we come back again in July.

Let's also talk a little bit about the diversity within this film festival. So, a lot of people see film festivals that are focused like an Asian film festival, and they think, oh, I'm not going to have anything that I'm going to be able to identify with. And you couldn't be more wrong if you're in that mind frame.

And just a couple of examples. You look at the back page of the program. You got to move you with the great Tony Giant, who I'm a huge fan of.

Then you've got, you know, I want to capitalize, but really tying into a very popular franchise right now. You've got both parts of the attack on Titan film. And we have many, many members we call our audience the Empire.

We have many, many members of the Empire that are huge into attack on Titan. And I remember when I saw the trailer for this, gosh, it was at six months ago now, it was on the trailer for this. I think so.

And I was like, dude, they're doing this live action. No. Okay, you have my attention.

Talk about how you select the films. Do you try to go with a balance of more for lack of a better term mainstream appeal or is it just kind of happens how it happens? Well, number one, first and foremost, we're going to show the best film that we can possibly find.

And I mean, there are some granite sometimes if we don't get the films that we want. But it has to be great. It has to be a film that when you leave the theater, you're going to just talk about it for at least an hour or probably a week later saying, man, that really was a great film.

That's the first thing. The next thing is, okay, what country are we pulling it from? Do we have a representation of all of the Asian countries in or out there?

That's going to be my next question actually. So that we can get the different communities to come out and watch the films and enjoy their culture at our film festival. So there is a strategic pick of, I want to get certain films which you pay and I want to get certain films in South Korea.

North Korea, if we can get it. And then we go into the genre after that, documentaries, the dramas, the thrillers and you know, the zombie movies, if we can find some of those. And so it's a process.

And in the once we finish that process, we have a perfect festival at the end. And I have help. I don't do it all myself.

It's like maybe four or five board members that pick films. So we have Paul that does repertoire films. We have Alicia.

She focused on LGBT films. And so we just make sure we have a real, well-rounded film. Did a selection that everybody can come in and say, okay, there is something I want to watch.

This year's festival, I will concentrate on this year, okay? Is there a film that you really, really wanted to get that just didn't quite come through for you? And if so, are you willing to talk about what it is?

Sure. Absolutely, because even though we don't show it, I want people to watch these films. And so there were actually three films that I wanted, but I'll talk about two.

One of them is a train from Busan. And it's a well-go-film, a premier that can's, and it is an excellent South Korean zombie movie. Zombies on a train.

You can't go wrong with that. You cannot go wrong. And so we couldn't get that because it's just a timing issue with it.

And then the other film was, I am hero, which is a Japanese zombie movie as well. So it is, everyone is thinking that that film is going to be the next, just great Japanese film about zombies to come out of Japan. And so I couldn't get those two, but hey, you never know next year, they're still up.

I've got to ask you an off the path question a little bit. And you don't have to answer it, okay? But given certain phrases that may have hit phones in the last week, were you kind of ringing your hands a little bit as the explosion of said game to go, this is happening right before our film festival.

Exactly. Yes. I was like, okay, it's going to shift everybody's attention to everything, just crazy from an Asian country.

So I won't talk about it either, but yeah, I'm sure he's playing, please let this be it. You saw that yesterday morning the servers crashed. Oh, no.

Yeah, we were here yesterday morning for a screening. We're going to be reviewing that film later this week, but I was with a friend of my and her daughter, and her daughter is part of said universe. And she could not get on.

And so we found out later that morning on a Saturday morning, the servers crashed. It's on my phone, too. Did you guys have anxiety attacks?

I don't. I'm not a part of that deal, so it's just, I like the concept of it, but I think there's a lot of things about it that are a little, it is good. I think it's a little concerning.

There's a GM like about 500 yards from where I'm staying. Right now. I could walk to it if I wanted to.

And you're going to have to explain a lot of that to me when we get off air because I'm, I get the gist of it, but there's complexities to it that I find incredibly confused. Yeah, there are layers to this thing. And I know that this is just, this is just, this is just the start of something much bigger.

So we're just about the halfway point of the festival. At this point, for you, has it lived to expectations? Has it exceeded expectations?

I mean, where are you at from a mind frame stand? Absolutely. It is actually lived up more than my hopes could even desire when it comes to our film festival.

And the reason being is because everybody is enjoying the films that we pick. And that's what it's all about. If the crowd is like, ah, that was okay, or, ah, I didn't like that, then we didn't do our jobs.

I mean, for a film festival, literally your job is to just watch everything that's out there. So that your audience didn't have to sift through all of those films to see one great film. And so that's our job.

And I hope we do it well. Tonight there is a centerpiece film. Yes.

It is Mountain Cry. Talk a little bit about that film. So people can get familiar with it because they want to get down here.

That's seven o'clock tonight. Seven o'clock. Seven o'clock central.

We will probably be late. Okay. Sometimes it happens to talk about that film for our audience.

So Mountain Cry is a great drama. It's sort of a melodramatic film about a lady that her and her husband move to a small rural area. And the husband has an accident.

And it's the fault of one of the local village people. And they make the guy have to take care of the wife and her kids. Because in a sense, it's his fault that the husband is no longer there.

And so it takes it from there with he has a girlfriend. But he ends up so much falling in love with the widow. And so I won't spoil the ending for you.

But there are multiple layers inside of that particular story that they fight through until the end. And so it's a great film. Also talk about the availability of filmmakers and things about for the festival.

Do you get to get access to a lot of those people for Q&As and things like that? Absolutely. So there is a trend like from Japan.

Anytime we pick a film, they want to travel here to attend our festival and they want to do Q&As. And so our biggest problem in that case is finding interpreters. But besides that, everybody wants to come to the film.

Short film makers definitely want to come because it's probably the first time that their film is going to be on the big screen. We found that short film makers, you know, we're just a couple of slubs of the podcast. Short film makers are some of the most enthusiastic people that we've ever had the chance to interview.

And what I love about festivals like this where you show those short films, how many times do you know, six months later you're looking at a trade publication. It's like, oh, now it's going to be a feature because they, you featured it at your fast. Exactly.

And one of those films would be keep going. It's in the late night shorts block, which is tonight. I see.

That's tonight. Yeah. Exactly.

Any short film should be made out of a movie. It's that film. And so I advise everybody to come down, check it out.

It's awesome. How many shorts are in the block? It is by, if I believe, if not more.

Now, well, all the filmmakers be present for it for the Q&A after or they're only certain one. So documentary shorts, we have two film makers for that particular block. It's tomorrow at one o'clock.

And so both of them will do a joint Q&A so to speak after the film. And so they'll be here. And the two films that are going to be, which the filmmakers are here for, is Korean fried chicken.

It's great. We were talking about that in pre-show. Yes.

And finding Cleveland, which is one that really kind of touches home for me. It's about an Asian male from LA, which really didn't know his father and come to find out his father used to live in Cleveland, Mississippi. And a lot of his roots are there.

So he journeys to Cleveland as to fit Mississippi to find out about himself. And so it's really great. I'm from Mississippi.

So I kind of hit someone. No, I cool. Anything else you want to plug?

Because we don't want to take up too much of your time. The wailing. That's the closing.

Correct. So what's about it? Please.

So the wailing. I am not going to tell you about the story. Okay.

Because I don't want to spoil it. I want everybody walking into the theater not knowing what they're about to get them. Seven o'clock Thursday night.

Seven o'clock Thursday night. And it premiered in cans. Everybody's going nuts about it immediately after premiered.

Well-go-actually bought the distribution rights for U.S. For us. So that's great for us.

That's part of the reason why we can show it. Okay. I'm just a sponsor if I'm not mistaken.

There are presenting sponsor of the festival in the United States for five years. And so having a largest distributor of Asian films in the U.S. As you're a presenting sponsor, it's kind of a benefit to us.

So they're all excited about the festival every year and they allow us to play a lot of their films every year. Let's do the plugs because we are about shameless self-promotion. Promote everything you can, social media, everything about the festival so people can learn more.

So AsianfilmDallas.com. You can find everything you want to know about our film festivals for sponsor. If you want to be a sponsor, if you want to be a member, definitely become a member of the festival.

There's a benefit to being a member. You can year round, get into other film festivals with tickets that we provide. Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Snapchat, all of that stuff we have.

Just look for either Asian Film Dallas, Asian Film Festival, UB Dallas, or AFFD. We're going to go let you shake some hands and kiss some babies and do all that good stuff. Thank you so much for joining us.

Thank you guys for having me. Thank you for being here. We're starting strong, sir.

Indeed we are. You are listening to the Clubhouse podcast. We are live at the Angelica Film Center at Mockingbird Station, starting season 7.

And starting it's strong. Next week we'll be back in studio. We will be preparing you for WWE Battleground.

We'll be on at our normal start time of 7 Eastern 4 Pacific. Make sure you check out our website for everything you need to know. www.theclubhousepodcast.com is the website.

Dom's going to be taking some pictures for our Instagram, our Instagram, and our Facebook page are both the Clubhousepodcast. But all three words done there. You can wind up some are completely different.

Twitter is at Clubhouse Show. You can follow me on Twitter, my Twitter, and my Instagram are the same. That is yes, that Rob Irvin, that is spelled ERV.

IN. I am at chat in VG69 on Twitter. I'm at fondongo, and you can email me at dawn at the Clubhousepodcast.com.

Email Dom for information on how we can come due for you. What we're doing right now. We love doing live remote shows.

We love hanging out with the Empire. You can email me if you'd like questions, comments, concerns, tell me you're going to go pound sand. I am Rob at the Clubhousepodcast.com.

I am Chad at the Clubhousepodcast.com. Charlotte Parker is on Pinterest, and I'm sure at this point her Pinterest will show her brand new Ronald Reagan Bobblehead. We are more of an alligator.

She actually bought one this weekend, and Jules Womig, we don't have to wonder where she is because she's sitting right next to you. Right behind her. So, Dom, what's going on, brother?

We got the next director coming in, and just a second. Okay, here's about a minute or two. Sure, but right.

Fair enough. I'm going to go grab him. You don't have to grab him.

Just bring him with us. Just bring me on. We don't need to be sued by any.

Why? No, that. Okay.

Okay. But no, this is a film that I saw. Since he gets here, I'm going to put the whole exclamation down and everything because I actually saw this.

Okay. Well, we're going to throw out some television headlines while we're waiting in the meantime. Emmy nominations coming out this week, Game of Thrones 23 Emmy nominations.

Is that a record? I don't think it is to a record. I don't think it is to a record.

I have to be close, but I don't think it's the actual record. Do you look at the list of Emmy categories? No.

It's the epic rap battles of history got an Emmy nomination. How? I don't know, but it did.

It's not a YouTube. It is. It is.

But no. Very, very strange. American crime story, the people versus OJ Simpson came in just underneath them at 22.

Don't get that one. But whatever, sci-fi has canceled hunters. After one season, I want to say, for another show, Jim Briggles was big into that show.

He solves it. Who shows that he's enjoying the very most. Have I watched an epic?

Uh, were you a big fan of battlefield? The game? Battlefield?

Mm-hmm. Because Paramount's actually. Oh, oh, that yes.

Paramount's developing it for television. Why? Because they can't.

