Live From The USA Film Festival 2018

It is 701 on the East Coast.
It is 401 on the West Coast.
It is the 27th of April in the year of our Lord 2018.
Season eight, episode 35, 438 times.
This voice has welcomed you to the Clubhouse podcast.
Welcome.
It's not Sunday though.
It's Friday.
It's that time of year where things go in kind of nuts for us on this schedule.
And we're going to explain what's going on and where we are in just a few minutes.
Welcome.
My name is Rob.
I am the executive producer of the Clubhouse podcast.
And boy, this voice sounds a little bit better than it did 24 hours ago.
If you go back and listen to our new iTunes exclusives, you'll know what I'm talking about.
Sorry we didn't do a show Sunday night.
The voice thing is because my allergies waged war on the me last weekend and one.
So we're starting to get back to abnormal now and we're going to talk.
We got a lot going on over the next four weeks and we're going to be talking about it.
Sitting next to me, she's usually across from me.
But he's to my right because we are on location is my co-host.
And a man who we were going to try to get something to eat beforehand.
But you know what?
We're going to do it later.
He is Chad.
Welcome.
I am good with that.
That's perfectly fine.
We are actually at the Angelica Film Center in Mockingbird Station.
One of our favorite places to do live remote shows from.
Absolutely.
One of our favorite places to see a movie.
But this weekend is the USA Film Festival.
This is our third year in a row covering the thing.
I believe so, yes.
I mean, I went to public school so I don't know if the math is going to work out.
I'll get there, dude.
The dude acts like we've never done this before.
We've done this over 800 times.
He's one of the hug you need a valiant lord.
Sitting across from Chad, here at the Angelica Film.
Back checker of this show.
And a man that needs no more mountain dew today.
Thank you.
You may know him as fond on go,
but his mama named him Don Ford.
I'm going to call him Don Ford.
What's going on, sir?
I got more Gatorade.
You got a lot of volume to there.
In Gatorade, yeah.
Gatorade is kind of electrolytes.
It plants great.
I know.
Okay, we're at a festival.
You know what I do at a festival.
Yeah, you do, you do.
Okay, bye-bye.
All right, see you all later.
We've got a couple of things we've got to talk about real quick
before we get into the swing of things.
We always start every show with corrections and updates.
And I've got a couple from our show a couple of weeks ago.
Remember we were talking about this collaboration album
with Shaggy and Sting?
Yes.
I found out what the title means.
Thank God.
The title is 44-8-7-8-76.
And those are the country codes
if you have to call the UK or Jamaica.
Okay.
That's what that means.
Since then, okay.
Dave was the one who told me the story
about his two workers,
extolling the greatness of the commuter.
And he almost kind of threw up in his mouth a little bit.
I couldn't remember who it was.
It was Dave.
Okay.
And Joey Slotnik.
Remember we said we had a Joey Slotnik signing?
Yes.
He's been working steadily,
but just nothing I've really looked to.
Okay, so that's my fault.
But I'm still a big fan of the Joey Slotnik.
I think he's very underrated actor.
We are here at the USA Film Festival.
Our third year being here at the festival
we're excited to be with you for the next couple of hours.
We had to rush through the intro
because we've already got a guest.
Don is already doing work,
sitting across from me as they were at the Angelica.
So if you know, if you know the Angelica,
we're upstairs right across from the red carpet.
I'm facing out looking at the Gary Murray Memorial Walking Bridge
and we're calling it that.
I don't care what anybody else called it.
But sir, I'm going to turn your microphone on
and I'm going to let you introduce yourself.
Hi, my name is Andrew Tkach.
And I'm the director of one of the films at the festival.
It's called Hunger for Truth.
And it'll be on tomorrow at 9.30.
Tomorrow at 9.30 you said it's about an hour long, correct?
Yeah, it's a 50 minute film.
All right, tell us about the film.
So it's basically about a reporter named Rhea Kleinman
who was the first reporter from the West
that covered the Arctic slave camps in the Soviet Union
and the famine in Ukraine during collectivization.
And basically was ejected for her truth telling.
And it makes a comparison, obviously,
what's going on today in terms of the campaign of this information.
It's very relevant for that reason.
And it really examines the role of journalism
and a reporter in uncovering uncomfortable, unknown truths.
So documentary versus narrative, correct?
It's definitely documented.
Because I want to make sure that we get everything out there
in the right frame of mind if you.
What brought you to this particular subject?
Well, I've been covering Ukraine
since the revolution started and I've been working
in documentary filmmaking for about 25 years.
And I reported on the Maidan revolution.
The first film there was called Generation Maidan
done with a group of young Ukrainian filmmakers.
And that was very much in the sort of present tense
as the revolution was happening.
Wow.
And then subsequent to that,
a foundation in Canada contacted me
and saying, do you want to compete
for a grant we have to do a historical film on this reporter
that has never been known before.
Her name is Ria Klineman and her writing was rediscovered
where she was sort of the uncensored voice
of the early 30s in the Soviet Union.
And they asked me, I said, take a look at it
and do you want to write a script to compete
for basically for the grant?
Oh, wow.
And my initial reaction was,
I mean, I've only done documentaries
in the present tense up to that point.
But when I read her work, I thought it was
a very unique, captivating voice.
It's unusual to have a woman
who went there probably for ideological reasons.
She was a leftist herself.
Very quickly, because she was outside the bubble,
she worked as a freelancer,
she learned a local language,
quickly saw the reality on the ground.
And the first one was really started to pull back the veil
of what was going on in the Soviet Union in the early 30s.
And as a result, she was expelled.
So combining her sort of narrative,
the whole film is told in her own words.
It's all quotations from her work.
I was also able to have access to the KGB files in Ukraine
because they've been totally opened up
since the success of the Maidan revolution.
So all the photographs from that era,
were animated in a very kind of high-tech way.
So it's visually engaging style.
So it's her voice and what we uncovered
from the KGB archives from that period.
You mentioned you were used to
doing documentaries in the present
and this being in the past.
Can you talk a little bit about
the comparing and contrasting those two styles?
What kind of struggles did you face
going through something in the past
versus something that's happening in the present?
Well, the present, let's say in terms of Maidan,
it's in a sense easier
because things are happening in front of you
but it's much more dangerous.
I mean, people were killed and many reporters included.
The cameraman I was working with was actually shot
during the protest.
So I wasn't there at the time
because I teamed up with them later.
But they had footage of the first deaths on Maidan
and then he was actually in the clinic
that they had set up in the hotel there
and was able to film it because he himself was shot.
And just lightly injured in the shoulder
and he got up and started filming.
So you have that immediacy
that comes out of price, the price being danger
but it's also much easier in terms of
a storytelling, you know, fashion.
So when you're dealing with the past tense
you have to create a narrative that is just as engaging.
I don't believe in lecturing.
So there's no narration, you know,
it's all her own words, subtitles,
give you some context, music.
But you have to create a storyline
that is just as engaging as a present tense storyline.
But and that's, you know,
hopefully what we succeeded in doing, you know.
How many times have you been able to show the film?
It's been shown in Ukraine,
principally, it was on, you know,
during their national day of remembrance,
it was the featured dog.
And we had one, you know, big public presentation
but this is going to be the first time
it's shown to the public in English.
Oh wow, that's amazing.
Yeah.
So I'm assuming there will be some Q&A afterwards
tomorrow night with you.
Yeah, so I mean, I'm encouraging that, you know,
I think that the format, you know,
depends on how long we can, you know,
stay because it's going to be part of a showcase of short films.
But the other films must not be very long
because this one is 50 minutes
and the total is 75 minutes.
So yes, I'm more than happy
to answer questions afterwards.
So I'm sure they'll have all of the filmmakers together
in the front, but it's one thing that the Angelica
here's really, really good with
is making sure that the filmmakers,
especially for festivals,
have that time with the audience.
Having shown it before,
have you gotten any previous questions
that took completely took you by surprise?
Well, it's quite different when you're showing a film in Ukraine.
As I'm sure, you know, culturally.
Yes, and actually it was shown in the parliament too.
Oh, wow.
Ukrainian parliament, yes, that was invited to come and show it.
So in Ukraine, you know,
it becomes very much a kind of a debate between historians.
Like how many people died?
Was it three and a half million?
Was it six million?
You know, who was responsible?
What were, you know, like very much like
the historical fine print of what happened during that era,
you know, and I don't think that
is really the point of a film like this.
You know, I mean, there are scholars who write,
you know, work and do research and do the archives.
For me, it's much more,
it's a broader subject.
I mean, it's also capturing, you know,
Ray Aquaman was a real life person,
a Canadian, actually, who, you know,
risked everything to tell the truth.
She went against the grain, you know,
very much like in the early 30s,
most reporters, you know,
they didn't want to rock the boat for two reasons.
First of all, a lot of them were leftist.
Second of all, because if you told the truth,
you got your visa pulled, you know?
So even, you know, so it was kind of like
you had this dance with the regime.
And she was the first one that went in there
just basically called the truth and was ejected as a result.
And was, you know, had to
did a surreptitious journey from Moscow all the way to Georgia
at the height of the famine, right?
And was only arrested and kicked out, you know,
in Georgia, a month later,
and was able to write about it because she was ejected.
And interestingly enough, afterwards,
then she went and worked in Nazi Germany for five years, you know.
So this is somebody who, you know,
was pretty much fearless when it went against the grain
of like what Pac journalism is all about.
And at the same time, you know,
uncovered one of the, you know,
greatest tragedies of history of the 20th century.
Where's the film going from here?
Well, you know, I, you know, I have,
we have planned a opening in Toronto in June.
And then I am in discussions about having a film
opening in London and also in June and maybe in New York.
So, but this will be the first time because, you know,
it was accepted for the festival.
So we were kind of waiting, you know, for a festival to take it
before showing it probably.
All right, well, we're going to make,
give you one more, one more quick question before we let you go.
One thing we founded this show on is shameless self promotion.
Right. So we want to make sure to give websites,
any social media that people can get in contact with you,
anything that they can get for the film.
Yeah, so I mean, there is a Facebook page.
It's called Hunger for Truth.
There's an I am, you know, the page.
There, it's, you know, I can, there is a Vimeo promotional, you know, video.
I think you can, you know, find it that way.
It's, it's funded by the Canada Ukraine foundation.
That's probably another way to find it.
But it's, if you, if you search Hunger for Truth,
you will see all references to it.
There's no other film with that name as of now.
So tomorrow night, 9.30 right here at the Angelica part of one of the shorts blocks.
It is called Hunger for Truth.
Andrew, to catch.
I want to thank you for hanging out with us.
And you're welcome to hang out,
but we got another guest we want to talk to as well.
So I got to push the button over here.
How are you, sir?