That makes sense. I can say. That just doesn't make sense.

Speaking of why, because they can, we did also get verification this week. Fish Mooney will be in Gotham season 3. Oh, good, said no way.

Because what I need in my life is more Jada Pinky. God. Just say it.

Some people just don't learn their lesson. Snapper Carr has been cast for Supergirl Season 2. He will be played by Ian Gomez.

Kind of, he's kind of, I want to say he's Supergirl's new boss because remember at the end of Season 1, Cat Promotor, right, so that's kind of where they're going, okay. And, uh, I don't know what to do with Fox. I just don't.

I just don't know what to do with Fox sometimes. They're doing a new television series. They're calling it an X-Men series, but it really doesn't have anything to do with X-Men.

It's about a couple who are parents and they find out that their child is powered so they go on the run, but there's no invention of anything X-Men related, but they're calling you to X-Men series. Very confused. Okay.

So they don't get sued. No. It's a monster.

And aren't they? I don't know. I don't know.

I mean, they're crossing the screen now with Martin D.C. I'm trying to learn my Greek red, you know, sounds like. Well, what, why we're here?

Well, I might want him to hear. You know how this goes. Uh-huh.

We have another guest here. His name is Fabian. Is it Gerard?

How do you pronounce her? Yeah, yeah. He's talking like, talk a light in the right front.

Be right on top of it. Right. See, right here.

Like right on top of the microphone. Yeah, speak right into this. Exactly.

Real close. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. I had a film that world premiered here at the Asian Film Festival. Good night.

Which I was able to see you there. Yes. It's called the.

The Majon Box. Majon Box. And, uh, first off, it is subtitled.

It's mostly in Chinese language. Yes. In Chinese.

In Chinese. It's a story about American living in, uh, in China. His wife passes away from natural causes.

And he's kind of secluded himself. But he starts finding a love interest in another girl. But the question is, is it because it's the new girl or it reminds of him of his wife.

And it does get real. There's a couple scenes where you think the guy is to be kind of normal. But then all of a sudden, he's missing about three cans.

Sort of that six back. Oh, wow. Yeah.

So we have way there. It gets good real intense at the end. Which I did not see coming.

So there are some great surprises. And great things you did not see coming on us. But I really, really enjoyed it.

So you got the seal of approval from Don. And he's, he's not an easy reviewer. So for him to enjoy something.

You've got going on. First of all, welcome to the festival. Welcome to the show.

Thank you very much. Is this your first time to our area? Uh, this is my second time in AFTT.

Okay. Yeah. I came here in 2011 for my first feature film.

And this is my second time in Dallas. How did it go Friday night? Very well.

I was very excited to see people's reaction. I was looking for that premiere in North America. Because I'm really interested about North American reaction from the audience.

So, and he went pretty well. I'm very happy to see the post. So was this the, the honest to God number one premiere here?

Yes. Oh, wow. Yeah.

You were joking. No. Talk about as a director.

Hmm. Is it harder for you to watch the movie with a crowd or not? Because for some directors, they, when you watch, when you watch it, you tend to nitpick the things Oh, I should have done this.

I should have done that. Being with an audience. Is that tougher to do or is that easier for you?

Uh, for me when, especially when it's the beginning of the premiere. Yeah. I'd like to see, I'd like to stay in the room and heard people reaction.

If they are reaction, if they are reaction is the laughing or, you know. Laughing at least in the right places. Yeah.

But I won't stay in the room. I say, I stay just beside. Oh, okay.

Like out in the hallway? Yeah. In the lane.

Okay. Can I ask one thing? I brought up at the premiere at the Q&A after.

Because he has gracious enough to do a Q&A after the film. Thank you for that. Yeah.

Thank you. He's never filmed in North America from what he told me. He's done some stuff in France, which is at your native homeland.

His France? Yes. Okay.

Can you talk about, because I could tell there were some restrictions on this film. How tough is it to be able to film in China? What kind of restrictions do you have?

Filming in China? Because you could tell there's some stuff you cannot do in China that you can do here. You know, what were a lot of the things that you were not allowed to do.

A lot of restrictions. How tough is it? All that stuff.

If you'll please. Well, this film was shot with a very low budget. And we decided to shot in Shanghai because I really wanted to make a movie entirely shot in Shanghai.

That was not the case of my first film. I shot in two cities in Shanghai. But this time I really wanted to explore more about the city.

But Shanghai is the most complicated city to shoot. He gave us a couple of examples of roadblocks that you had and how you overcame them. Because you need to get an authorization for every part of the city you want to shoot, especially in the most historical location.

Like we did one shot on the bridge called Wai Bai Duchiao. And we made that shot very early in the morning because we couldn't get the permission otherwise. I mean, it would be very, very, very expensive.

And our budget didn't allow us to pay for this location. So most of the locations we have, we have it because we got the permission from people we know and they allowed us to shoot for free. Do you have to get, like, let's just say you're going to shoot here one day.

You're going to shoot here the next day. But then you have to come back to the original location. Do you have to pay each time?

Or did you have to pay just one fee and you could shoot there whenever you needed to? The schedule was very tight. So every time we shoot in one location it was for one time.

We didn't have to come back. So you got lucky enough that you got what you needed in this one track. Okay.

Yes. We have to do that. For example in the club.

Like the time, the time, it was there certain times. You cannot shoot like after certain animals. Yes.

Okay. For example, we shoot in the club. For the dialogue scene with the actors.

We have, we booked the time from, after day, like, from 6 a.m. to 12 p.m. At 12 a.m.

And then once we got these dialogue scenes shot wrap up. Then we came back in the evening to shoot the crowd in the club. But this is the real crowd.

The real atmosphere in the crowd. You just came in and just kind of just shot whoever was there. There was no like extra casting or you're just like, look, what's just do this.

Okay. With the permission of the crowd. Of course.

And that's why we use also a very low sensitivity camera. Because in that crowd was quite dark. So that's why we use a very sensitive camera.

How long did it take you to shoot the film? 35 days. Oh wow.

Yeah, 35 days. And it was very tight schedule because we have almost 100 locations. So it was very tight.

On the move a lot. Yeah. My DLP always say that when you shoot the movie like this, you lose one year of your life.

I think it was worth it. And you're not worried about getting your steps in on your fit bit for the day. Because you're moving around a lot.

Yeah. So you discovered perpetual youth. One thing that really surprised me, which I wanted to kind of get into is the cast that you had.

Basically three characters. There's a few minor characters. But James elops to play Tom.

You said he's Canadian. Is that correct? He's Canadian.

And then one thing that really surprised me, the lady, Zahank Tan, Miss Tan, who played his wife, Wing, and also the New Girl Bobo. I didn't know that. I did not know that was the same girl.

I did not. And it's a whole different wrinkle to it. Very nice.

How are you able to make that happen? And what was like working with those actors? Yeah.

This actress, she was quite a high-level actress. I mean, she played with a very good director. For example, Lowie, who has a several female can.

And I was not sure she was willing to make this movie. But especially because we didn't have a very high budget to pay her. But she found the role very interesting because it was about two characters.

And two different personalities. And that was a challenge for her to do that. So...

Did she cut the hair? Sorry. Did she cut the hair?

No, we used the fake... Oh, we got it. Yeah, her hair is actually short.

And thanks to her, we chose the perfect fake hair. Oh, okay. It looks to make it look very real.

And she was very attentive about everything. Every detail to make our look very natural and real. James's accent, what he spoke that Chinese very, very well.

I was really surprised. And how you found him? Yes.

James, I found him in two years before we shot. He was working in the entertainment. It was not an actor at that time.

I think he studied acting before but very few. And after one year, after I met him, he started doing some TV series. And I was writing my script and one day I told him, Yeah, I have this script.

It's ready. I need a very free and speaking actor in Chinese. And yeah, it was very enthusiastic to do this project.

So we just did it. And it happened. It was very good.

I mean, I was very happy with this performance. Yeah, I was too. I thought he did very very good.

The whole cast was very good. You know, it was basically three people. Tom actually takes in the mother-in-law of his first wife.

They moved in and his wife passes, but he still lives with his former mother-in-law. And she did a good job, too. I thought the acting was good.

I thought you asked about this after the film when I went after the premiere. I thought the plot flowed well. I thought it didn't really drag at any point.

See, that was paste well. Yeah, paste well. The plot kept me interested even though it's kind of a simple plot.

It's a guy whose wife dies and then he finds new love. And there's an underlying reason for it. And then at the end, you really see the true side of Tom.

He seems like the most normal guy, but then it really comes out. Which I really enjoyed about that. I did not see that coming.

Yeah. Who wrote the film? If you don't know.

I wrote myself very impressed. So we had the world premiere here this past week. Where is it scheduled else to play after the film festival?

Right now, we are discussing with the distributor in China. We have good hopes that the movie will be released in China by the end of this year. Probably in November.

We need to be strategic about that because, you know, in China, a lot of commercial movie on the market. And for this kind of movie, my movie is kind of independent film. So we need to find a good place for him.

Is independent film harder to distribute in China than... Okay. This is new information to me.

Is it because of the restrictions in China, or is it just in general tougher to market? There is less restriction than before. If you buy the censorship for many kind of movie independent commercial, you will get it.

But then for the exploitation, for the distribution, and to release in the theatre, the decision belonged to the theatres. And they prefer to choose commercial film. So for example, if a film doesn't make a good box of it on the first day, then they will probably change this world.

Wow. I'm not keeping it for more than three days. Wow.

So the big... I mean, the first day is the most important. So, yeah.

If people go to see the movie on the first day, however, very enthusiastic to see the movie, then the movie can stay for long. Okay. So is there a website?

Is there social media that people can go to to learn more? Right now, we are working on the website. We can go on the Facebook page, on the you tap the Majonbox movie, and you will find it.

And we have also some review. Just one came out yesterday. It was made by directly, a very good reviewer.

It used to work for very famous newspaper before. Very happy with that review. All right.

The Majonbox is the name of the film. Did you add the joint system? No, I was just kind of say I've got his Facebook page and his Facebook page for the Majonbox linked on the print on our Facebook page.

So we're going to get our audience go check it out as well. Thank you so much for taking a few minutes with us. Thank you so much for all of us.

Thank you. Enjoy the rest of the festival. Congratulations.

Thank you. All right. Absolutely.

Thanks. All right. What are we?

Okay. Okay. We're doing this one.

We're doing this one now. He just took off. Okay.

I guess maybe he's going to retrieve our next guest. Normal show Sunday night. Seven Eastern for Pacific next week.

We will be doing our pre unofficial official pre show for WWE battleground. And boy, are we going to have some stuff to talk about after this past week? Man alive.

And also tomorrow. The chart was biggest stress show ever. Tomorrow night is the draft.

The biggest chunk of unnecessary WWE drama of the year. Did I send you my fantasy booking last week on that? No, you did.

They should have what if if I were booking. I would have made Smackdown like the most basic bare bones Smackdown ever. Oh, yeah.

So that way you have Shane being accused of tanking to get the first draft. You vote the deck against him. Yeah.

And if it happens, I'm sure you're going to make that thing was quote pointing to yourself. Um, did you see the shotgun thing is passed on to you? Yes.

She has entered rehab and did you hear why? I didn't get all the details. She did it because of what happened to Prince.

Oh, really? I did. I did read that.

You are correct. That she was having her and her sister were having a struggle with prescription medication. And she, they check themselves into rehab for that.

Because they didn't want to happen to them when happened to him. I mean, I didn't realize it that it was that big of a deal on her. Yeah.

Well. And we hope she gets the help that she needs. Well, man.

You need to get breath. I haven't done this in three weeks. And this I was on the big road trip.

But if you follow me on Instagram and you know that I documented my entire vacation. Doesn't look good feedback on that. It does seem a little bit insane to me that we've been off the air for a couple of weeks.

I just dive right into the deep end of the pool at a film festival. Brother after six years, you think we can handle this by now. I know.

But you know, it's, you know, I still get the performance jitters. It's something like this. And friend of the show, right in front of us right now.

The great Dev Shapiro's hanging out. And, and all of his, we were, we were talking in pretty show. Mip.

You thought he was. I didn't take it. Did he pass that?

That was his phone. He didn't fall into the table, friends. We were talking in pre-show with that.

A lot of stuff coming up. You, I mean, you are one of the hardest working men in show business. I'm just gonna go ahead and say it.

And you've got a lot of, you could probably take the top 10 hardest working people in Dallas Fort Worth Entertainment. And they all work for seedling. Risk or man.

That's right. Did you talk, say hello, sir. Hey, guys.

Talk to you right into the microphone. All right. Hey, guys.

So I'm trying not to get it to feedback. So I have to turn it down a little bit. How is the festival been going for you guys?

It's gone good. I mean, I really like this festival. A lot.

This festival has always had a killer, you know, programming line up. You know, one of the things I really like about this festival is that they include everybody and everything, whether it be, you know, films or parties or anything like that. You don't need to be, you know, Dallas socialite to get into the parties.

You know, it's just a world-class operation. They let us into the party. So, you know, the Dallas socialite is not a free record.

That was anti-socialite. So it was the thing we've been called. There's a paradigm that we definitely do not think.

It's Dallas socialite. No, this film festival is really good. I mean, really good people behind it.

Just some really good things. And talk a little bit. I mean, Ceeleg's not a new thing.

How long have you guys been around? And it's current incarnation we've been around since 2008. So the Ceeleg policy scope company was one of the early motion picture studios around.

And it was found in 1896 in Chicago, Illinois. And it survived until about 1925, 1926. It was, you know, the first studio ever to make the first horror film in the United States.

We invented the cliffhanger way of marketing things. Ceeleg invented the way that the studios were built. So he basically built a factory.

He took a large section of Chicago. It's called Norson or Old Erring Park area. And he basically took, you know, 20 by 25 blocks.

And basically made a factory. He had a man-made lake in there. He had, you know, scenario department, which they now, which they currently call the script department.

They had a, he had a lot of stuff there. And he had a lot of people working. And because of the weather in Chicago, he had a tunnel system under the city.

So all the tunnels connected wardrobe and everything like that. So very Walt Disney World ask if you will. Yeah.

And speaking of that, I mean, Ceeleg was the very first one to establish the studio in Los Angeles was really the first company to form a studio in California period. Because at that time, the Los Angeles, Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce was going to these studios in New Jersey, New York and Chicago. And basically guaranteeing a 300 days a year of sunshine.

And so if you were in the Northeast or you were in Chicago, you had problems with winters. Brother, you and Lyon. Yeah.

I mean, heavy snow and stuff like that. It was very attractive to these early studio pioneers. William Ceeleg and then the SNA folks and then of course Edison.

And then you had DW Griffith and all that. So they started migrate to California. But Ceeleg was the first one to buy property.

He bought the property in the Indian del area of Los Angeles. And he built the studio slash zoo. And he had farm animals that these studios could rent.

At least filmmaker's current. He had elaborate sets. And of course he had scenario department and wardrobe and everything like that.

So that was just pioneering thing. But he ought to want to turn into amusement park as well. And if there's Ceeleg Pilescope.com and click on about us, you get to see some of those plans that he wanted to turn into a full-fledged theme park.

So that's kind of the story of the Ceeleg Pilescope. And starting about 2005, 2006, I came across the story of Ceeleg. I did was doing some research for documentary.

And just stuck with me. After I was paid. And everything was...

Just after the check was written. Right. He just stuck with me.

What would the studio look like today if he was still around at the time? My uncle was the United States Attorney in Chicago. He assisted US Attorney in Chicago at the time.

And I was like, hey, what do you think about me? We established this. So tell me to come up with a business plan.

And I did. And make a long story short. We basically reestablished the company.

And when we established it, we wanted to really think about what it would look like today if it was still around. Of course, they didn't have websites or digital sim or anything like that at that time. So we kind of put that into play.

And then we started... We came up with the publication of Ceeleg Film News in 2010. The Lake Great Gary Murray was one of the...

He missing very much. Yes, we do. And, you know, he was one of the ones that wanted to write for us.

And he was like, if you build a blog, I'll write for you. And I was like, great. And, you know, Ceeleg was actually the very first movie studio company.

It's a really great, the news rail. So that was kind of ironic. So we quite safely filmed those.

And then we had Gary writing for us. We had John Strange writing for us. And then we got other people involved.

And then we started... And I'm not exaggerating. You guys have some of the most talented people in the area.

I really agree. Great. We love hang out with you guys.

Speaking of creators. We have another one in our midst. And I'm going to...

I would introduce her. Like, I'm just going to let her handle that. Okay, guys.

This is the race to lamb. I am the director and music composer for a documentary short called Finding Cleveland. Which we were talking about just a little while ago with on the show.

Yes. Oh, I love it when people talk about my work. Even when you're not around.

Even when you're not around. I hope it's good and not. When you get a chance, just go to iTunes later tonight.

You can download the show and you can listen to it back. Oh, we don't edit anything. So it's all going on here.

There we go. Not no censorship over that. Yes.

So I will listen and we'll let everybody listen as well out there. Yes. But I'm excited to be here.

Thank you for having me on the show. Thank you for being here. And finally, Cleveland.

Just the concept of this of a man learning more about his past and that it takes him to Mississippi. Yeah. Who would have thought it?

Chinese family. It ends up in Mississippi to find the roots instead of going back to China. One's deeply personal to me because it's actually about my husband, Baldwin Chew, and his father, Charles Chew, and kind of their search to find some answers that they actually didn't even expect to find in Mississippi.

All we thought, we took a trip to Cleveland, Mississippi two years ago. We thought we were paying a respects at a gravesite. And I'm grew up in California in the LA area.

And I was kind of an ignorant California. I thought, OK, we're going to go visit this gravesite of his grandfather and great grandfather. They're the only two Chinese guys in all of Mississippi.

That's what I'm thinking. And we get there. And we come to uncover that there was a whole population of Chinese.

I mean, some are still there. Especially if you think about the time period when his grandfather and great grandfather were there. This is the late 1800s, early 1900s.

You normally don't associate the South with a segregated South, especially with Chinese being there. And they were a huge population of Chinese that were opening grocery stores and caught kind of in the middle between black and white. And so it was a fascinating story from a historical standpoint.

But from a personal one, what we uncovered in less than 48 hours on that trip two years ago is what the film is about. And just the incredible revelations and connections that we discovered. And just so that we're clear, it's based on that story.

It is not actually like a documentary style. It's more of a narrative of documentary. So it is okay.

Because I was a little confused there. No, I know it sounds so narrative, right? No, I mean, the way I constructed the documentary was in a sense telling a story.

So it is documenting real time. Well, I was saying real time. It was not like 24.

There's a clock on the side. It's a short. But it does show the events that happened in less than 20 hours.

And what we uncovered. And it's real footage. Not staged was not recreated, not like on certain networks or anything.

We won't name any. Reality shows, aren't really reality shows. Oh, yeah.

Can I just give away some secrets? No. No, this is a true documentary.

If anybody didn't know that first of all, Welcome back from the cave. No kidding. So, but you were also, you did the composition for this too.

I did. Did you going in? Because of course, since this is a documentary.

Yes. It's self. As it was going on, did you have composition in your head of how you wanted to score it or did it have to come later?

It kind of came later. Some of the music that's used is music. I had written for other other projects or other songs I had.

And some of it was original score. So it was kind of a combination. But all of it was written by me.

And I think it's, you know, there were certain songs that, even though it's all instrumental. Like some songs that originally had lyrics that just actually felt even even if the lyrics weren't in there, the intent and the original inspiration for the song was very poignant, you know, even underscoring it. And so like, there was just some things that I don't know, just really cried out, you know, to me in terms of when I was looking at the visuals, you know, wanting some, there's some songs that just simple guitar.

You know, I had one song called Paradise that we used. When we were, when we actually roll up to the cemetery. And it was such a kind of a melancholy vibe.

That it kind of fit very well with that. How long is the short? The short is only 13 minutes.

And we cram a lot of it. I was going to say because this story told in 13 minutes from me, because I'm a musician. So I'm, I want to pick your brain a little bit.

Oh, sure, pick my brain. I mean, Frankenstein. How, how was it to even select enough music just to hold on to 13 minutes?

Was it was that kind of pain thing because you're like, I've got so much I want to put into this, but I only had this amount of music to use. Yeah, you know what? I think the way the documentary was constructed, you know, there's obviously scenes and different, you know, scene changes in a sense.

And so that, you know, certain dark documentary shorts, you just have like an interview with one person or two people. Two cameras set up. Two cameras set up or something.

And it's just, or you know, in a short period of time, you're only telling maybe one person's story. But the way this story was constructed is actually a little unusual is that it's more about some revelations. And it was, I really did kind of write it when we sat down to do it to kind of bring people to where I was the third party being there.

Like, I can't believe this stuff is happening. The things we're finding, things we're seeing. It's like, I wanted to take people into that revelation ever.

So it's almost like a little mystery, you know, where we're uncovering things as we go along, which is a little bit unusual for, you know, a documentary short that is. You know, you see it more and maybe a longer, you know, documentary, but in a short amount of time, a lot of things happened. And that's a lot of way to put on your shoulders.

A lot of response clearly here. I would say the editing was the most difficult part. And with that, you know, the picture and then having to deal with the music.

But it actually, the music wasn't as difficult as I thought it was going to be just because the way we broke it up in different sections. It actually organically made sense to have the different, the different song changes and the different music changes. And that's what has me so intrigued about you specifically is that were you a musician that became a filmmaker or a filmmaker that became a musician or did it both happen around the same time?

I was a musician that became a filmmaker. I mean, I'm still a musician. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And that's what you've looked at behind. Obviously, you have it. You know, but I mean, I didn't tell a vision as well.

So I had a background in some television hosting and television production and, you know, as a music composer, you know, I had done things for some film, but mainly television. I had worked on the Oprah Winfrey Show and several other TV shows and some video games. And so, you know, I kind of approached, you know, since it was a shorty, it's very different than having to do say a narrative feature.

And so, you know, those song cues and stuff were about the, you know, emotion and underscoring those things, which is a little bit more akin to television than say with a sweeping film. I'm not John Williams, so. Well, and what makes it unique to me, and at least from my perspective, is that that is such a rare breed of a composer director.