How's it going?
Introduce yourself, if you would.
Hey, I'm Clem McIntosh.
I'm a producer actor on Separance.
Is it during the same short block tomorrow night?
No, it's actually during the 730 short block.
Okay, so the one before them.
Yeah, okay.
Producer and actor.
Yes.
So you have to shout out the money and be in it.
That seems like a kind of, it's like, wait a minute, I'm doing double duty here.
Well, yeah, no, I didn't have to, I didn't
shell out the money on this one, but I was in it.
Which, yeah, it's the double duty of producing a low-budget short film
and also acting in a short film.
It is, yeah, it is very hard to keep everything straight.
We'll tell us about it.
Okay, so we actually shot it on my farm in my family as an old farm on Long Island.
The L.I.
Yeah, L.I.
My boss is from Long Island, so I have to do that every time so I'm interested in the L.I.
So you raised his hands, got in the air, the L.I.
And triumphed the L.I.
Yeah, so we shot it out there.
Essentially, it's hard to say too much about it because it's only an
8-minute short film.
So it might take you just as long to talk about the film as the film is.
Yeah, exactly, I don't want to give away too much.
But essentially, it's two characters.
There's a pool boy, played by me, who arrives on his first day on the job.
And he's being shown around by this kind of norma-desmond style character,
a very nice sunset boulevardie vibe to it, as well as horror,
because in the end, all I can really say is that there's a severed head,
there's a live possum in this short, all packed in 8 minutes.
But not each of the exclusive, though.
No, no.
Okay, okay.
There are other things happen too.
How long do I mean, because one of the things we love to talk, especially when it comes to short films,
your films 8 minutes, but how long did it actually take you to shoot it?
That one was a bit of an anomaly that it only took a day to shoot.
Usually you'd want to spend two days on it.
Absolutely.
But we had two cameras, and it does, our film also stars Elizabeth Ashley,
so we wanted to make things very easy on her, so we didn't want to keep her overnight,
and we wanted to make it very simple that she could just walk in and everything's set up,
and she could just do her thing and be fabulous, which she is.
So, yeah, so we shot it all in a day, which, yes, is absurdly short time for what it is.
And people don't understand the work that goes into that.
You're like, oh, it's an 8-minute film, it's like, no, sometimes that takes two or three
full days that you have to do to get 8 minutes worth of footage that you can use.
Yeah, I mean, we shot it, like, I think nearly two years ago, too.
Oh, wow, like, you know, like that's when we shot it, and we actually just finished editing it,
because we work on a lot of other projects as well, we just finished editing it like two days ago,
because there's some complicated visual effects involved with the severed head, not to give away
too much. But, yeah, you're right. I mean, it's the editing process and the coloring, and the
you know, the salmix and all that stuff just takes so long. And, yeah, so it's...
Well, we're going to kind of combine these two interviews, because, you know, you just sat down with
us, stay right where you are. We have another guest, please introduce yourself if you would.
Well, I am Suntaserna from Madrid. I am here introducing and QA with a movie, Spanish movie,
it's called the Freedom of Network of Freedom. That's it. It was in English, in Spanish,
from I've actually been to Madrid, when I was 16, my mom took me there for a business trip that
she was on, was over my birthday, which, beautiful city. Oh, it was a great gift. She goes,
like, hey, you want to go to Madrid? And I was like, hmm, do I want to go to Spain? It's on my
16th birthday? Yes, let's do that. I was beautiful. There's a go. What a beautiful section of the
world. You know, and I hadn't taken Spanish yet. I would take Spanish two months afterwards,
but what a beautiful city, what a beautiful culture. I'm such a fan. Welcome to the festival.
Thank you very much. What brought you here? Well, the festival. They just said, hey, you
get on a plane to come on over. The festival just, you know, I really, you know, had a very good
time with this movie, you know, making it and promoting it, that the people really liked it,
you know, or whatever it's shown. So it's nice to be around people that like something.
Can you tell us about the film? What's it, what it's about? It gives the plot of the film.
Yes, when you say about this courageous woman that in the 1945, saved 2,000 people from
concentration camps among them, the future president of France, Francois Mitterrand,
is like the Shiddler, European Shiddler, and with a woman. So it's a true story, 90% of what is
said in the movie is true story, and you know, it was a, you know, one of a kind, but, you know,
it's, you know, film talks about courage, talks about, you know, how to make good to people,
how to do it better, and you know, it's a very, you know, I think inspiring movie for the people
that see it, and you know, it's positive, you know, and I think, you know, it's a great adventure.
When you do movies, sometimes, you know, you do movies because, I don't know, because, you know,
it's nice to work with a director, or, but you don't like too much the script, or sometimes it's
because, you know, we are shooting in Thailand, or, you know, there is various reasons. But when
everything fits, like, that's the case, you know, they say to me, okay, it's shown in Dallas,
and I say, wow, that's great, I'm gonna go. Is this your first time here?
It's my second time. I was here shooting a movie, actually, a western, with James Crowley,
that now is a location manager here. I hope he's coming. He'd be coming. Yeah, it was a very,
very good experience, also, this one. It wasn't the middle of nowhere. We had the
Tempest of Locusts. Oh, Jesus. It was something extraordinary that gave me a lot of, you know,
good adventures to talk about. But other than that, I hope that I have Saturday and Sunday,
a little bit, you know, less busy to walk around and see the park and see nice things.
Yeah, it's a beautiful weekend, so you picked the right weekend to be here. August, not so much.
Now, beautiful time of year. Talk about, did you, taking on a role like this?
Did you feel any pressure to do anything specific, or did you just kind of go with what you saw?
Well, you know, I think for an actor or an actor, do we have responsibility when he's kind of a
biography of someone? Because, you know, normally, there is the point of view of a director,
or, you know, the producer or the writer, that, you know, they want to do a movie because
certain reasons. But in that case, everything was kind of reunited. I mean, the, you know, was,
was really wanted to talk about this woman, that it was, it was, you know, something that it
has to be told, because, you know, there's a lot of, it happens to be a nun, actually, you know,
what is called a daughter of charity. I think there is some also here, and they do a tremendous
work. I didn't know, you know, I'm not a religious person myself. But, you know, when I, when I get to
know them and see the work that they are doing in silence, and very quiet, you know, and real,
also now, you know, with people that they really needed the most. You know, it's an exemplary thing,
and, you know, and you, and it puts you in the, you know, the thing, well, what I do that, you know,
that I don't have fear, you know, a woman who actually, you know, challenged the old German
empire in France, you know, and, and was creative enough to, you know, to, to work the things around so
that, you know, he saved 2,000 people, which is not bad for, for a nun. He had, she had to fight also
with her own community, you know, was expelled on some of the houses she was living in, and, you know,
and was a, was, but, but, you know, she, she wrote her story without adjectives, you know, like,
matter of fact, like that, in that day that happened, which I think was also very moving for me,
you know, to, to see how someone, you know, doing these heroic things, you can see that, you know,
she didn't want to be a kiddo at all, just, you know, just, she was fighting for this kind of
heroes that just wanted you the right thing. Exactly. American knows about that, huh? A little bit,
little bit. There's a, there's, we like our superheroes as you're probably going to see a ton of
people filing through here tonight for another movie that's playing here at the Angelica. And I,
I love the, when, when, you know, American movies, they do the, the weakness of the actual hero,
you know, and we were looking also for this character to have, you know, to be weak because,
and, you know, and we found like, you know, very powerful character that sometimes she was a little
bit unjust. So I think that was balanced and, you know, it's a, it's a human movie, you know,
it's about humanity, about how we can be good. Have you had the chance to watch it all the way
through yet? Not here with American audiences. So I'm, I'm really thrilled to be here because,
you know, with my movies, I did the 140 movies until now. Oh wow. I did some. And so, you do the
little work here. Well, here I did some. I did the craft. I did a wild orchid with my
keep making work. I did fog on grass also. I did independent movies. You did the craft.
Like with Faruza Balk in the Campbell's craft. Wow. She has a pretty stunning. I have that
on the laser disc, sir. I own that movie on laser disc. I've been over here going through your
body to work on my, my God, when does this woman's rest? You've been a busy woman.
Now I have a foundation in school, you know, talk about it. Talk about it. We want to hear about it.
Well, the foundation is, you know, with all these troubles and, and, you know,
when people that you find, you know, these adventures of making movies in all these different
countries, you, you really see that, you know, it lacks a little bit of ethics in our, in our
environment. And so, you know, I, I did a coat of ethics with, with a group of lawyers in,
back in, in Madrid. And now I'm working also inside the academy. I am, academy of Hollywood. I am in
the, in the executive, executive actors branch, I think it's called. And, and, you know, I'm trying
to also do the coats here and see how, how we can compare it. Because I think it's something that
is universal. We have to really be better about our own decisions and, and to do, you know,
work with, with, you know, ethical purposes. Because, you know, we are examples for people.
So it has to be something that, you know, and we, we are the outsiders that also reflect
what is, what happens in reality. And we help. I think it's a service that we do also to people
to, to compare with the stories that we are, we are telling them. So I think that, you know,
it has to be a certain degree of responsibility and ethical environment also when you're doing it.
So that's what I've been fighting. And that's what I've been doing. And then, you know, they have
a film school for actors. I thought, you know, back in the 90s that, that was also one of the
reasons why the actors were not involved in the creative process in movies was because there was
no, you know, tuition in that. And that all there, there, you know, the tuition was in theater.
So I did an university course in film acting. And that goes well. And, you know, and we are doing
it now for seven years. And so that's, that's what, you know, trying to do better also.
Oh, we're getting told that we've got to let you go shake hands and kiss babies. But to talk,
when, the film is, again, well, it's about this woman called the name of, the name of the film.
Oh, the name of the network of freedom. And it's airing when? Is it? When is it showing?
Now at seven. Oh, seven o'clock. So they want to get down here. They want to go, because you've
got to go, because you got to introduce a movie. Yes. Thank you so much for sitting down with us.
Well, thank you. All the best you tonight. And we're going to talk to Clem here a little bit
longer, I think too. Thank you so much. Thank you. All right. Clem, so we were talking about severance.
Yeah. When you're acting and you're filming. Yeah. How hard is it to take the producer hat off and
just be there in the moment as you're shooting? Oh, man. That's a good question.
Yeah, there's a point where you actually kind of just have to walk away from it.
But I've found, because I've done a bunch of films now where I've also produced and acted.
I found it's really, it's integral to have somebody on the team who kind of,
you can hand the torch off to on the day so that you're not thinking about catering and all
these things. Because when you're making low-budget short films, you don't usually have the resources
to pay all the people that you normally need to pay. Right. And so a lot of the time it's you know,
you're doing your jack of many trades and you're wearing a lot of different hats and things fall
through the cracks really easily. So yeah, so I've found, yeah, the most important thing is actually
to like just on the day to try to let it go. It's a whole different story when you're also,
when you're directing, producing and acting, which I've done before too. And that's,
that's, yeah, I think it's all, that's all in preparation. It's talking to people that even taking
the producer hat out of it when they're acting and directing. Yeah. I can't even imagine trying to
separate those brains because as you're wearing that director hat of, I better hit my marks because
if I don't, I'm the guy that I test the deal with. Right. And then from the actor's standpoint,
you're like, but I have to put that out of my mind because I have to be in the role so I can
deliver what I would want as the director seeing behind the camera. Right. Yeah. Because I,
yeah, I find also as, as a director, like the key with that, I think is actually like just
in preparation beforehand. Like you go through every single shot with a DP and you make sure you
have people to stand in for you. I mean, that's the ideal situation you got. You know, so then
you just walk into frame when they're when we're actually rolling so you know exactly what the
shot's going to be. Yeah. So was this just kind of a, you said it took you two years to edit because
you had other things going on. Was this more like a kind of a side project you were doing while
you were doing other things or was there a plan for it? Yeah. Do you want to do a narrative or
is the short where it needs to be? Um, I, I did produce a narrative a couple of years ago called
ghost team starring a ghost team. I did ghost team. Yes. I know that film. You've seen ghost
team. You're, you lit up like a Christmas tree over here. Wow. We had some of those filmmakers.
Here. Oh, that's right. They were here when we were downstairs. Oh, really? For either this or
the Dallas International Film Festival, one of the two or maybe it was video fast. Oh,
because maybe Julie Kristeus and I can't remember who, but I remember we had the people that
one part of the team behind it was they were showing a couple of episodes of it here.
Oh, wait, wait. Episodes because it's the feature film. Oh, the feature film. Okay,
because they're okay. There's a web. There was like some web episodes. Okay. That's maybe what I was
going to do. Yeah. Okay. Got you. So yeah. So this was actually shot on my farm as well. Ghost
team was shot on this farm and like I want to go. We just got the forest. We've shot so many things
there over the years. Yeah. Literally and figuratively. Yeah. Yeah. Well, with big pieces of land
like that, you can do so much. I know. Yeah. It could be made to look like 100 different things.
Yeah. It's wonderful. So how are you planning on taking the the short around? Is it how many
times have you shown it before tomorrow night? This is this is it's debut. Oh, really? Wow. Yeah. So
come on out and see it. It's like I'm so excited to actually see it up on a big screen. We
we literally finished like two days ago. Yeah. We finished like two days ago the VFX and
barely got it in under the wire here and yeah. Are you going to be able to sit in there while it's
on or are you just going to have to just take a breather while it's playing? I'll sit I'll sit in on it
for sure. Yeah. I'm thankfully Elizabeth has really I mean the all the post process on this
film. She was she was mainly involved in because I was kind of off to do another things. So
yeah, I have heard a thank for for actually completing this film. She's done a wonderful job with it.
Have you got some plans for it past tomorrow night? Yeah. Well, we're going to
start submitting it around to other festivals and and see how it does with that.
Aside from that, you know, there's a lot of different outlets for short films that are coming
out now. So we'll see, you know, and get it up on Bimeo at some point. I'm sure. Yeah.
You could say you probably don't on this show, but I don't know if it would do you any good. It might
push you backwards. We don't know. But oh, the self deprecation. He's got a PhD in that. I do. I'm
I'm really good at that. Work on that dirt. Because you're not doing any famous. I mean, we've
only been doing this for eight years now. I mean, we kind of have it down. I would think by now.
Yeah. Yeah. It's got a set up here. You got a table. Yeah. You know, it's our own table.
I think every time we've done a remote show, we've done something different. We're just now
experimenting with putting the board under the table. So we don't have this big honking box.
That's a nice six foot table. It's actually working out kind of nice. It's a good gives us a
get there's so much more room for activities that we have now. It's funny that that that took eight
years because nine times at a time. I hear the voices. I just don't see where they're coming from. I've
always said I've never claimed to be a smart man. All right. So as you say as long as you want,
but we got something else we want to talk to you as well. Okay. Greg some recovered shameless
self promotion websites social media. Give it to us. Okay. So social media and whatnot for this
film. We haven't we haven't we haven't even thought of the marketing because we just finished it
about two days ago. But we we did this through a list of this production company,
Dawseg Productions. They have a website. You can also spell that for everybody. D-A-S-E-G-G.
Good. Productions. Dawseg. Dawseg. Yes. Dawseg. Exactly. You don't get that confused.
And yeah, it can be looked up on IMDB. You can also look at yeah, look up Elizabeth Gray on IMDB.
She's with an A or E with an A. Okay. G-R-A-Y. Yeah. Okay. Good. Yeah. And as well as myself.
Client Macintosh. And that's Macintosh not Mac. It's Macintosh. It's Macintosh. Right. But it's
filled Macintosh. Yeah. They changed it when it came over from Scotland. It's like my favorite now
retired NFL player Pat McAfee. He's an MC. Yeah. And people call him McAfee. It's MacAfee. They
just took the A out. That's good to know. I'm not going to mess with you. You're not alone. You're not
alone. That's awesome. You're more than welcome to stick around. I probably actually should get
off. I got a I'm going to actually watch one of these films. Okay. Well tomorrow night during 730
during the short block. It's severance. Yeah. All right. Make sure you're there for anything. I
don't have to show the Q&A. There's also Elizabeth Ashley's going to be there. Awesome. She's actually
come from New York and gracing us with her presence. Cool. She's going to be there for a talkback
and it's going to be wonderful. Awesome. Thank you for being here and good luck tomorrow night.
All right. See you guys. You are listening to the Clubhouse podcast right now. We are live at one
of our favorite places in the world. Well, I mean, it's the world. It's like down the street from
our house. But we were at the Angelica Film Center. One of our favorite places to do live
remotes. It is the USA Film Festival. Third year for us here. And we're about to do our fifth year
for the one we're doing next weekend. Just as a reminder, this is week one of four straight road
trips for us. We're here this weekend. Next weekend is the Dallas International Film Festival.
We're going to be live at the media lounge near the Magnolia for that weekend after that.
For the second year, we get to be judges. We get to be industry judges. I'm going to forget
that on that bad. I thought I had a Garland High School, the real Owl Film Festival. These are a
bunch of high school kids that have a film program at their high school. We're going to be
at their film festival in two weeks, judging their shorts. As we said last year, you know,
we always end the show. We don't judge you outwardly that night. We will be judging you outwardly.
And then the week after that is the Texas High School Musical Awards at Music Hall at Fair Park.
We're getting the final details locked down on that. We're hoping to be there. That's going to be
a long night. We'll be doing one hour before the Texas High School Musical Awards start.
During the show, we'll be in the green room, we're interviewing the winners, and then we'll
sleep for about a day and a half because the next weekend, and plus we've got backlash next weekend.
We've got five shows in four weeks, sir. Don't remind me. That's right. We're about to make
this thing happen. All right. Enough shameless self-promotion because we'll do more of that later.
We have a guest sitting with us. Go ahead and introduce yourself to everybody. You're right
though, Mike. My name is Alexis. You're right up on it. No, no, I'll write up on it closer.
Yes, absolutely. Okay. I'm Alexis Patton.
Directing. I'm directing Angels in disguise. Tomorrow night, experimental shorts.
Correct. Tell us about it. So it is a film in black and white. It is without dialogue,
but it has sound effects and has music. The theme, it's a story about a young woman who
befriends a homeless man. It's sort of about this tentative relationship that they have.
Really? How long is it? It's a five-minute short, so there's a lot packed into a short amount of time.
So is director the only hatch you were here? Actually, I wear every hat. I'm producer, director,
editor, cinematographer, casting director, catering, grip, best girl. Was this a story that you
came up with? It was a story that brought to you. No, it's a story that I came up with. It's based
on the Bible verse, Hebrews chapter 13 verse 2, always entertain strangers for thereby some
of it. It might be angels underwear. Exactly. There's actually been songs written about. News
boys actually have a song called Angels Unaware. Who has it? News boys is the name of the band, okay?
Okay. I sing in a Christian rock band. I'm in ministry, so I know where you're coming from.
Yes. Fantastic. So that's what it's based on, but it's also got elements of magical realism and
fabulous, but it's basically about how when we look at another person, we're really looking at a
mirror of ourselves that we're all part of one, we're all one, and there's really no separation.
All these divides, whether it's sex or race or religion, they're all labels that are artificial
constructs, but we're all part of one whole. It's like that whole concept of it's the same
painting done by different artists. Correct. You know, because there's so many similarities that run
through all of them and when you're right, we need to focus on that more than that which divides
us. Exactly. Talk about when you're doing experimental films like this, does technology make it
easier for you or is it more of a deterrent for you when you're trying to do different things?
So is technology deterrent to telling the story? Not really telling the story, but an experimental
film is not necessarily conventionally ways of storytelling. Right. Is it more beneficial to
shoot it in an old school style or analog style? Or does technology enhance that better for you?
I would think, I would venture to say that with experimental, it's difficult to quantify or
qualify experimental film. I think that this story, I definitely wanted to tell in black and white
because I come from a photography background and cinematography is one of my major focuses.
And so black and white from the photography world is what I used to develop and print all my own
work and sell that work and it's exhibited in gallery. So I'm comfortable in a black and white
world. I saw it when I conceived of the project I saw it in black and white. I think it was an
aesthetic choice. Okay. That's I wanted to experiment with the light and dark because also there's
light and dark in the story. And that black and white contrast works better when you're telling
a story, from what I'm seeing in my head, like this, to have the black and white color almost,
it's going to sound weird to say, but it drains it more than if you shot it in black and white
because that that stark contrast from what I see the story you're trying to tell, it would make
more sense to do it that way. Right. And there is a stark contrast between these two characters,
however, by the end of the film you're wondering, well, who exactly is the angel? Because
that's really their both angels to one another. Is this something that might be part of a bigger
narrative you want to do or do you kind of like it where it sits? And you know, I hadn't really
thought of enlarging it as a narrative. It was based on the fact that it was filmed in my apartment
in Los Angeles and right outside my apartment, there was a dumpster and there were homeless people
in the dumpster. Oh wow. So that's what inspired me. But basically, you never know someone else's
backstory when you meet someone. You don't know what... No, absolutely. And I think that's important
to recognize. There's a magic that comes about when you meet another person. So, are there plans for
the film from here? Is this the first time you've shown it? Actually, it's been shown a number at
a number of different festivals. Okay. And it has won awards. It won the Rising Star award. It won
the best black and white film. The best unspoken film at the International Peace and Film Festival
in January. Oh wow. I won a best female cinematographer award in Barcelona for the film. Our last
guest was from Madrid. So it was like a Spain theme working tonight. Cool. And so it's also shown,
it's showing this week actually in the Black Hills Film Festival in South Dakota as well.