The only person they'd immediately comes to mind is Carpenter. John Carpenter is one of the only people I think of. Ross Rodriguez does the same thing.

This is true. Clint Eastwood also. Yeah.

But the one that immediately pops in our mind is Carpenter. Right. Because his music is so iconic and the film, well, and obviously with horror, you have to have that, you know, that tension to build, you know, that thrill, you know, in a film like that.

So, I think, with any type, I think, artistic medium, a lot of the same principles, you know, crossover. And I did have, you know, growing up, I had actually had some background in theater. I actually almost became a child after, and I was involved with drama.

I was the drama director at my church, directed, written and directed several plays. So, in terms of, you know, directing, it wasn't a huge leap for me to necessarily go into the medium of film, and having produced some music videos, and worked on some other, you know, short form, you know, videos for the internet, and things like that. It was kind of a natural transition.

You said you had to do some editing. Yes. Is there a vision for a longer narrative documentary, or do you like it where it's since?

Thank you for asking that question. What do you mean? Yes.

We're thinking about the same lines. I'd love to see this. Yeah, no.

We actually had so much information that we've discovered since that initial trip. And even in our documentary short, we just covered, like, the events of, you know, the 48 hours. There's a whole immigration story, which is very complicated, that we would like to expand on, in our, we are currently working on a longer documentary, a feature like 60, 80 minutes, which will actually start in San Francisco.

We'll lead us to finally Cleveland again, but my father-in-law has a fascinating story about how he came into this country from China and to San Francisco, and it kind of leads into why we ended up in Cleveland, Mississippi. And also just the historical standpoints. I mean, I know being in California, I didn't learn about the Chinese and the South.

I think most people didn't learn about the Chinese and the South. In history books, and also, you know, in TV and media, we don't see those stories portrayed. And so, like, most people, we just think of the segregated South as black and white, but not only were their Chinese, they were also, you know, Lebanese there.

There were Italians. There were, there were Jewish community there. And, you know, in historically too, I think there's a lot of things like the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act, you know, prevented the Chinese from becoming citizens, and it restricted the immigration, not only the Chinese, but it, you know, later on, to all Asian nations.

I mean, that's kind of relevant now, as we talk a lot about, about heated debates about immigration, and people don't realize it's like, you know, we're not, it's as happened in our country before, where a whole group of people were banned in this, and so things like that, and also just seeing the, and also the hopeful, it's not just all about the bad history, but how these Chinese immigrants, despite some of those restrictions and those struggles, they still are able to become successful business people, and were able to, you know, flourish, and be contributing citizens in a positive way to this country. It's an American story at the end of the day. Is this the first time it's been shown, has been shown before?

No, this is, I think, about our tenth festival. Okay. We've also been touring with the film, because my husband is, who's the producer, Baldwin Chew, and, you know, the his family is the subject.

He's actually a, a Chinese American hip hop artist, that goes by only one, and so both of us, we joke, we're like the Asian Jay-Z and Beyonce. Why not? What?

You know, with our own little flavor, but we've actually been touring the country, doing, you know, free screenings around the country, doing some music. We call it the finding Cleveland experience, where we're doing some music, we're showing the film, and we're having some discussion and Q&A afterwards, and really, you know, we just have a desire to share this story, this little note chapter of American history, with the rest of the country, and also, hopefully, elevating the platform, Asian American artists, and this showing the diversity that we have, not just, you know, among Asian Americans, but just, you know, throughout the different states and different regions. And it's just tonight during short block, correct?

It's actually tomorrow, tomorrow, Monday at 1.30 in the afternoon, so if you don't have to work, or have a lunch break, and would like to come down for the documentary shorts, I mean, some other really excellent documentaries that are going to be showing. Do you know where on the block it's going to be? It's somewhere in the middle.

Okay. It's, if they go in order of what the program, you know, sometimes they go by the program, and then sometimes they go. And then Q&A after the block?

Yeah, I believe so. I will be present, so people want to love any questions, you know, they can, or if they want to check out our trailer, it's on finding Cleveland.com. Which leads us into the shameless self-promotion to this, what we've based the show on for six years, give us everything.

Well, you can find out finding Cleveland, as I've just mentioned, on our website, finding Cleveland.com. You know, we're on Twitter, find Cleveland. We're on Instagram, and Facebook at Finding Cleveland.

And if you want to know more about me, Larisa Lam, you can also find me at LarisaLam.com and Twitter at LarisaLam, and Instagram at LarisaLam Music. And she also tagged our page on her page, because I got an alert that said she is. Yes, because I was telling people, I was coming on, and so people are tuning in, and they saw that on Facebook, then hopefully they're hearing so.

Thank you so much for joining us. Well, thank you so much for having me, and I... It was our honor to do so.

I appreciate your promoting film, especially independent film, and those voices that normally aren't heard. Go and join yourself, my friend. Okay, thank you.

I'm going to go see Bitcoin Heist. I'm going right now. Oh, yeah.

Oh, yeah. That's right. Let us not hold you back from it.

Okay, thanks guys. Thank you. LarisaLam, ladies and gentlemen.

What, that's our third or fourth guest, already we are making this happen. Oh, you're good. You're good.

There was something I wanted to talk to you about, and now I don't remember what it is. That was, I was completely engrossed in a few, and it just, my wheels are gone at this point. And FYI, yes, I have her profile and the, and the documentary profile on our Facebook page as well.

And it's called Finding Cleveland. I'm very intrigued by this. We want to talk about one more enthusiastic one.

And that's a good day. That's a great day. Oh, yeah.

I love it when we have enthusiastic guests. It makes me happy. I wish I had that much boundless energy.

It, it, it, it, at this point in my life. I'm going to taste something right across the way from us. I'm seeing dudes wearing chef uniforms.

If, if, if the, whafting of what they're making makes its way over here, I might cut this show short. I'm just letting you know right now because when I was gone on my vacation, done, here you go. I had some great food in South Florida.

Yes, I could tell by the multiple Instagram posts that you wouldn't have made a crap out of that. But, but see, I warned all y'all beforehand. I said be prepared because I'm flooding my social media for two weeks.

I mean, I barely heard a word from you. A shout out to Cuban breezes in Tampa, Florida. It was the last meal I had in the state of Florida on my way back.

That was one of the best Cuban sandwiches I've had in my life. And you've had your fair share of Cuban sandwiches. I don't know what they did different, but that Cuban sandwich was a, well, I know those little sliders that you made several months ago.

That popped back up on Facebook. Oh, I'm not afraid to do that again if I have to. I didn't notice that you left off what they put on the top of it because you had to.

What? They had like a, before they bake it, they covered it in melted butter and poppy seeds, I'm like, well, I know that that. No, but I did, I did the melted butter though.

Yeah, just not the bottom of it. There was something else I put in in my camera. Yeah, I have no idea how you did it.

I want a little baking on you every once in a while. If you let me. Well, if I let myself.

If you let yourself. No, it's not being you, but you. Let's get that.

Let's get that straight. We are live at the end of like at Mockingbird Station in Dallas, helping cover the 2016 Asian Film Festival of Dallas. Make sure that you're checking out their website and we were, we are hashtagging in that AFFD 2016.

It's 15 years. They've been doing this. They're like, yeah, what these guys do a show.

All right. You, you want us to babysit your kids. But the rest of this year is going to be busy.

Yes, we were talking to Dev in pre-show. There was a lot going on. Again, next week we'll be back to our normal.

Our normal start time of 70 certain four Pacific. Did I do that right? Yeah, I did that right.

But we're going to have to rearrange again before I'm hearing his correct. The summer slam is going to be four hours again this year. So we'll be on an hour early.

August the 21st. What do they keep doing? I don't know.

But, you know, with the brands split now, happening officially tomorrow. Because that's important. That had it.

Don's back. He's got somebody to introduce us to us. As soon as he puts his headphones on.

I'm back. Okay. We are.

He has to walk around the rest of the night with his headphones on just like that. You've got this hair halo thing going on. It's a good look for very, very classy.

This is a man I met at the opening night when he saw the. This past Thursday. Yeah, Thursday night at the House of Blues at the party.

We had, which was a great party. They first class on this thing. Big fan.

We're going to do introducing Francisco Aguilar. The Aguilar. Aguilar.

It's a big writing. I actually like to just turn this mic on. Okay.

Aguilar. Yeah. He did Korean fried chicken.

Correct. Okay. Korean fried chicken.

It's a short. We're going to kind of say a couple things about it. And I want to bring a couple things about it.

So is it airing in the block tomorrow? Yeah. It's 30.

130 block tomorrow. The best documentary short. And I went out to Seoul, South Korea last year.

I'm still a student actually. I go to Ethiopia College. And when my professor is there in the spring semester.

He was mentioning about the opportunity to go to South Korea and take a class. If he is where. I think of a college in an upstate New York.

Okay. We want to make sure everybody knows. Yeah.

It's great school. I love being going to Ethiopia College. You know, it's a great film school.

And I had the opportunity to go to South Korea. That was an amazing experience to immerse myself in that culture. How long were you there?

I was there for just about a month. Okay. The program lasted about 24 days.

So we had to, you know, conceive the idea, shoot the film, edit it, all in that. So the whole purpose of you going was to shoot the film. Oh yeah.

Did you know going in what you wanted to do? Or was it you got there and went, oh, this is the thing. So actually, like I knew I was going to the South Korea.

I knew I was taking a documentary class. But before I went there, I did not conceive an idea at all. Which maybe I should have.

But once I got there, you know, we started researching some different things. And I had this idea once I got there about failure and success. Because I saw it myself.

Because when I first originally came to Ethiopia College, I was a business major and I played football. And that's kind of what got me in there. And you know, I was trying to do that.

And as I progressed from a business major into film, it was a little bit of a challenge. But once I did that, I knew how important film was to me. And I was trying to do the success and failure idea because when someone typically thinks of the word failure, you might think of like negativity or just, you know, like, oh failure, like, you know, we don't want to fail.

We don't want to fail. But you know, failures are really, it's important in life. You know, you're not.

Absolutely. You're not going to succeed until you fail. But like we said, you can't appreciate the mountaintop if you don't have the valley.

Yeah, it really is true. And so like, I saw that in myself because, you know, I tried to do business and it just, I didn't have the self-drive, the self-interest to do it. And, you know, it was important for me to do that because it led me to find film and, you know, once I discovered the passion of film, like it's academically, I was performing at a much higher level.

I've never, you know, really been super, super as a, I've never been a fantastic student. You know, I've played sports my whole life. You know, I was a job and it just to go to South Korea and to experience the culture.

It was a great thing. Okay, so the title, literal or figurative. So it's literal.

Okay. All right. It's all about Korean fried chicken.

But it's, it's, it's an amazing thing, you know, something as simple as chicken to, you know, just bridge the two cultures of, you know, me going there because, you know, I love it to Terrians, but, you know, chicken, it's great. I was, what's the, what's the t-shirt saying? I didn't climb to the top of the food chain to eat vegetables.

Yeah, I got, I got one of those shirts. There's not these 22 and he's already directing. But I, well, I saw the short in, this is a, if I had one complaint.

But this is, actually, a compliment. This just got weird. But it's actually a compliment at the same time, too, because Rob will attest to this.