It did the same time go in two different places. Wow. I don't think we've ever had a guest say that
before, that their film was showing in two different places. In multiple, you know, I don't think we
have either. That's the first. Yeah. And I have another film here as well that is a finalist. And if
it wins an award, it will be shown tomorrow as well. Oh wow. And it's a documentary that's also
showing numerous other festivals and has just won an award at the Myrtle Beach International Film
Festival. Wow. So you are busy, busy, busy. I mean, I guess, I mean, the next question I guess
might be kind of moot, but I'm going to ask it anyway. What's up next for you? I'm not sure. It
will probably be another short. I'm not sure if it'll be the other film is a documentary. This is
a narrative. I like both genres. And I'm really excited to tell stories. I'm an actor as well. And I
come from that background of performing. So writing, writing screenplays with female protagonists
is something that I feel strongly about because I think that females don't get the types of
opportunities of well drawn protagonists that male actors sometimes get. Indeed. So as a writer,
but I think we're seeing a big shift in that in the last couple of years. And I really love that
we're getting more of a diverse just people taking leads and telling stories and being more prevalent.
And you know, just we were talking about the superhero genre alone has just blown that wide
open. And I'm hoping it gives more opportunity. We were given the high starting and we got to let
you go. But before you go, shameless self promotion website social media, the whole line go.
My film is Angels in disguise. It's showing here tomorrow at 930 is part of the experimental shorts.
And I'm very excited. All right. Go enjoy the evening. Thank you so much. I like this patent.
Angel in disguise. All right. I got to push the button. Hold on.
Pushing the button. All right. The button has been pushed. Is this who we're talking to right now?
All right. Go ahead and introduce yourself to everybody. Hi. Oh, you're good. I'm not used to my. You
got headphones if you need them. Okay. I'm Dale Dickey. Can you hear me? Oh, absolutely.
It's not great. My name is Dale Dickey. And I'm here for the festival as a juror and screening of a film
Leave No Trace by Debra Granick, which is tonight. Can you tell us about the film? Yes. It starts Ben
Foster and Thomas and hardcore McKenzie from New Zealand. It's Debra Granick's third film down to
the bone and Winter's bone, which I was also in. Winter's bone wasn't that the Jennifer
Lawrence that she was. Did she want to show an Oscar for that? Didn't she? Yeah. No, she was
nominated. She was nominated. Okay. She was nominated for Best Picture. And we won a lot of the film
independent spirit awards. Okay. And I played the mean old Mirab with the chain saw. So most people
run from me when they see me. This is a beautiful story. He's the bad people. All right. I play a lot
of nasty characters, but I'm actually fairly nice in this one. This is based on a true story
from a book author in Portland named Peter Rock called My Abandonment. It's about a father and a
daughter. Yeah. He's a Vietnam that may live off the grid. And it's that's really all I can say
about it. I want people to discover the movie on their own, but it's a gorgeous film. And Debra is
just a brilliant film. And it's screening here at the festival? Yes, it's screening tonight.
Tonight. Oh, okay. So you can get down here if they want to see it tonight. Yeah. But it will be
released. I just don't know when. I know it got picked up by. Oh, I can't remember which company,
but it will probably be released early summer, maybe late spring. Oh, wow. Leave no trace.
And Ben Foster's a terrific character actor. You've seen that. Oh, yeah. Big fan. Yeah. Yeah.
I mean, you've done a few things. You don't sell yourself. I've been around. I mean, there's
a movie show and probably right over my left shoulder that you. I'm using you word something that
led up to it. I usually come out of a trailer with a shotgun and play prisoner's prostitutes
and drug addicts. I mean, I just played a non go figure. I earned man three. I earned man three.
You know, that was a fun one. Hella high water. She was in that. Yes. Which that was a movie that
I'm so glad did what it did because it was one of those movies that it just got the recognition
it deserved and it blew up when it needed to. Yeah. And I was I was so thrilled to be a part of
that. And what's cool is I've gotten to work with Ben Foster again on Leave No Trace. And I
just worked with Chris Pine again on a new miniseries for TNT called one day, Sheldarkin.
So. Chris Pine. Well, all you have to do is get your co-star from the pledge to get back in front
of a camera. Well, that would be nice. But he might be, I don't know if he's retired or not.
He's being wrote. Jack Nicholson's been real cagey about whether or not he's done or not.
But you know what movie? That's a movie. That's a movie. He can. He can pretty much call his own
shots at this point, I think. Yeah. I think he's earned his stripes. He's he's done a couple
things. Couple things. He's got a few skills. He's been okay. Which he says you're also a juror.
I'm here as a juror. I'm judging the short films. So we have spent the past two days,
10 hours a day watching the film. So I'm it's intense. But I'm seeing some wonderful, wonderful.
It's going to be very, very difficult to narrow it down. Am I allowed to ask you anything
that you found particularly interesting or do I have to wait to find out later? I think he got
away. And if I don't ask, he can't tell me. I don't have my list in front of me. But I will say
there's been a tremendous amount of very heavy films this year. Not so many comedies. So
but you know, that's all right. But some terrific filmmaking. So it's I love watching films and
especially during film festivals. It's just such a different vibe. Oh yeah. When you have
everybody coming together and you have a bazillion movies all showing at the same time. And a
sum to CERNA who's also earlier. We have her earlier. She's also a juror. And then Christina
Baku. It's an actress writer, director from LA is also. I don't know if whenever Don Corralju
over here, if he realized that you were involved in Sons of Anarchy, did that ever come up in the
conversation? It did not. But he's going to lose his. That's his probably. We're going to once.
And I got to work with all the guys. It was the last season. And I my wife, a big Sons of Anarchy
fan as well. And so is mine. Yeah. And he did not. How did you not know she worked on Sons of Anarchy?
She worked on Sons of Anarchy. How did you? We were just telling her. How did you not know that?
And my name is Errol. One of my favorite shows. I love my name is Errol. True blood,
just the blood, claws, vice principal. Good Lord. Am I on? Can you hear yourself? I don't know.
First report. I watched S.O.A. from the beginning from week one every week. It's an honor. I appreciate
it. Usually I'm just getting guys on, but I love it. And I've been told for years to get on that show.
No. Father time is not my friend. You can watch other stuff. But for S.O.A., brother, it's on my list.
I promise. But it's an honor. I appreciate so much. I'm very happy to be here. I'm very glad you're
here on a nice weekend, too, which is nice. It's a little cold today, but now it's okay.
I don't complain when it's cold, because I know how it's going to be in August. And last year,
I was actually on my way to this very theater for a screening. And my car read 118. So I'm not
complaining about the cold. I grew up in Tennessee. So I understand humidity and the heat in the summer.
I went L.A. now. Well, especially the temperature swings in Tennessee. You'll be like my five minutes
in a chain. Yeah. Anything that you want to plug while you're here, because we want to make
sure that we get everything out that you need to want to talk about. Well, leave no traces coming
out. I just finished a film that was just aired at Trebekah called Dead Women Walking.
Oh, no, there's a different film I'm thinking about. But yes. And the second season of
Clause comes out next year. Hopefully this summer. I saw commercial for that the other day.
It's a great show. It's based on it's about a. Yeah, it's about a nail salon. Yes. Yeah.
With an underground mafia touch. Oh, we're told that you got to go shake some hands and kiss some
babies. So yeah, I got to go introduce the film. So very nice to meet you guys. Thank you for sitting
down with us. Deliculation, gentlemen. That's us. Thank you. Thank you. I like it when people
name check us. Makes me feel important. Doesn't happen very often. You are listening to the clubhouse
podcast. We are live at the Angelica Film Center. It is the USA Film Festival this weekend.
We are having a blast, sir. We're almost an hour, too.
Already? We are blowing and going tonight.
Want to remind you that we are. This is the first of four live remote shows we're doing in the
next four weeks. So stay with us. We're going to put the the schedule up on the website.
Ladies, you can put your headphones on so you can hear yourselves. All right.
We have two guests joining us right now. And I'm going to let you guys introduce yourselves
because nobody will believe me if I tell them. Get right up on that microphone. Get right
up on it. Hi, Carla Aquia. I'm Tiffany Bartok. And what are you here representing?
We are here with Larger Than Life, the Kevin O'Quant's story. Tell us about it.
Carla is Kevin's sister. And she is a producer on the film. And here's Shandra is also a part of
the film right here. I don't have enough microphones to go around. Okay, okay. I'm Tiffany. I'm
the director of the film. It's a documentary about Kevin and his contributions to the beauty
industry and gay rights activists. He was just the most amazing person ever. What is the film showing?
Seven about Kevin. So we don't we don't have you for very long.
We're going to talk to your okay so you can shake hands and kiss babies. Okay,
what brought you to this project? I mean was it my background's in makeup and I was a makeup
artist in the industry for a long time. And then you know always really admired Kevin and had all
his books. He has a lot of New York Times booksellers. Everybody in the industry is familiar with his
books. And whether or not you're in the makeup industry. And so I thought that it was time to tell
a story. So the next generation can get to know Kevin. Carla when they brought this to you,
what were your thoughts? I was so glad a movie was getting done. I wanted everybody to remember
Kevin because he's been going for almost 17 years now. Yeah. Was it was it how was it to
relive some of that as they were making the documentary? Very difficult. Kevin basically was larger
than Mike. So it's pretty much left a hole in the makeup industry in our family and the small town
in Louisiana that we're from. You know we still feel it because back when we were growing up
there was like maybe one gay bar and you you know you had to kind of in Texas. It was like
something you know you didn't tell people you were gay. You risked being killed and injured. And
because Kevin was very open about it and my dad wasn't very keen on gay people. He's like I
I mean they're gonna you know shun my son or I'm gonna love my son and he chose to love my brother
instead. So he got them involved in P flag and they became district leaders and went to Washington
and talked about gay rights and stuff. So he was really you know he impacted the way gay people
are viewed today. Have you been able to see the film in its entirety yet? Yes. Has it shown before
tonight? Yes. It has. It showed the Hampton Film Festival and Doc NYC in full frame and
a couple of McRodland and Baton Rouge Louisiana won the festival there. So. So you've been able to
see it a couple of times. So do you think that when you watch it on a night like tonight are you able
to settle in a little bit more? Are those nerves still there? Is it easier for you to watch now?
No. It's not. But it's an amazing movie. It's it's very positive you know so even though it breaks
my heart it's it's a good thing because it's everybody can see how much of an impact that he had
on the industry that he was in and even you know when Tiffany started doing this it was 10 years
well 13 years after his death. So this has been a four-year journey. Yeah. Yeah. That's a good man. No,
Chandra worked with him and helped him get his house in upstate New York. I heard. I heard you
were part of helping him find the house such a thing. I don't know. I mean I'm waiting.
Chandra's like sure. Yes. That happened. Okay. Yes. Just roll with it.
Yeah. And it still felt. I mean doesn't it not just feel like it was yesterday. It doesn't feel like
it was 16 17 years. Well just looking around this lobby. I mean you can tell the the people that
are here to see this film and it's just see I mean it's like watching a legacy come through here
and it's it's just awesome that we have people gathered especially at film festivals like this one.
Where's it going to go from here? From here we're actually um you know what we're going to be in
New York for a bit at some LGBTQ festivals. Awesome. Yeah. Yeah. So a weekend and then the summer
we're going to be available. So on July 31st you'll be able to download it and um we're going to
be in LA on July 20th in Chicago and June. Yeah. Don't have a whole lot of time left for you guys
because I want you to get in there so you can introduce me but I got to ask this question and then
I want you to do shameless self promotion. Okay. If you had your brothers. If you had your choice
who would take out this film for distribution? Well the orchard picked it up. Oh okay well there you go. Awesome.
I love the orchard. And we love them too. They've said some of their films. So actually honestly I can't lie
and they are really really great. And they've had some really great like gyms that other people have
by the leaf scene that they've done as well. They are super passionate about the films they take.
Oh absolutely. They feel like they can. Yeah. When they send us links for screeners I'm like yeah
I need me to watch this film. Oh yeah. And they search for your layers. Okay. Before you
got to go shake hands and kiss babies shameless self promotion websites social media give us
all of it. Kevinokwanfilm.com will be up and running this summer and then right now the most
the quickest way to find out where we're going to be next is probably Instagram. So that's um
Instagram and it's Kevinokwan Film. I'm so addicted to Instagram. It's ridiculous. Yeah.
You just got on board that platform. A couple years ago. A couple years. I'm old. I'm not that old.
Larger than life. It's going to be here in just a few minutes but be on the lookout for it at a
film festival near you or even in a theater near you through the greatness of the orchard guys.
Thank you so much for sitting down with this. Thanks for having me. Have a great time tonight.
Thank you so much. Thank you. You are listening to the Clubhouse Podcasts. We're live at the
Angelica Film Center for the USA Film Festival. First of four remote shows we're doing in four
weeks. Next weekend is the Dallas International Film Festival. We're going to be covering that.
We've also got a couple other things coming up with our friends Garman High School for the
Real Owl Film Festival coming up here on the 12th. The week after that we're hoping to get
everything locked down this week coming for the Texas High School Musical Awards. I need to
breathe for a minute. When was the last time we were just this blow go all the time.
I couldn't tell you. Have a seat my friend. Put your earphones on so you can hear yourself.
Someone who's already been mentioned this evening joins us but go ahead and introduce yourself if
you would. Hi, I'm Christina Beck and you are representing. I am on the jury this year. I'm
actually the chairwoman of the jury this year. Somebody else mentioned her earlier if I'm not
mistaken. Am I correct on that sir? Let me see. Oh gosh. Keep talking. Don't just stand there.
We're very prepared actually. Okay. So what do you want to know? Well I mean talk to us about
what's been going on? What have you got coming up? What have you got? Where's? Okay, well um
that hasn't given me much. He circled your name on a piece of paper. So I'm kind of panicking right now.
Okay, don't worry about it. My debut feature screened here at USA a few years back and
I am now in pre-production for my next feature which is set in Marseille, France. So I will be going
there. I'm finally. And yeah, I'm just happy to be back in Dallas. It's this festival is really
beautiful. There's so many great films and I'm honored to be on the jury because to have the
opportunity to look at all this wonderful work is amazing. Dale Dickie mentioned you. She was
sitting here earlier. She said that you guys were on the jury together. You've been spending 10
hour days watching short films. That is correct. Yeah. It's all culminating this weekend.
I asked her I'm going to ask you. You're probably not going to be able to tell me but I'm
going to ask you anyway. Anything that's sticking out for you yet? Well, I really can't say.
I'm very sorry. I can't let the cat out of the bag but it will be let out to actually Sunday,
Sunday evening. Strong bunch? Yeah, absolutely. You know, very interesting tone this year and I
think it speaks to our world. She said the same thing. She said it's a lot more.
Very serious. Yes. Very serious films. Dare I say some that are a little more downbeat and
you know, we were hoping for a comedy or two but not so many. You know, the palette,
the palette cleanser in there somewhere. Yeah, unfortunately, not so much. But
a little more lay-miss than something rotten so to speak. Yeah, we were at press night from lay-miss
earlier this week. So we're still climbing out of that depression. Not the feel good musical.
I'm not. It's not a musical to an opera. I got to stop saying that. That's true. That's true.
Yeah. Well, you know, and again, I think especially in independent film, you know, we're hopefully
giving a visual treat to people in terms of whatever's going on in the world. Sometimes it is
actually reflecting and being a mirror for what's going on and sometimes it is to get some relief,
you know, and that has not been the case with what we've seen so far. But there's been some really
kind of reflects the time that we're in right now. Yeah, exactly. And if there's either a time
that we need those comedies, it's now. I mean, we need to be able to laugh. Summer movie season
kicks off this weekend. Yeah. I mean, next year, I'll probably be in February, it gets earlier.
Anything you're looking forward to that's coming out anytime soon. You know, I'm a big fan of foreign
films. Nothing wrong with that. Yeah. Yeah. So, so there are some films that I think that'll be
coming out of Cannes. That'll be quite interesting. And I live in Los Angeles. So I am, I have seen
some great films that have been released recently. Lynn Ramsey is a filmmaker that I really love
and follow. And she has a film. I saw the poster downstairs. You were never really here.
Excellent film. Yeah. I saw it about three weeks ago. Yeah. That's a great film.
And I've had to tell people, like, when you see it and you think Joaquin Phoenix Action starts,
not quite that. I like the lack of dialogue. It plays out a lot like a graphic novel almost. And
you know, Joaquin, he's the perfect person for that role. Especially and of course, we stay
spoiler free on the show, but the last 10 minutes of that film. Yeah. I was like, oh, what just,
oh, okay. All right. I'm back. You know, it's it was one of those. I kind of had some high hopes
going into it, but it's still surprised me. She is a very visual filmmaker too in terms of her
direction. You know, she actually started out as a cinematographer. And I don't know if you've
seen any of her earlier work, but I hope people will start to kind of look into her library because
this is, I'm not sure which feature it is for her, but she's she's made some back in the UK.
And yeah, she's a wonderful filmmaker. Awesome. Well, before we let you go, we want you,
we are all about shameless self-promotion on the show. Okay. So give everybody websites,
social media, how they can get in contact with you. Well, great. So as I mentioned, my debut feature
film is called Perfection. And it is available on Amazon Prime. And let's see, what else can I
tell you about that? We, you know, we have a Facebook page and all of that good stuff. And my
upcoming feature is called Expecting Grace. And hopefully that will be released sometime next
year because we are still in the process of putting it together, but we're we hope to shoot it
by the end of this year. Awesome. Well, thank you so much for joining us. Yeah, it's really nice
to meet you. That pleasure to meet you. Go enjoy the festival. Yes, I will. And see some longer
films for a minute. So you could take a break. Sunday night, they're going to find out what
what their what their thoughts were. I really tried. And not a minute sooner. And not a minute.
She emphasized that. You are listening to the Clubhouse podcast. We are at the Angelica Film Center
for the USA Film Festival. Going strong. We have reached hour two. We have another guest. Go
ahead and put your headphones on so you can hear yourself, sir. And you can introduce yourself to
our world wide. I'm actually world wide audience. That makes me feel important. Go ahead and say
introduce yourself. World wide audience. That's pretty. Well, it's the internet. So you kind of
by default, it's world wide. No, I understand. My name is David Keenan. David likes Keenan is kind of
what I go by now that I'm looking at becoming a becoming a filmmaker. I live in Austin, Texas.
And I'm here representing my short film, Bodies of Water, which is my really the second film
that I have that I have made. And it's airing tonight. It's airing tonight at 9 p.m. in the
Texas shorts program. Here's Angelica. 14 minutes long. 14 minutes long. I'm also in a festival
right now as we speak in Fredericksburg, Texas. So twice tonight. And for the first two times ever,
it's people do it. It's playing tomorrow at 145. So I will have to drive back to Fredericksburg.
And if my film here is juried, then I'll have to come back on Sunday. I guess that's the kind
of problem you want to have. That's a good problem, right? Well, tell us about the film. What's it
about? It's called Bodies of Water. And it's a semi-autobiographical film based on episode
in my life when I was in my 20s. And I was a very fearful, very closeted gay person in those
days. And something that I have now exploring through film and screenwriting. And so this story
is partially based on my life. I don't call it a true story. But it recreates the moment when
I met the very first person that I was ever able to be completely truthful with. And I was 27
years old when that happened. And you come from a photography background, which I can tell,
because what you've given us here, I mean, this could be a one-sheet. It's absolutely beautiful.
Well, I have to give credit to the photographer that made the photograph that's in the poster
is actually his name is Eli Reed. And he is actually a quite a quite a well-known famous
photographer. He works for Magnum Photos. He's a photojournalist. He's been all over the world
doing conflict photography. And he is a friend of mine. And he came out and photographed the behind
the scenes stills for us. I can see that this is incredibly personal for you. And talk about
how hard was it to just go, you know what, I'm just going to put this out there.
As deep as this is to me, was it a difficult thing to finally just like, let's just do this?
Or were you at a point where you were like, no, I need to tell this story.
I really feel like I'm at the point where I'm not hiding anymore. I hid for decades.
I now look at this as an opportunity to kind of process that chapter of my life when I was very
lonely, very terrified of everything. Certainly terrified of ever talking to anybody about who I
really was. And we think that there may be a longer story in bodies of water. In fact, I know
there could be a features of the link movie. This particular short film is really like half of
the first act of what could be a longer story. Would you like to tell this in a series of shorts or
would you rather do it as one full narrative? I have not actually thought about doing it in a series
of shorts. I guess theoretically it could be done that way. But I spent many several years writing
short screenplays. This may be the last one. I'm now kind of branching off into doing feature link
screenplays. I've got two in the can right now. One has actually been pretty well reviewed so far
by a couple of festivals outstanding. So it'd be exciting to see whether or not this wildest dream
of making a short film, I mean, making a feature film from where I screenplayed it actually turns
into something that could be something. How many times have you shown it before tonight?