Okay. We usually see on the show when we do move or do so many times that this thing dragged 20 minutes can have been cut out of it. This thing that I saw is exact opposite.

My complaint, it was too short. You can imagine, you want it more. Yeah, yeah.

My complaint is, you shouldn't be this an hour long. How long is the short right now? So it's just, it's like nine minutes, forty-one second.

You know, it's just about ten minutes. You know, I really appreciate it. Yeah, I'll be sure, you give so many facts at the end.

Where basically, these people in Korea, or when they turn 50, basically, they have to retire in South Korea, and they have no income for 30 years. So they'll start these shops where they'll be cafes or convenient stores or fried chicken places. And it went out how, what, 7,000 open up a year and 5,000 fail a year.

And there's, there won't give away too much to the other day. But he's only got nine minutes and forty-one second. I think I found that so interesting is, in fact, because there's a lot of facts at the end, which he could have made the whole film about.

I'm seeing that as a compliment though, is that there's 34,000 McDonald's worldwide, but there's 46,000 chicken places now in Korea. Yeah, it's, it's amazing, but I really enjoyed it. Found a real interesting, and some of these people, you've got the real heart of the people and this thing.

If you make this an hour long documentary, I'd still be just as enthralled. Do you have any plans to do to make it longer? I really, I appreciate everything you said right there, that was magical, you said.

I've actually never really thought about it. You know, I had a, once we were there, you know, we conceived the idea. We started researching these, we found this one article about Korean fried chicken and from there, the rest was history, but you know, once we found that first article, you know, we started researching more and more, and you know, just off those small statistics that he was saying, you know, it's, it's mind boggling.

You, you almost can't believe what you're reading, and once we did that, you know, it was, I really started to focus on the documentary, but just being there for that small amount of time, it put a strain in a struggle on the filmmaking process, but I've never really thought about making it longer, because once we got back into the States, the film was edited, it was, it was completed, you know, what I thought it was done, and we started watching it, and as much as I wanted to keep continuing the process, one of the things my professor always says, you know, you got to let it go, and you know, as much as you want to keep working, you want to keep working, you know, at one point you do have to let it go, and it's a harder thing, this is a director to do. Yeah, definitely is, you know, but I'm really happy with the product, I'm really happy with the film, you know, I got to meet some great people in South Korea, you know, I got to make some friends all across the world, you know, from international students, you know, and it's something I'll remember for the rest of my life. Are you going to get the chance to show it to some of the people that you met over there, or you've got to kind of do maybe like a Skype kind of thing, where you show it to them, and then you talk with them over the computer, I'm not really sure exactly, just because, you know, I don't really, I don't speak Korean at all, and I can say maybe thank you, I might butcher it, but, you know, well, that's easily remedy ball in this day and age with a technology.

It's not, I don't know how to say it, but, you know, being in South Korea, I met some of the international students who actually just from Seoul, so I do have some connections there, which I, you know, I could reach out, and definitely, I never thought about, I don't know why I haven't, that's a, you know, a great idea, just because, even just the, the owners of the fried chicken restaurants, they were, you know, they made the film, and that's, without them, I wouldn't be able to do what I did, and I, you know, I'm, I'm internally grateful for, for them, allowing me to, in their lives, and it was truly an amazing experience to hear their stories, and to just allow, for them to, allow me in. Going into tomorrow, how many times has it been shown? So this is the world premiere.

Wow, okay. So yeah, I've, it's actually my first film festival, and I'm, you know, I'm super, super excited to be here. Well, talk about being here in this town in July, versus upstate New York, because, yeah, a little different.

I'm an East Coast guy myself, but I'm from the other side of the East Coast. I'm a Fort Waterdale kid, so. Okay, okay.

Yeah, so, you know, I'm from New Jersey, I'm born and raised there, and I went to school upstate New York, and, you know, it's similar to, you know, I don't know, I'm sure you can know the, the football player, Marsh on Lynch. Oh, yeah, Beast Mode. You know, you got drafted to, you know, the Buffalo Bills, and remember, I can just, when he's like, oh, I'm born in New York City.

And it's a little different. So, you know, it's a little different. It's upstate.

Yeah, so, you know, I'm not, you know, I'm not in Buffalo, but, you know, I'm a state in New York. It gets, it gets cold. And then you come here, and it's like, I am on the surface of the sun.

Yeah. But it's my first time in Dallas, first time in Texas, and I'm super excited to be here. And it's quite, quite the different temperature.

So, you're all on your stickin' around. I'm here, it's all Friday. So, you can make sure that you're gonna get out, and see if you're on the city.

And I've been trying to do some touristy things. I've been able to go to the JFK Museum. I've been here before.

Oh, yeah, it was wonderful. It was very, very interesting, very educational, and just, it was an experience, you know, just to be there. Don't deny yourself the food.

I was about to say, don't deny yourself the food. We kind of have a tradition of recommending some of the better local restaurants that you may or may not have hit those things. I've been here.

I've been able to go to the Bishop Art District. I went there yesterday. Oh, there's some great stuff.

And I had it with a grilled cheese. That's what a grilled cheese place is. Oh, I had a lot of heart BBQ.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. He was a lot car. Okay.

I always sell people when I moved to Texas. I lost a lot of hair, and I gained an Olsen twin. And a lot of that has to do with the food.

So, it because the food here is amazing. It definitely is. Actually, on my way here, my Uber driver was telling about velvet tacos.

Oh, the velvet tacos too. So, yeah, so, because I've been looking for a good taco place. And you recommend that.

Rusty taco, also very, very. That's a very quickly growing. It's used to be kind of just two or three, but they're just they're growing like a weed now.

I've heard him to go to Fiel City though. I don't know. The one downtown.

Okay, the one downtown. Fiel City. It's like a gas station, but they have like a taco stand in it.

And it's such a small, small taco stand type company. They only accept cash. Okay.

But you know that. That's the kind you want. Yeah, exactly.

It's the kind of people will go there just for the tacos. Oh, yeah. There's a place in my hometown in Princeton called Hogi Haven.

Yeah. And then it's like a world renowned and the only accept cash as well because they know how to do it right. So he's just getting it done, right?

Okay, alright. Our town is getting represented well. That's the main thing.

I feel like he's kind of a kind of a kind of a kind of trade spirit here because He's a young, small town, you know, filmmaker from outside in New Jersey. My leader, 7 committees, my leader. And I'm actually going to go see him in September.

He's coming to town and the show Dave Под bought me a ticket. So I get to check something else off my bucket list this year. I get to be in the same room with Kevin Smith So he's part of the reason why we're doing yeah, that is true.

He's probably the He talked about that out and there's a film maker Which I'd like to come back to earth a little bit We don't want to keep you too much longer because we've had you for a while But I want you to go ahead and give us all the shameless plugs give us websites give us social media Give us any way people can get a hold of you or a hold of seeing what this films all about if not get the chance to maybe bring your film To wherever they are. Yeah, so definitely so this is the world from here So I haven't publicly, you know Displayed or you know release the film yet, but definitely gonna be doing that soon Probably just through my Facebook at a Francisco Aguilar Best way to contact me would be like my email Frankie J FRA and KYJ 73 at gmail.com Okay, and I guess like my biggest plugin. I would say is my Instagram You know Instagram is very visual and a big fan of Instagram I kind of pushed it off for too long because I'm not a young man and I thought like you know Let me try this Instagram thing.

I love Instagram. Yeah. No.

It's definitely I've you know I've been really focusing on that and I've been loving the feedback I'm been getting from everyone else on Instagram a few of my photos got over 500 likes now like I've been out. Yeah, I've been trying to really you know Just know take natural photos just document my experience I've been fortunate to be Go to Korea. I think I don't know if I mentioned I went to Italy before no I can talk I only just I'll talk only a little bit about that, but So I went to Korea I only went there really not only went there, but one of the biggest draws was the abroad program and Before that summer the winner break one of my friends.

He's a Italian citizen and he was shooting his thesis film in Corona, Italy, and I had the worst way she could spend a few days Three weeks actually there you go best three weeks of my life Yeah, I had the opportunity to be on on the camera department there and we were shooting like on location in Verona I think it was the first film since Romeo and Juliet that shot in Verona real yeah the original Because it wasn't the vast more woman one film somewhere else. Oh, yeah was film or maybe I might be maybe is a different film. I just I try to be real quick on it I'm sure he's referring to the one the one that we watch the movie.

Yeah, the one with Olivia has been But you know I got to go out to Verona Italy. We shot you know with the professional actors We had us an actor from Spider-Man 2. We had Professional Italian actors.

We had a pyro-technic team. We had a stunt team and you know it was it showed me the next level of film making that kind of even though I went to Korea and it was very much running gun You know different different level of filmmaking different style filmmaking It kind of showed me the next level of like what it required as me as a filmmaker and you know I took that going forward to Korea and I tried to you know I Before the I went to Korea. It was my third time directing I wouldn't really consider the first one just because it was my You know a cinema production one one of the first classes you take But uh The next class I took ironically it's in my production too You know I got to direct again and it was honestly one of the worst experiences in my life But it was honestly one of the best experiences in my life just because you know it taught me so much You talked about success in failure Exactly, it lifted as much as you filmed it really goes back right to it because you know You know I could you know go down the list of 20 things that went wrong and but I mean it's way 120 but You know it really showed me and taught me you know The value and just what it really takes to To be a filmmaker and I took that going forward, you know after going to Italy I went to Korea and you know I didn't really have an idea of what I want to do what once I got there, but you know I'm a passionate person and I'm a passionate filmmaker and I just once we start reading the articles I just I tried to immerse myself in that that uh the whole life and just try to make the best film I could All right Francisco Aguilar Korean fried chicken tomorrow 130 Short block you're gonna be there.

Oh, yeah, I have any questions We cannot thank you enough for sitting down. Thank you. Go enjoy yourself.

I'm snowing food already So there's some food here. It's almost dawns already got a plate So you can go enjoy yourself, sir. Thank you so much.

All right. Thank you. You are listening to the clubhouse podcast.

We are live Angelica film center downtown Dallas not not the other one because there's we have two I'm a lot of cities have two Angelica's what we do because that's how we roll How do you take a breath? Okay, so much going on oh There was something I was gonna talk about and now I forgot what it was You're getting really good for getting things today It's it will do we call this podcast rust is that what we call that? My crust yeah What what what what what what what what what are we doing what are we doing what what what what are we doing?

It's chaos. Yeah, it's chaos here. We're inducing two people from the festival first off my new best friend of the festival for You got that document it's you can hold into that.

Yes, absolutely can he he or he owes me money And then we got the lady who made this all possible for us being here. We have Theresa when Who's Yeah, bubble says we're the new we've got to speak this all possible Theresa who threw the dice and said yes, let the slubs come do something at my festival After I gave him a hard time Well, that's John that that's down's job is to get hard times from people. Welcome guys Take taking a take a break from all the hoopla and come in and sit in with us in day four of the festival, which again one of the greatest teachers of all time represents the festival this year.

I'm a big fan How are things going for you guys? Please, please, yeah Well, so far this is day four. I'm enjoying it.

It's the film the salt the programming It's always solid. We had a great party Opening night party to kick it off. We had a world premiere for our opening night film and It's going strong so we have four more days five more days five four more days four more days four more days Yeah, it took Thursday.

It's when he first absolutely So is it all becoming a blur at this point or you still laser focused you know It does become a blur after a little while absolutely You know, about you just kind of take it once greening at a time You know sometimes you just never know what's in happen whether the DCP doesn't work or or something's going to go wrong or tickets Good oversold or you know, you just kind of deal with it when screening on its time and just hope for the best Can we talk about the DCP for a minute because I I want to go off in a little bit of a rant here and this is this is Old Man Rob So be prepared. Oh boy have you seen the way it works now? They put up some great pictures from the opening night gal.

And they took some of the pictures from upstairs When I was a young cop many many moons ago I was a projectionist in school. I worked at the movie scene. That's awesome.

And I was like what it's a computer screen Yeah, all that's like all though the work is gone. It's like click click click click I was a DJ for 21 years, so I see what the kids are doing I'm like you didn't have to lug crates or records in and out of clubs and and I was like wow Like I saw a print in the print was in a box like that you could fit like a pack of gum in I was like we used to have the big film cans. We used to lug up the stairs Like more than one of my supplies them all together and put them on the platter and it's just like I just saw the screen And I was like so you could like be ready in like 10 minutes for a film.

Oh, let's damn I mean at the days time. It's literally just a hard drive at the end of the day amazing and the distributor Whoever the filmmaker provides a Christian code and then basically the theater just implements that code and While on that's it. How do you guys got in a really check do you do you get the chance to watch the films before the festival or do you have really need to watch them during the festival?

I tried to watch some before the festival, but just usually beforehand. It's always so so hard to try to do that You know because we're Scareing last minute sponsors getting things printed Scareing this and carrying that it's really really hard and and and you know every now and then we'll try to squeeze it when in during the festival You know we'll all times we'll introduce it sit in on it and then especially the filmmakers here I personally try to sit on it and then that way I can do kind of do a Q&A with them afterwards Because they would be kind of bad to do a Q&A Would you know what you're asking about? No idea what you're saying We're doing talk about it.

Yes. Absolutely This is my six year and I typically don't get to watch too many of the films, but I have to know at least that just stuff all of it And which how many world premieres we have and how many international world premieres We have how many filmmakers are in town and and like this year we have our first Iranian film We've had two world feature films being the open-night film and then the major on box Who you guys just spoke to Fabian earlier So no we typically don't get to But from the feedback that we get every year and then from attending other film festivals I always hear that the programming here is solid. That's awesome.

Yes You're like yeah, I'm involved in that and it makes it easy for me to talk about a film festival I know you're going to love it. There's something for everyone now conversely being so closely tied to it If there's something in the festival, let's you're just like Do you get an opportunity maybe afterwards to look at them or is it just kind of the window as close and I have to wait for another window to open So that that's kind of a loaded question in the sense that a lot of times what we do what we program This is the only opportunity to see those types of movies usually most of time unless you're overseas an Asia or whatever it may be I mean you have some that are quote-unquote more popular than might be able to be seen here later You know either an iTunes or whatever But a lot of the ones I would say probably good 75% of the movies that we program you probably will never get to see again outside of the festival And that's what it's great about a film festival. It's like your opportunity to go see a film that you won't be able to see anywhere else Is there a in this day in age?

I would think and and you guys are the experts not me But in this day in age with technology with where it is I would think that there is a little bit better of a chance And they're used to be for people to get access to these things because maybe around the world They're like hey, this is where our server is you know You can come download it from us for a couple of bucks and see the films because I just what I love about film festivals like this and the film festivals that we cover year round You get people that get that opportunity Especially with the technology You know, I think that the technology is there and and then filmmakers in general I think now in today's time have a lot more outlet and a lot more distribution abilities That being said it's also it becomes saturated some degree, right? Indeed you have a lot of that and it's kind of hard to filter your way through all that But still nothing beats seeing it in a theater Absolutely with an audience Isn't a film festival experience? Absolutely.

It's a community you come together in this parties and there's food like today We have the centerpiece film and it has food from street fooders and You're it's about the experience this place nurtures that absolutely well But you did just and then chocolate does such a great job And you can't go wrong like having a bunch of swag, right? I mean Give it away bags, you know, we have as much as like Sam Moon and Frankie V Kitchens have been with hot sauce and keep on and all kinds of goodies You can't go wrong with all that Even with this festival six years how long I've been on an off now for about give or take about six years also It's on the board for three is there one film that sticks out to you that says yeah We actually featured that film and now it's like a thing Oh man, that's a big question. Oh That's why they pay me the big part.

I'm just thinking about yesterday like what with what everyone's feedback from yesterday's film I'm just making sure we don't have no we have enough food for tonight Yeah, you know We got to make sure that you know like yesterday in the room showed and in the room was like a late night film and Already everyone's telling me I need to go see it the next time they're showing it like it's Tuesday I think Wednesday Wednesday and I saw Tongching hot pot and That was not anything you expected and I Tell me about it because we want to tell everybody else about it. Okay. Well, it's already shown and I don't think it's gonna screen again I don't remember the schedule of top my head Chunching hot pot comes on Thursday a five o'clock.

Okay. There's time for five But what's great about I think Asian films in general is like it's unpredictable Like it's just completely unpredictable like you think you're coming in you're watching something and you're reading the list of synopsis and they're like okay I'm watching this so you don't really want to talk too much about it because you don't want to give away too much Oh my gosh, you've been there done that one after the next and you're like What and then the whole audience he he sends everyone's energy in the audience I think that's what's great about watching a film in a big screen because everyone's laughing And then you hear people gasping and then you hear people like what and what I like Especially with you guys with the presentation you do and it's so funny to wash around and see people that are like You think you're looking down to actually looking at the back of our badges because the whole schedule is on the back of the badge So I'm sure people are walking by like he's talking to them. Why is he looking down?

It's like no, I'm trying to make sure I know when they're filmed I'm playing because it's on the back of my badge 33 feature films two total of six D seven because there's 33 feature films Six blocks yeah It's just the atmosphere here is just so awesome There's a real cause sometimes when you go to a film festival There's just there's a weird kind of attention and it's not a bad thing But it's just kind of a different kind of with you guys this is so relaxed That like I've heard that I feel like I'm sitting in my living room. There just happens to be a bunch of people making food to my wife You know One thing uh, do you want to talk about the crazy 88 and bring that up okay lucky 88 lucky 88 But they can be crazy Sounds like a Tarantino maybe it was actually If you have lost limbs, they belong to me. Yes, no, but the the crazy 88 Let's see now He's doing Don't look the local 88 You're crazy not to get the lucky I saw a badge of someone so I did see that okay.

Yeah, that was one of these so many with that. Let me know But no, they're basically they're they're a special badge that we sell kind of basically at the end of the festival for Either 24 hours or like two days and you basically will get full access to a whole entire festival For $88 VIP badge essentially You are not you don't get into the parties or anything like that unfortunately, but you get to screen all the movies and you have access to all the movies during the whole entire festival And if you break that down if my public school math surf, you know, I just like 10 bucks a day right around in there Yeah, well keep in mind. There's 33 feature films It's six blocks and it's about ten twelve dollars and you're paying eighty eight dollars to see all 33 films It's a steal if you ask me And it's upset that you're not gonna find any works.

It's not like oh if I wait a couple of months I can watch this on that's not so fast my friend Yeah, and we program the same time ever single year right in the middle hot summer Just you know what better way to come inside in the in the near and we talked about it in the at the beginning of the show how You guys program it perfectly because you don't have to worry about competing with anything else and you can get people that come see quality film Without worrying about that. I think also the film festival community and Dallas they I'll communicate with each other and everyone wants to work together and want each Film festival to do well. So there's there's a lot of that too Absolutely You know and a big part of it, too, is also for us because we have filmmakers who come from all around the world and you know and In a way we want them to kind of enjoy or to experience the heat of Texas if you will right and on you know It's it's one of those things Not necessarily fit the stereotype, but it gives the people that have never actually been the Texas or Dallas in general Just opportunity kind of explore But it's not a stereotype and we were talking a lot in an early in the show.

I just got back from vacation I'm from South Florida, so I went home for mine when the high school reunion and which one that one and Explaining to people in South Florida like yes, this is hot, but you don't know hot This stuff that makes the trees brew the oh the breeze no no, we don't have that But if we do it's like somebody's constantly following you around with a hairdryer like it's just a different kind of hot And you just take I think I can extract I can describe it to you But you could come out and experience it but don't yeah come visit November One of the cooler summers Well, what was it the other night like I was such a thought was I remember what night it was, but I walked outside And I was like did I sleep through three months? I think it was like the last Tuesday or Wednesday It was a gorgeous night outside. I was like this doesn't happen into You know But there's just so much going on and you it's not like it's like just come here and watch movies You guys have other stuff going on too.

You've got the celebrations. You've got the gallows You've got people like you said you've got the street vendors that are here serving food It's such a cool environment Yep, and lots of tools we also try to get filmmakers involved to do like panels and things out in nature You know, we try to do incorporate education to some ways as well too I mean last year we had a panel on just kind of how movies can make and you know I think a lot of people who attend to some festivals They're also interested in how movies are made and you know if we can kind of help enlighten that And I love the the access that the people can get now to the process like You know the barriers are being taken down years and years and years and years It seemed like this really tight little circle that you had to kind of work through way into But now things are so accessible and people can you know Start really starting with laser disc or DVD where you could go in like Robert Rodriguez does the anatomy of a scene Well, I'll take a scene from one of his films and just break it down Oh, it's film school. It's a film school.

It's gonna be able to see these kind of things I think it's really awesome because it's giving us such better quality of film and you're seeing people That maybe wouldn't get exposure otherwise You can see somebody at this festival that A few years down the road you're gonna be seeing Directing big budget Films that they got their start here and it's just awesome and anybody can be a filmmaker if they've got the desire to because the tools are so accessible I phone you can direct the film exactly you see that commercial all the time shot on an iPhone and you're like that was shot on an iPhone And you know for me I I work in the in the street and I I You know and for me Getting involved with the film festival in recent years and things like that. I've really learned quite a bit You know, I wasn't I'm not gonna lie. I wasn't really really big into Asian cinema But it really has in a line to be an open to my eyes because Filmmaking in general in terms of the business is becomes such a International thing you know movies had to perform well not just in the United States now they had to perform well outside In particular China because that's one of the largest emerging markets right now fortunately or unfortunately fortunately and and it gives people another venue or another outlet To to make revenue and things like that and get another audience out there and you know and Having a different perspective in how cinema is made.

I think it makes everyone a better filmmaker If you are exposed to that and what better way to do that than add a film festival We'll look at the mainstream filmmakers that have been influenced by Asian filmmakers. Yeah, I mean waiting to guarantee no number One of the matrix still don't happen without and if you if you really want to go down the rabbit hole star wars doesn't happen Yeah, of course I was I'm about Kurosawa influencing Lucas. I mean it's everywhere You don't know holds up by the wind Yep, let's go off the beaten path a little bit Beat it.

Oh, we have it. Oh, no, we're gonna get we're gonna real all the beaten path. Oh God.