Only once. This is a Texas premiere. It played in a small festival in Lansing, Michigan,
which was kind of ironic because that's where I went to college. Oh wow. And I went to Michigan
State in East Lansing. And so there was kind of a strange coming home experience of going up
there and showing my film. That was the world premiere in Lansing. In 1978, I graduated from
1976 and I graduated from college. I had no earthly ideas that I would ever, ever think about
becoming a filmmaker. What was it like for you that first time watching it with an audience?
You know, I don't really have a dramatic story to say about that because I have seen it so many times
that it was gratifying to go up in front of the, you know, do the Q&A at the end and be able to talk
a little bit about the project and feel the couple of questions. No one's, no one has asked me
the critical question, which I've made and we'll see is like, why is it called bodies of water?
Allow me to do so because there are no bodies of water literally in the film.
And I mean, I can spill the beans here. We would love for you too. It's the names, it's based on
the names of the characters. Okay. The character that is actually played by Elor Koltrain, who
was the boy in Boyhood. Oh, really? He's been a friend of mine since he was a teenager.
And the germ of this idea of the film came actually and Elor and I were talking three years ago when
I was perhaps presenting him with an idea for a future. And you know, Elor and I are really good
pals and he plays a character named Marsh, or Torque from Marshall. And the antagonist, so to
speak, or the character that plays an opposite him, Robbie Atel is the actor. His name is Rivers.
So, there you go, Marsh and Rivers. The original working title was for the want of a friend.
And you know, people said, that's not really very, you know, that, that sounds so good. And then
I can't say that I named the characters with the idea. That's just what I named them when I wrote
the screenplay. But then it said, oh my gosh, they're their bodies of water. And so that became
the artistic title of the film. So tonight's going to be the Texas premiere. Yes.
Where's it? I mean, I know you're in Fredericksburg tomorrow, but after that, where's it going?
Yes, I'm it's playing tomorrow in Fredericksburg. We're in a small festival in college station
of all places on May the 6th. It's just a three hour festival on a Sunday afternoon, which
I don't know what else is going to be showing. And then the next one is the New York Independent
Film Festival in Manhattan. And we have submitted to 20 to 25 other festivals. And we're still waiting
to hear back from those. We've been turned down by a few too, up till now. But that makes the
yeses so much more gratifying, doesn't it? And I think that's part of the course. I think that
you're going to get X number of rejections and you're going to get Y number of acceptances. And
getting accepted into five films or five festivals that I think that's something to be proud of.
So we're moving forward with that. All right, let's do the shameless self promotion. Tell
everybody websites, social media. How can they get a hold of it? Yeah. Okay. There is a website
for the film. You can see there's a teaser on the website is beoww hyphenfilm.com.
There's also a Facebook group. There's bodies of water on Facebook. And that's really the
the way to reach out. There is a teaser on the website for you to look at. And I'm hoping that
we'll come to festivals near you. And with short films, I can't release it. I mean with any film
in a festival, it has, you can't be publicly released. But at some point, you know, I'd like to
put it out on demio or youtube or maybe on one of the shorts websites. And it can be used as a
discussion piece too for what you're telling me. I think so. I think this would be the kind of film
that would help perhaps even open a dialogue in some cases for people. Now it seems to be a good
time for gay and lesbian themed films. I mean, call me by your name. Just came out recently,
which was a huge, not made for best picture. Not made for best picture. And the performances in
that were just unbelievable. And love Simon has just taken a world by storm. Great brilliance.
Each representing indeed. Yes. I saw that. And as an older person, I didn't quite get it.
But I have talked to a lot of YA's or young adults. They love it. The screening I went to,
it was a very diverse audience. And I was really impressed with how
how everybody took to it as it went on. Yeah. The young people that I know that are gay that have
seen it, they love it. And so who am I to say? Because I'm not in that generation anymore
that it didn't speak to me as much as it did to younger people. And I've been told that the authors
follow up book has already been optioned. Really? Yes. As well. I read that earlier this week. Yeah,
it was a book, right? Yes. For the young adult readers. Yes. Simon versus the
homo sapien agenda. I think it was the name of it. Okay. It's something like that.
It was then they were like, no, we're not going to call the film that. It's just too many words.
Oh, yeah. So they they've shortened it to love Simon. Yeah. And an excellent film.
Yeah. No, I did. I mean, I thought it was well done. And I enjoyed seeing it. It's just as
someone who's older, not in that generation. I didn't quite get all the social. It didn't speak to
you as much as it would have. Yeah. Because again, not the target demo. But I think it's and for me,
that film is so much more because it's also about being comfortable with who you are no matter
who you are and understanding what love of family is and acceptance of friends is. And it worked
so many great universal themes that I just I thought it was a really well done film. Yeah.
No, and it's one of the ones that is life affirming. Absolutely. And call me by your name
was too. It did have something of a sad ending. But it was it was extremely realistic. And
and I thought that Timothy Shalamay's performance was just amazing. And in creating that young
person's character in his life. So Dave Keenan bodies of water is going to show here what time
tonight 9 p.m. 9 o'clock with the Texas shorts. Texas shorts. I mean, so people have time to get
down here because we're live everywhere right now. So if you're in the Dallas Fort Worth area,
come on down the USA Film Festival with the Angelica at Mockingbird station. Sir, thank you so much for
joining us. Oh, we're honored to do so. You are listening to the Clubhouse podcast. We're
live at the Angelica Film Center Mockingbird station. A lot going on, sir. You want to hit some
headlines real quick? Yes, let's do that. Thank you. Thank you. This summer, are you ready?
For 40 new episodes, a double there? That was never really in my wheelhouse. I know that show.
We're all over that. That never was really in the ultimate irony of that show was the host.
Because we talked about this on our show a couple of weeks ago, how the the level of OCD that
Mark Summers has. Oh, yeah, yeah. Yeah. All right. Also, just a couple of quick while our next
guest is sitting down a couple of quick headlines. A couple of people joining stranger things for
season three. Production has begun by the way. Uh-huh. First table read was a week ago.
Carrie L. Ways is joining the cast. Really? As the mayor and Jake Busey also joining the cast
of Stranger Things for season three. And then Priya Ferguson who played this the sister.
Uh-huh. She is actually a, a regular on the cast now. Okay. Okay. Good.
Headline. Avengers open today. I did. Okay. And Maya Hawk joining the cast. Yes. Daughter of Ethan.
Really? Joining the cast of Stranger Things this year. Do we need to hold on for him for just a minute?
Take your time. Whatever you need to do. Yeah. No. Feel free. Whatever you need my friend. We're good.
Um, also a season finale. The Big Bang Theory coming up. Joining for that episode will be Mark Hamill.
Uh-huh. Teller from Penn and Teller and Kathy Bates. And playing Sheldon's brother Georgie B. B.
One Jerry O'Connell. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Lauren Cohen will be returning to the Walking Dead for season nine.
That gave me a, a very big sigh of relief today. And what did you think about the newest, uh,
announcement of your newest Star Wars series? I must have missed this. What do you, Star Wars resistance?
Disney XD. It's going to be anime inspired. Takes place from a four episode eight.
I'm sorry, episode seven. And it's going to focus on a pilot named Kazuto Giono.
You don't miss this announcement. I have no idea. I've not heard anything about it.
But you're going to have BB8 involved. You're going to have, oh my god, my wife's going to flip it.
Is it animated or real? It's going to be animated. It's going to be anime inspired.
It's your next Disney XD. Uh, I think it's coming next year. So no CG. It's going to be traditional hand-drawn
animation. That's what I'm led to believe. I wonder if it's going to look more like, uh,
the Clone Wars, the micro series. I'm wondering. I'm wondering. It was more Samurai Jack looking.
I enjoyed that very much. I did too. I was a huge fan of that.
All right. We have another guest joining us. So we'll get to back to some headlines if we have time.
Thought we had a little breathing room. But we don't because we have a guest and we want to get
him on here. Go ahead and introduce yourself, sir. Hi, I'm Mark Carons. I'm at the film,
one of the directors of Echoes, which is a short showing tonight in the Texas Shorts block.
Tell us about it. Uh, well, it's hard to describe. Um, we actually, we showed up at the Green Bay
Film Festival and we're listed in the newspapers, one of their best bets to see at the festival.
And they're, and in the newspaper description, they said, it's really hard to say anything about
this film without giving something away. That was their pit. We've been hearing that a lot tonight
about people with the Shorts. Somebody else is joining us. Introduce yourself, please.
Hi, I'm Brina. You're right up on that thing. Oh, sorry. I'm Brina Palencia and I am the
main actress in Echoes. How long is it? How long is the short? Mm-hmm. It's about 12 minutes.
Okay. Is it, and instead of showing tonight in the block, the nine o'clock block?
That's correct. Okay, secret screening. So it wasn't in the original program. So you,
you have to be in the know. So it's one of those. It's like, you go in and out and you're like,
I want to mustard fried, but they don't have that on the menu. Exactly that. Yeah. Mm-hmm.
Why are you looking at me like that? That was so rare. No, they said it's a secret thing. It's
not on the thing. It's like the secret menu in and out. I got it. It's an Easter egg within the
normal. I'm scrambling to get their details on the Facebook page and then you drop that on me.
Don't make me think and tie that the same time. Just saying. You boned it. We've done this before.
I promise. How long did it take you to film it? We filmed it in about five days of main shooting and
then we had one sort of half-tick update, which was shooting like close-ups of Brina's hands and
eyes and stuff. Yep. See, and that's one of the things we always talk about when you talk,
it's when people have directed short films. It's like, oh, it's, you know, 10 minutes long.
It's like, no, that took us a week. You know, people don't understand all those. Yeah,
and they're not even post. You know, people don't understand what goes into that. I mean,
I had to do a 12-minute short film for my work one time for a presentation and it took me a week.
And that was just shooting it and then it was another four days just to get it to
passable. I still watch it now. I would have done that differently. I should have done that instead.
Right. Yeah, we shot it last December 2016 and so it was in post for a little over a year
and then we premiered in February. How was that first screening of it? Knowing you had been that far
removed from the shot for the shooting? Well, I was doing all the post, so I was not far removed
at all. I was sick of seeing it at that point, but it went really well. The Brina's kids are
played by my twin kids who were five at the time of shooting and they got to come to the premier
and do the Q&A after and stuff. So it was a lot of fun just having them there.
I would love to see a Q&A through a five-year-old guys. Yeah, I really wish I could have seen it.
It's an auditorium full of people. Yeah. It's really adorable, but yeah. It's on Facebook. You can
find it. Oh, really? Yeah, so if you go to the Echoes page on Facebook, there's a link to it from
the Wildwood Film Festival and one of them refused to say anything and just stood up there being shy
and the other one was happy to talk. That was Rory. Okay. So Rory's my daughter and Ben's my son
and Rory just kind of stood there and took it all in and Ben was happy to volunteer his opinions on
that and on the other films that showed some of which he was not a big fan of. I'm sorry going
on with that. You know, you realize when kids are five, they can kind of just get away with saying
anything. Yeah, that's fair. It goes the opposite direction too. If you're like a 95-year-old. Yeah,
there's a bell curve. I'm a kid. I'm good. There's no filter and then I develop a filter and then
I hit about 16. The filter starts to go away and then everybody, okay, that's just let it happen.
It was actually better that it was during the Q&A because during the actual screening of the
Sharts block, one of the documentaries that was going, he just really loudly goes,
oh, this film is way too long. When is it going to end?
So hurt. I did apologize to the filmmaker for that.
But you got to admit, yeah, how do you spin at that point?
He's like, he's five. He's not really into documentaries. Yeah, not yet.
Yeah, I found that there is a threshold. Once I hit my late 30s, all of a sudden documentaries
kind of became interesting. I don't know. I can't pinpoint when it happened,
but I find myself more wanting to watch documentaries than anything else now.
Yeah, maybe you have a better context of what's going on. I think when you're a little kid,
you don't really know how it fits into anything. And you don't really have that, I guess,
that much of a thirst for it. You just like, I just want to watch stuff explode.
You have like no gauge of like understanding. Well, you don't want to be informed.
You just want to be entertained. You just want to watch stuff explode,
which is happening over my left shoulder right now, and it's killing me.
I have not seen Infinity War yet, and it's driving me to a particular extent.
I'm going Tuesday. We're going to go on Sunday, I think.
Yes, my weekend's just so full that it's just like, I have to avoid social media for the most
good, because I know there's people out there spoiling this film, and it's driving me crazy.
Yeah, when Mark was sending out emails to all of like Cast and crew about the screening being
tonight, he was like, I understand a lot of you are going to be seeing Infinity War,
and that's fine. Just come and have drinks with us afterwards.
It's like, take a few minutes out. It'll show again. This doesn't show again.
I have a confession in here. What did you do now? I just went through her IMDB page.
Okay. And I just realized that you're the voice of Mad Moxie.
That's right, sugar. That freaks me out. I'm a huge fan of the game Borderlands.
Alex talks about it all the time. No, no, yeah. You know, I'm not much of a gamer anymore.
Well, we've covered like the comic book conventions locally.
Oh, nice. I have lost track of how many cosplayers.
Oh, absolutely. Yeah, no, I know the board. My nephew plays Borderlands, but my problem was
there's too many buttons now. I can't do it anymore. Once we hit the Super Nintendo, I was like,
too many. I'm done. I'm out. You know, but I love to watch. I love to watch the gaming now,
because it's just... Well, the animation of Borderlands is really cool, too.
Just the character design and everything. Yeah, and Brenna is also the voice of like a whole
bunch of other really cool anime people. Yeah, I'm scanning through and my thumb's getting tired.
I'm like, oh my god. I'm... I don't think you know this, but one of the crew members
actually had done the same thing like on the IMDb page and was afraid to talk to you on set,
because they were such a huge fan, and you're worried like, I can't talk to Brenna. I'm like,
it's your job. Get over there and talk to Brenna. We're trying to make a movie.
Which one was it? Well, I think he'd be embarrassed, so I won't say. It was a key.
Okay. Well, that doesn't... Well, maybe. I mean, I've always said that voiceover work. That's
living the dream. It's pretty great. Yeah. I mean, I will say... I mean, it's... I love doing both.
I do on camera and I do, obviously, and I do voice acting. With voice acting, it's really fun,
because there's a lot less... Greatest dress code ever. Yeah, you can wear whatever you want. You also
don't have to memorize lines. You just kind of show up and you know, get to throw yourself into it
and then leave and then never think about it again. But I think that even though on camera is
physically more difficult, it's also in some ways more rewarding because of that, because you get to
not just... You get to break out of that cage. Right. But at the same time, when you get to do mocap
for video games and now you kind of get to do that, I think that's the ultimate. When you get to do
mocap because you get to physically embody the character and do the voice and you can play whatever
character you want, whereas with actual on camera, you're limited as far as how many types of roles
you play. I think you can play anything. Ah, thanks Mark. She's like, check being written right.
You might have actually crossed paths with an old class when you're my sister. Sunny straight.
I love Sunny. Yeah, he graduated with my sister. I always tell Sunny he's the reason why I kept
voice acting. A lot of people had told him that. When I first started, I never got cast and I never
got cast and I did so many auditions and I remember going... I went into audition for him for something
and I was like, this is going to be the last one I'm done. If I don't get something of this
then whatever, hold me. Hey, I don't think you're going to get cast in this because you don't fit
any of the roles but I just want you to know you're really, really good and you should keep doing this.
Yeah, you should. And I'm like, thank you. And like the next thing that I auditioned for I booked.
But I was totally ready to throw into the towel and if it weren't for Sunny straight,
then I probably wouldn't be here today. I'll have to let him know that. Well, since you don't want
to spoil anything, let's just talk movies for a little while. We have somebody else joining us
to introduce yourself, sir. Hey, I'm Brent Terman. I'm a... You're the other guy on my paper,
that was the... Brent Terman, I was a producer on the film. So they said they couldn't talk about them
being too much Christmas in the spoil it. So we're just going to talk movies for a minute. Perfect.
Last night, Avengers Infinity War has its first screenings. $39 million last night.
Tell me, they're projecting a $230 million. But you know what? Still only the fourth biggest Thursday night ever.
Well, behind episode seven, episode eight, and the last Harry Potter movie.
And well, the challenge, the challenge that Infinity War has is it's almost three hours. And so you
can fit in less screenings. Yeah. And that's, you know, that was the same issue with like even back,
going back to Titanic, they were not breaking any like box office records to start with. It just kept
making money week after week after week for years. The movie is the bane of my existence. I won't
even refer to it by its title in this stupid boat movie. That year, I saw every best picture nominee
in a theater. And LA Confidential should have buried that film. Because LA Confidential is a 10 times
better film. I was rooting for the boat. There was also definitely room enough for both of them.
A thousand percent, yes. Like no question. That's the one thing that bugged me about. I think I was like,
I was pretty young when I saw it. I was like a teenager, I think. And the whole time I was,
I'm old. I get that. I'm very old. I was like, I saw that train coming. I'm like, oh,
it's in my late 20s. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Anyway. But I just remember being like, that was stupid.
That didn't make any sense. You could, why don't you just go on the thing? Get on the door, man.
Get on the door. Like try a little bit harder. This is your life at stake. I feel like I like
ripped open some wound here. And you're going to be like recovering from this. For me, no matter
what Leonardo DiCaprio does, and he's a great actor. Don't get me wrong, but he'll always be the
homeless kid on growing things. That's all he'll be to me. You know. And also another big milestone
this past weekend, Steven Spielberg, now the first director to pass career 10 billion dollars
at the box office. Oh, my God. I mean, that doesn't shock me that he's the one to do it, but good.
I told you I finally saw the, I finally watched the documentary before we got rid of the table.
Oh, the Spielberg documentary on HBO. Very much enjoyed that. Yeah. It was, I agree, it wasn't
complete, but I very much enjoyed it. It wasn't as comprehensive as I was hoping. And we are also
right about a month and a half into we cut the cable at our house. And we've gone to direct
TV now, which is saving us like 150 bucks a month. I'm very much enjoying it. I have not had normal
cable since I was a very young child. It was there's definitely a learning curve. And my wife,
my wife was very, very difficult at first, because she's like, what do you mean I can't watch
grays like right when I get home? Yeah. Like now you have to wait a day. She's like, wait a minute.
Hold on. What are we saving? Like 1800 bucks a year. She's like, okay, I'm good with that now.
I didn't wait a day. All that I didn't write says if he has signed for three films to play Han Solo.
Really? But not, but he didn't say three solo films. He signed to play Han Solo in three films.
So is that the trilogy that Ryan Johnson has been given? Maybe. Because you know how I feel about
that. Like all of a sudden, Disney's now Oprah. You get a trilogy and you get a trilogy. And you
get a trilogy. And which ones are the, I'm still confused as to which ones the game of Thrones
guys are working on. They're not saying what it is. I'm hearing rumors of Nights of the Old Republic,
but there's nothing being being verified. I would have no, I would have no problem with that. What?
You don't get, you don't get a single film done because you would make it all about like,
Sons of Anarchy meets Star Wars. I can't deal with that. The ultimate fanfic. Yes.
We found out that Lord Harry comes. So did the Avengers, did that outsell song to song on ticket
sales in about a minute and a half? Yes. Terrence Malik is another pain of my existence.
His last two films have driven me to the brink of insanity. I'm kind of with you on that.
Those last two were just bad. And it's about five and a half hours of my life. I'll never get back.
Especially song to song, song to song. I haven't seen that one. It just like, he basically grabbed
the group of actors and went, here, do stuff for the next two years and I'm going to film it.
Spoiler, you're getting that for Christmas this year. You get, every year Don buys me the DVD of my
least favorite film from the year. What a nice guy. See, he listens to you. He knows what your least
favorite film is. I can't say that about all my friends. Well, we actually, we compile a list
every year. Oh, really? Yeah, because we do a lot of screenings and we go to things. So we
So negative. Do you compile a list of things that you like? Oh, yeah. We rank every movie. That's
not all we do. Yeah. We rank every film we see top to bottom. And then we also, I actually like
it better if it was just films. They hate it. Like we don't care. Anything we like doesn't make
the list. It's just the stuff that was terrible. Yeah. Well, we do our top and bottom 10 of the
year. Oh, yeah. There's no, there's no polls, punches, polls believe me. I'd rather get your gift
than the autographed picture of Honey Boo Boo. I got a couple of years ago. Oh, no. Yeah, Don's
ruthless with his gag gifts. Wow. Yeah. Anybody know, he's our fact checker. So I have to step out
now. Okay. Eat food before the screening. All right. Well, thank you for helping. Thank you for
this. You guys are awesome. And keep us in the loop. What's going on, man? Yeah, totally.
Absolutely. You could follow me on Twitter. Put it out there, dude. At Brina Palencia. Also,
follow me on Instagram at Brina Kins B R I N A K I N S. I write songs and stuff. Cool. It's
fun. Okay. Bye. All right. Enjoy the evening. You guys can hang out if you want to, but if you
got stuff to do, we get it too. All right. All right. So I feel like if Brina's doing that, I
should also tell you to follow Echo Short. Yes, please on Twitter. She almost all promotion. We're all
about probably Instagram. Like I know short echoes short echoes. Looking to make sure that's our
Instagram as well. So I forgot. That sounds believable. That sounds. It is. It is.