It is summer time a lot going on from a film standpoint What give me the movie your most outside of the festival the movie you're most looking forward to right now Oh, man ladies first on this one I won't I will defer Oh, okay, gosh, okay, I was just telling okay, I have to admit this on air, but I was just telling Frankie that I haven't even watched Game of Thrones at all or just this season. Oh my gosh, they're about to kill me no at all Okay, so we won't leave right now Go home, okay For the reason that I have an addictive kind of personality and I'm so busy that I know if I once I start watching it But see in this day, age you can take it with you wherever you go. Yeah, baby, I'll go you watch it Whatever you're gonna sleep or eat But see once you get caught up then you're fine.

Oh, because this season season season six Has been some of the best produced television. I have watched in years. I keep hearing that It's absolutely true, especially I'm in PR season six has absolutely melted my brain to the point where Monday morning at work we gather and we talk about it for like 10 minutes in the beginning of the day because it's just Some of the I mean, I'm a big fan of the wire.

I think the wire is one of the greatest series in the history of television HBO just gets it yeah, and Game of Thrones this year alone is it There's a reason that got 23 immunizations this week. It's just great storage. Yeah, yeah, the end of the day, right?

It's it's just Yeah, it's just and I like how there's that there's a finality to it. They have said we only have 13 hours of television left to tell and that's it Yeah, because they've almost caught up to the books because if you don't know how the books work That's what I have to watch. Well each book each book is the entire story But each book is the entire story told from a different family's point of view so there's certain details in Song of Ice and Fire that are not in a Game of Thrones So no game of Thrones is a Song of Ice and I thought there was two different books.

No a Song of Ice and Fire is actually the name of the entire series Oh, is it okay? Feast of Croes and okay, but a Game of Thrones is one of the books right right So they're almost caught up to the books now. Oh, okay, so they're now at the point where they've kind of got a little bit more artistic freedom And I think you saw that a lot this season.

Mm-hmm. All right, well, you're not getting away without this. Oh, man I don't know I I always look forward to the word season and kind of seeing what comes out Which were what two months away from from the big push isn't that crazy like how the years already gone by so quickly You know, I mean And this year's gonna finish Oh, it definitely is you know Is there anything out there that you've seen this year outside of the festival that's really kind of knocked your socks off?

Man, that's a good question because I like talking about this to be about that run the festival Because these are the people who you can really talk film with Certainly, um well if not there's something I watched recently and I forget how great of a movie it was it was the big short Oh, oh, I have not seen that Really is fantastic movie and it really it's really close to home I mean they talk about basically the the all eight crash and he's exactly how it happened But the way the director did it was such a similar K is such a great director and he made it so digestible Yeah, he didn't it you didn't it you didn't like your original Robbie in a bath case. Exactly. Yes The funny thing is I think of anchor man Yeah, yeah exactly How do you go from funny or die this is this Captain and Ty Will Ferris will be prepared about that going in That's why I'm saying you go you know when you go to this off-kilter stuff from funny or die to something this series And it's that well made yeah It just blows my mind and this has been a real oh go ahead go ahead I just saw this Frankie I was on a last floor.

I'm gonna give a cool little fact Adam a K when I'm assuming you're talking about the big short Uh-huh the studios he wanted to do that film with the studios didn't really want him to so he had like They forced him to do a command to and then that was what got him the big short Yeah, that was true. Yeah, that was a little passion project. I still haven't seen all your That was brilliant.

That was brilliant There's this has been a really strong year for film in general. I think there's been some really great stuff out there And when we do our year and wrap up in December We always do our top 10 and bottom 10 films of the year and this has been a really solid year I mean, I'm ready for next weekend because next week in a Star Trek beyond Yeah, and it broke one You just said the two films I'm looking forward to the house looking I'm looking forward to them myself Did you see the footage they showed at celebration? I purposely have not yet you need to Yeah, no, I know.

I know. I well-dop Yeah, there were almost tears streaming down my face in two minutes. Have you ever seen the one sheet?

I seen the one sheet. Absolutely. You have to right this movie Man tears everywhere man.

It says like what are you guys talking about? I'm like, I'm just looking forward to mountain cry at 7 p.m You guys are like, way I had to be Suicide Squad and I have my concerns about that. I'm I'm Reserving but speaking of which we only want to give this plug for some friends of ours If you are fans of Animation your fans of DC We're about three weeks away from the release of Batman the killing joke.

Oh good lord Two weeks may not come out. It comes out the week of suicide squad one night only in theaters a week from tomorrow Which is going to be July the 25th They will be showing the killing joke. Fathom events is showing the killing joke in a number of theaters around the country It's going to be two showings only 7 and 10 30.

It's also going to be accompanied by two never before seeing featureettes And there are two theaters in the Dallas Fort Worth area that will be showing it So make sure you check out phathom events.com We know some of the people that are involved in promoting it So we want to make sure we're helping them promote that. I am very much looking forward to this I have not not been this excited about a DC animated film since the Dark Knight Returns and it's But you want to look it up an hour 14. It is not very long It is not very long but you know the book was like the size of a magazine It was like a one issue deal, but yeah, I mean and do I think it's all suspicious that it hits DVD three days before suicide squad hits theaters I'm not saying it's coincidence and I'm not saying it's not coincidence But we want to make sure we plug that as well because we've got a lot going on between now and then From between now and Thursday because the festival runs through Thursday night Yeah, yeah, I segue that first day.

I think I've done this before. That was a very spelled segue What's the one thing you're looking for between now and the end of the festival? Just surviving Friday morning I mean, you know obviously a lot of us you know most all of us really were all volunteers at the day We still have our jobs and things like that You know, so it's is trying to balance between all that You know, I personally Was at work this morning six a.m.

got to do some filming of some interesting things And then off to Up to next job on Wednesday. So unfortunately won't be able to make closing night party But you know You got David and you got three see you got everybody else. Well Theresa be representing man.

Oh, yes So my role is the public relations and parties So I You're official time. Well, no. I had that on business cards Public relations row parties.

She throw is one heck of a party A Dom was installing the greatness of the parties you guys have been throwing. I'm not going to lie to you I thought that was a good party, but I've done better. I'll be there first.

Oh I trust me. I'll be there again this. Wow.

I'll be there Thursday But it took both you guys. But you can't mess up with with free food and preaching Yeah, everyone's happy But I want to tip all the guys. I want to thank you guys for having us this year No, no, I'm so excited.

We are having a great time. We really are And we love doing these. Okay.

I am looking forward to the director and producer From Japan who are coming here from to for their film the sky blue symphony And that's an interesting film that screens on Tuesday at 3.30 p.m And it's it's about students in Japan who are South Korean But are under their impression that they are North Koreans For fundraising. Oh wow. Yeah, and that shows right before the next showing a bit coin highs too So you can watch those back to back See the whole thing about all that too I see that was able to look at it without what you know I'm gonna just like how did you know that actually?

Yeah, but the great thing about that you know talking going back to the the filmmaker coming from Japan You know They come here. I don't speak Japanese none of us speak Japanese But yet you still have this common language and that is obviously the power of film as That you can mention you know the word can and or Nikon or or a certain specific camera And as a language that everyone will understand and then you have that comment around right there They already have that and you know what I want to ask about that because there's something that I'm very curious about From a translating standpoint. Do you bring are there people that are local volunteers?

Do they bring their own translators? How does that work because Especially when you deal with with China alone there's so many different dialects that you have to make sure you do have the right Translator. I've seen it done It's been done both ways and that's a challenging part of my job and what and also it's what makes this film festival You need than any other film festival because we're not just all in English So our our films are isn't all but one film in the festival is subtitle It's Asian and Asian American films so some of them are all in English, but what I meant by that was like We have mainstream media, but we also have Korean and Chinese and Vietnamese and Japan Japanese publications that come through so that that makes my job more challenging like in this instance We had a misunderstanding we thought the Producer the producer and director only spoke Japanese, but they actually speak Korean so then we were We were trying to seek out a Japanese interpreter and sometimes they they've had come come with an interpreter Sometimes it's like their assistant or it's their friend that tags along or significant other The actor can speak English and Japanese and then the director's Japanese and it's always a trip to see that a little bit because last year We had a movie here called soul searching and it was a gentleman that was from Spain, but he was but he was Korean so it's interesting to see a Korean man with the Spanish accent It was a trip So at because earlier you guys were talking about food and one of the last year Frankie and I took the filmmakers out to eat a lot and there's like four things that everyone wants to try here in Dallas Okay barbeque Of course Mexican because those for me that don't know those are two different versions of food but guess guess the fourth one Cool, I don't even know this what what is the fourth one goodness a lot of right there Because what a burger's great.

I feel bad for people I thought you were gonna say like a high-end steak house I was thinking like Mongolian barbeque No, I'm a big fan I'm a big fan. I'm a big fan. But that's not a thing all over the country I would have thought steak house I wouldn't have thought that but you know obviously we're on native Texans or waterbird We just don't think about that like kind of kind of how if you go to California They're not gonna think in and out No, that's true.

Yeah, all right, so but we're gonna go let you guys go enjoy the festival But throughout the clubs one more time give us websites give us all the social media real quick Asian film Dallas.com for all the films and also where are the parties are held And Asian film Dallas for Facebook and Instagram Yep, and then none of this obviously is as possible without any of our sponsors So big shout out to all of them and yeah, we're here till the 21st and Hope to see everybody at the closing in party. Thank you party at foundation room at the House of Blue 9 p.m. and No cover No R3P necessary everyone's welcome to speed 21 in up show party.

Yes, I think you guys so much for Thank you Whoo I need to take a sip of my tasty beverage real quick Smart water time making me want that's vodka. I'm just saying I will neither confirm nor deny Thank you. Thank you Theresa.

Dev's back with us. I don't know is Donna you sitting down and you're not sitting now. Let's go and on brother Oh, we're gonna finish up with it.

Okay, perfect Dev's back with the Deft Shapiro's C-Lig film dot com if I'm correct. Is that the right? C-Lig film news dot com I knew something something You guys again some of the busiest people in show business some of the hardest working people in show business and what's really cool And we talk about this.

I know we talk about this ad nauseam, but I don't think you can ever talk about it enough The entertainment press scene in Dallas You know we came into the seal we've been doing this this part of it almost it'll be three years next month Just three years it seems longer the three if we celebrate our third anniversary of actually doing the review part of this next month Actually being considered quote unquote press But I never felt like I was ever on the outside of something the press core here is very welcoming and we all work together really well You know we're not Los Angeles. We're not Chicago. We're not New York.

We want to be no and you know the film press As a whole has changed over the last five years. I mean, I could tell you at the red carpet at the Dallas International Film Festival five years ago It's totally different from what it is this year A lot of people have common go a lot of people like you guys have popped up So I mean just the way the journalism works period and how people did You know how people get their news and the reviews is totally different. I mean if you notice Like for instance the Dallas morning news and everyone reads the Dallas morning news.

You might have one or two reviews by Chris Vaughan or rubber wants keys The rest of the reviews are all wire service whether be tributin or UPI or In back in the day that was how you got it Friday you go get the guide and that was how you got your review Yes, right and each new major newspaper had a review guy But now They really don't Because It's it's such a double-edged sword Because you get you get some people that might not otherwise get the opportunity But you also get the people where you're kind of like a man you're sharpened that a little bit But this group of people that we've met Everybody from you guys to that nerd show to What was the name of lady we like what what the heck did she say? Yeah, what do you know? Yeah Everybody is so cool with each other and we have such a great given take and then that's one of the things that Really kind of keeps me motivated to say you know what I get to go see everybody tonight because we're gonna go watch a movie You know everyone has their own Each everyone has their own little market.

I mean like friends it's silly film news.com We kind of Go towards the independent film. We go towards the international film the Indian cinema is rarely cinema or Asian cinema No, we also two concentrate on industry news and Classic film Well you have somebody you know L.C. will concentrate on Fantasy films or science fiction films or the fanboy stuff and then you'd like to get some I like Vanessa little who Is what the hell she said that come she covers you know the Latino on the Latin America great yeah So everyone has their expertise and I think that's what really works great.

You gotta find What's your little expertise is what you like and then it all fits together and you know there's enough interviews to go around I mean really how I How I do like a film you may not like it so and so forth. It's like you know the late great Gary Murray He hated almost everything My favorite memories of Gary God was one of the very first time. I messed it.

I met him. We were having dinner and the hobbit came up And I remember him saying something about the effects not looking realistic enough And I'm like dude, it's middle-earth But but Gary had that charm about him. Yeah, you know and and one thing I want to say about like Gary It Chris They are not friends of the show.

They are forever friends of the show. Oh, absolutely. I think they deserve Call forever friends.

I mean there you know this thing God restors us all. It's such a family affair this thing That you know I love it when I'm out somewhere and I you know we go we go do a stage review show and we see God there yeah, or we're out somewhere and we see John Strange who's standing right over there He's out there doing some of the best picture taken you'll see or you know and the fact that we can all sit down And we can discuss these things like how often are we find ourselves just standing outside of the theater Just talking about what we just saw versus oh well just read his review later. You know I think it's love I think the brotherhood that we have here the I mean we're all friends behind the scenes absolutely you know people don't you know realize that so I really like it.

I mean but the film you know the film blog whatever film review film news industry is really changed It's gonna continue to change for the next seeable future and online media has revolutionized everything And I and if you're not on board with online media get there because it is literally the way You are you are already too late. Yeah, yeah, I will agree with that. I mean you're already too late and You know online media is gonna has really changed what we're doing.

I mean take take the latest Last 10 big news events has happened. I mean Facebook live has really take it all over and you know There's not a question about you know how much should we share? We're oversharing are we Undersharing I mean there's a lot of stuff on Facebook live and Instagram that I see that I would I would never ever think I would see and it's so instant I mean you think one of the things I always I'd like to go back to is the miracle on ice You think about when that happened We didn't see it in this country for the better part of 12 hours because it was in a different time zone when it was live Nowadays you can't do that.

I mean the Olympics are gonna be on a one hour delay and I don't even know if that's a smart thing to do Because Rio is one hour ahead of East Coast time. Yeah, they got so good Last Olympics like a Monday because they're getting the results even before they want it They're gonna show it on prime and you almost late you almost can't do that anymore and expect to have ratings now With the Olympics it's a little bit of a different ballgame because people would more want to see how it happens They they might know the result but they want to see it actually happen but It's still kind of a dicey proposition. Yeah, yeah, let me ask you this.

I think we're You're all the same age, you know What do you guys I was discussing this with someone the other day? Do you think the Olympics has lost their luster? Absolutely because I remember when I was a kid You would have big donnels that were sponsoring you.

Mm-hmm. You would have the United States pulse service issue me out stamps Hey, but great great. Why stop walking by us right now?

It's another much So you so you would have So so you would have you know you would have McDonald's so be a big sponsor Well, you've ever in 92 you actually had it was like a paper view thing you had the red feed the white feed and the blue feed Which you could either watch paper view or they had 900 numbers that you could call into for instant So we put this perspective on this it's kind of like It's like the Super Bowl halftime show it used to be up with people stuff like that the marching bands now. It's a big pizzazz Money things sponsorship all this other stuff, but I think but now what the Olympics is the same thing. It's worth I think they got so but Deb saying it's the other way and I agree with them I don't think it's bothered because I mean I don't know as a child the United States pulse service would issue out Sheets of stamps.

Absolutely And you know my dad and our stamp collectors and really the only people are issuing out Olympic stamps is the state of Israel And a few African countries no one issues out a little big stamps Who who who do you see like If it's not NBC advertising the Olympics, I'm not seeing it. Yeah, you know people are not talking about I think they are it's about everything that's surrounding the Olympics and not the Olympics themselves I think it's I think it's sad it's lost this last time. I remember as a child And we're what 18 days from opening ceremonies.

Yeah, I remember as a child going to the front and opening up at the Alse morning news the front of the newspaper was the metal count And it's really exciting and I would cut that out take it out to school to a book report Listen, I just think that because There's so much entertainment out there to entertainment choices out there. I think people have lost interest in a lot of it And it's so much more portable now Yes, you think it's because of the frequency maybe then now it's every two years instead of every four I think part of the problem is this year specifically is everything around it. Yeah, the real itself has been getting such a black guy Absolute disaster for them and they're not ready for this you've got major athletes that are not even going now One thing I'll say and it was one of the golfers.

I want to say it's Beath and is it's speeder today that said he's also he's also not only is he not going to the Olympics He's not going to play in the PGA tournament that's same weekend So that he can say you know what I can't this is what's fair to me. Yeah, I'm not going to play in the But I'm also not going to play in the PGA that same weekend Which I was like, you know, I want to say it was just in day and I was like, you know what I respect that Yeah, but but again It's taking away from what the Olympics is and it's it's a sad thing because you're right when we were kids That was like the thing Maxwell has coffee had a big thing I mean it was everywhere Coca Cola because they were tied in with me Donald Levi's was all the official apparel in 84 Exactly, and you just don't have that. I think people have lost interest and I think it's combination of Sponsorship dodge but I thought so too.

It's a combination of there's just so much entertainment choices out there You know accessibility. I think it's all about accessibility. I mean we live in an instant society I mean, but let me let me pay the devil's advocate for it And I think the Olympics is an amazing example and I'm glad you brought it up But you look at the men's world cup two years ago In my office building, we have a little cafe in the lobby and they have two flat screens in the cafe If the US was playing in that tournament, you couldn't find anybody at an office.

They were all downstairs So I think it's as much about of what's going on in the Olympics as it is about the accessibility there in I think also to soccer It's still seen as a foreign sport here in the United States You know soccer seen as a But I think it's doing better than it's done in years yeah But it's still seen as a Latin America so it gets that foreign Appeal to it agreed and I think that people like to Jump on the barren wagon of anything that's foreign these days which but by that same token you would also you would do would think that the The Olympics would have it's just even London in 12 I was excited yeah Rio I'm just like okay It's a thing and I and I think it's because of the circus that's around it that it's just making me like this is going to be a disaster Yeah, well, and we don't have that We don't have that story to cling to From a U.S. perspective. I guess going into it usually in in most cases it doesn't normally you have to cut You kind of have to wait for it to start before you have a reason to get excited Unfortunate I agree with you 100% because I think what we've been lacking over the last 16 years here in the United States is that story for that thing Yes, that's what I'm talking about I'm gonna get into this really quickly and if it's getting too political or to you know Just tell me to shut up, but you know, I will say this the Gulf War, you know that President Bush, too, you know goddess into you know To me I'm a very patriotic guy and stuff but to me I feel like there was nothing that you can cling on to because I remember as a kid We were cleaning on to Gerald Norman Schwartzkoff's right Norman, you know We all sat up and watched Norman Schwartzkoff on on the news and he gave his great great press conference and stuff and You know the last kind of conflicts that U.S.

have been in there's been no Nothing to cling on to no heroes, you know, we don't know the general so I think this is an American thing is We don't have anybody to cling on to and even like somebody like Michael Phelps Who's even doing like he's only Go competing in events that he feels that he can meddle in You don't like he said you don't have that story you don't have no background thing going on And with Michael Phelps and wasn't really a story until he got into trouble then right then that's when people go on Oh, he's the bad boy of the Swimming League and stuff so I think we need heroes I think we need the story and I think we need also to as a country you need a rally around our own people be athletics or Politics or not so I hope the Olympics does well, but I think the whole you know You know, it seems like none of these cities anymore are ready for the Olympics the women's the U.S. women's gymnastics team or what they have to pay to get this and what they the mutt what the city has to put down Economically I don't know you start what's going on Oh, yeah, I mean Yeah, I believe in it that and we'll leave it at that because we we're actually getting ready to wrap up because it's it Because the movies are about to start people are getting ready to watch some of this And the great movies here Do you want to run down really quickly what's coming up? Yeah, tonight, please let me talk about it.

I got a look at this We're about to start the centerpiece film for mountain cry Excellent and don's getting ready to go see that Strayer's Chronicle coming up a half an hour after that nine 15 being part two of it's act on Titan If you're big into that franchise and Santa Clock will be the late night shorts tomorrow afternoon 130 will be the documentary Shorts So and this is a great line up and you've got some great the part of the party's enter coming up tonight the centerpiece Reception it's six forty five which is going on right now A lot of people are here for that and then Thursday night the closing night party What shall be there? Which they've scheduled from nine to midnight. I'll be in house a blues Theresa always throws a classy.

Oh, she does very classy woman and and Deb Deb, I want to thank you for so much sir Forget the state the little you know, let's say and hate go for this thing and and it's this is gonna be yearly think for us and You really helped us get into this Appreciate this is a really classy top-notch film festival. They do great great programming Great events and they treat everyone equally and that's what I love about what we want to think Theresa We want to think David we want to think and everybody Frankie the whole thing and the communities So let's let's all right. We're gonna do the part and get out here.

Let's do it all right. Let me get back to the music that I need there We go Visit our website www dot the clubhouse podcast.com find out everything you need to know and some stuff you don't Remember that our Facebook and our Instagram are the same handle. It is the clubhouse podcast Use all three of those words together You're gonna get something completely different.

You can follow us on Twitter and clubhouse show You can follow me on both Twitter and Instagram I am at yes that Rob Irvin that is spelled ER VIN I'm at chat and PG-6 nine on Twitter. I'm at fondango and you can email me at dawn at the clubhouse podcast dot com email dawn for information on how we can come do for you what we've done tonight How a great time here at the angelic we want to thank everybody at the angelica for being so accommodating to us as well You can email me if you'd like Questions comments concerns tell me to go pound sand I'm Robert the clubhouse podcast dot com. I have chat at the clubhouse podcast dot com show a parker is on Pinterest because we are more obligated to say that and Joe's mom can join some of the nice food here at the Agent film festival of Dallas next week.

We'll be back to ab normal seven Eastern for Pacific as we get you ready for WWE battleground Thank you so much for joining us make sure you subscribe on iTunes so you can get even the stuff we don't do on the live show So until next time for Chad for Don for the Empire I'm Rob clubhouse's closed and I'm still upset that there was no Britney Palmer During UFC 200 UFC you should be ashamed of yourself