I'll take a second. My Torsche Coke Zero while he doesn't. Yes. And shout out to the
Angelica for now carrying Coke Zero. Yes. I know that major day. It's good times.
Good times. If we get some Dr. Pepper 10 somewhere, that would be huge. Yeah. I'm not,
I'm not a doctor. I'm not. It's dirt pepper because there's no radiation point. It's dirt pepper.
You know, the 10's not bad. I'm not a big dirt pepper fan, but the 10's not bad. My wife is the
big fan of the Diet cherry vanilla. Too much going on. Yeah. Way too much. Well, because there's
already what? Like 23 flavors. You're going to add two more to it. Bill Skars guard.
As announced, he will be playing zeitgeist in Deadpool 2. How are we making these announcements
three weeks before the film? By the way, this person's in it. What? I'm sorry. What?
I feel like they've kept a lot of Deadpool 2 under the radar. Like the marketing campaign has been
fantastic. Oh, yeah. Brilliant. But I feel like they've done a really good job of you not
actually learning much about the movie. Ryan Reynolds just the dude just gets it. He gets the bit
and he embraces because he's been trying to get the film made for 10 years before it came out.
And the fact that he stuck to his guns and he was like, no, we're not going to compromise. This is
what this movie has to be and they got to make the movie he wanted to make. And I remember sitting
in that theater going, I now have faith in humanity again. Well, it stands out. It's so different
from all the other superhero movies. Like it gets that character. And it feels like that
character's movie as opposed to just let's throw another random hero. And the breaking of the
fourth wall is such a beautiful. It's like when I sat down and it's in a movie started.
And it just the opening credits. Oh, the opening credits. I was laughing so hard. First of all,
you've got Angel of the Morning by Juice Newton, which is one of my favorite songs of all time.
And then just like starring some Canadian douche. And I'm like, see, this is what I'm talking about.
Well, then also after you saw the first one, you don't need to see much about the marketing
for the next one. Yeah, you're going to go. Well, did you see the, when they were the first
remember, the first one came out right around Valentine's Day. And there was a billboard that said
it was like a man struggles with this. And Reynolds put that on his Instagram. He put the whole
billboard his Instagram and the caption was just, I have so much explaining to do later.
Because it wasn't it up against one of the 50 shades films. Yes, it was a counter programming
for that. There's going to be a sequel to a quiet place. That doesn't shock me.
I don't do scary movies. I don't. I have a policy. I live by a code. I refuse to pay someone
to try to make me pee on myself. I just I just saw it last weekend. I've heard it's brilliant.
Well, I'm a huge sound guy. And so I was like so excited to have a movie of like where sound is
like the core of it. And that aspect that was cool. I was very on the movie. They'll
whole way through. There's plot holes. You could drive the entire Angelica theater through to the
to the extent like it wasn't one of those you're thinking about after and like, oh, wait, what about
that? It's like as I'm watching like this makes no sense. So other than the fact that like they're
trying to be really quiet, the Foley was fantastic. Like the Foley artist had been like in the opening
credits. That's one of the things I miss. I'm a Foley artist. I'm from South Florida. So Disney
was like, just did Disney all the time. They used to have a Foley show where they showed you how
Foley artists do. I remember at the at the end. Yeah. Yeah. And Drew Carey was in it. And that's
gone. They don't do any of the Foley stuff anymore. That sounds awesome. I would love to watch that.
And I went when they first opened it and Chevy Chase was in it. And what they did when they
from the first two months that they opened that park, they would have celebrities of different
stature's come. And that day, the celebrity difference. Yeah, because some of them were older
people. Some of them were, well, that day, Donald O'Connor was there. Oh my god. We go to the
Foley show, watching the Foley show enjoying myself, not realizing Donald O'Connor sitting right next
to me the whole time. They pull him up and I'm like, okay, he was right next to me. He had no clue.
Wow. So nondescript and so nice. And there wasn't a thing. It was just very, very strange for me.
Don. Don. Don Ford. Announcement for you. What's that? How to train your Dragon 3 has a title.
It's called the Hidden World. So get ready for that. Don's a big fan of the How to Train Your Dragonship.
They're still working on it. I know you do. How are they going to know that's a sequel if they
just call it the Hidden World? It seems like they should call it a training set title. And
Jumanji walked into the jungle. The sequel is set for next Christmas.
Again, doesn't shock me. And Dwayne is coming back. Of course he is. Because you know what we
really great news if you could break a movie that's not a sequel. Do you have any news on any?
Let me look. Let me look. Let's see the remake. Well, that's a remake.
Taren Edgerton is going to play Elton John on the biopic, which if you look at that connection,
Kingsman the Golden Circle. And if you saw Singh, the animated film that he was in, he's saying
I'm still standing. Oh, that's right. Okay. So that was playing actually.
Singh was playing at my house when I left on the babysitter. I love that movie. I am unashamedably
a fan of that movie. Disney going to be doing the Rose Red story now. Yeah, I saw that. And
Bri Larson in talks. Wow, she's busy. Yeah, she doesn't have enough geek credit apparently.
She's going to get swamp next year. That's a sequel. That's a spin off. Oh, cartoons from
our childhood. Mass. Oh, God. It has a director. I just have you watch that since you were a child?
I love that one. I was a kid. It is. It did not hold up. It didn't age well.
Screw saves. No, and there's some of those you look back like. Yeah, this is still kind of fun.
And that's one of those like if you watch it now, you're like, why did my parents not turn
this off just to protect you from it? But F Gary Gray is attached to directing. Oh, he's good.
Really? Don't go from straight out of content to mask. And everything else is even a bunch of
action stuff before he did. He did. He did. And he also did. Didn't he directs? Or was it Anton
Fuqua that did set it off with lots of people? I think that was Fuqua because I think that was
around around the time that same time that F Gary Gray was doing Friday. Okay. Fair enough.
Moving to releases next week, because it's Friday. So we don't visit. Tully, the new Charlie's
theater on film. I don't know how I feel about this movie. Is that playing at the festival?
I think it's playing Sunday night. Actually, okay. It is playing Sunday night here. It is. It's
on the, yeah, it's on the front cover. I didn't realize that that was a Diablo Cody project.
And it's got the, I can't remember name, but the young lady from Halter Catch Fire is in it.
I couldn't tell you. You watched it. Yeah, I mean, that's a show you need to check out though. Do you
would love that show? Halter Catch Fire was amazing. You guys watched out at AMC? I didn't see it.
It's basically the story of the, it's each season handles a different aspect, but it's all about
the early days in the 80s of technology. Oh, okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. So the first season was about
the invention of the first laptop. And then the second season was about cyber security. And then it
moves in. It's really well done. Leapace is genius, in my opinion. That guy can do no wrong.
Also, Scoot McNairy's in it, who I'm a big fan of. Overboard, that remake comes out next week.
I have seen it. Yes. You'll know about it next Thursday. Okay. Fair enough.
On a Ferris. And I can't, I can never say the guy said, you gene Derby's. The guy that did it,
how to be a Latin lover. I still love that one. That one she. So I'm telling you, this guy,
I'm telling you right now, this guy does not get enough respect from American audiences. And I think
this movie will help him with that. He also did a great film called Instructions Not Included.
He's from, he's Mexican. He's a Mexican actor. And so he's very, very big in the Mexican culture.
Also, RBG, the documentary about Ruth Bader Ginsburg, comes back to me. Have you guys seen the book
that I believe that's showing here as well? That is showing here at USA. Have you seen the book about
her? It's called the notorious RBG. And she's on the crown like Biggie. I just, it just makes me
it's great. Yeah. DVD and Blu-Rai Newerleases this week. 12 strong. Kind of surprised that
didn't get so much love as I thought it was in the theaters. I've talked to people that have
seen it, but it's been very polarizing. Yes. It kind of came and went relatively quickly.
Some of that's kind of up your alley. I'm surprised that you didn't catch this winchester.
Comes out Tuesday with the Helen Mirren on Blu-Rai. Yeah, because again,
another thing that kind of came and went out. It was not received well.
Here's one that you probably didn't see coming that there's another installment in this series.
Tremors. A cold day in hell. I think this is like the ninth Tremors film. I remember when the first
one came out. I was like, Reba McIntyre in a movie with Kevin Bacon. Is there anybody from the
original cast still attached to that thing? That would mean I'd have to do research there. I can't
verify that. What did Michael Gross in that thing? He was in one of them. I don't think he might
have been in the first one. The 40th anniversary edition of Thank God It's Friday, sir.
I have no idea what that is. It's a disco. It's actually based on a song that's called Thank God It's
Friday. And it was in that era where like they would just take musical groups and put them in
films. This will be number six in the Tremors. It's our fact checker. And Michael Gross in it.
Greatness. Michael Gross in Jimmy Kennedy. Laser Team 2. They are making Mama Mia 2,
which I do not understand that this catalog was here. We go again. We can't talk too badly
about that because Don's a big Abba fan. Mama Mia 2 is coming out. Mama Mia 2 is coming out in June.
Wait, if we're pitching stuff, I should also be advertising us. This is going out like on the
Internet right now. Everyone in the world is listening right now, right? Yes, everybody.
Okay, so there's no one on the street. If you happen to be in Fredericksburg, Texas right now,
you're late for the screening. So rush over to the Hill Country Film Festival. Echoes
is screening there right now. So as well as the guy that we had on right before you guys, his film
is basically Fredericksburg tomorrow. We've got a lot of threads running through the show tonight.
Also, things you are now running late for. We're screening at the Seni Festival in Providence,
Rhode Island. That started like an hour and a half ago. So you've probably missed it, but you
could try to run there right now. Upcoming screenings. It's yourself with Delorean. Go about 88. Go
back. We're working on it. But we do have actual upcoming screenings. If you're an Indianapolis,
we have two screenings at the Indie Film Festival. One is tomorrow at 1pm. Okay. And the other is
May 2nd at 9.15pm. And also say that's just a cool festival. The last film I had out was a
feature. And we actually premiered it up there. I like it. It's a great bunch of great city.
Great venue. It's at the Indieapolis Museum of Art, Huge Theater, Great Projection stuff. So
if you're an Indie, go check out the festival. And if you're going to the festival, check out our film.
Absolutely. Echoes. It's the plural, make sure you close. Echoes short. What films are you guys
looking forward to? Like in real real life. I'm taking I'm taking my kids to Infinity War tomorrow
morning at 9.45 because they were upset that we couldn't go tonight because I was at this.
So that first first of all. What one of the things that I like you personally though. I mean,
you're taking first hits because Infinity War. What kind of I'm curious curious for it.
Because it's some movie season. It's officially underway. Well, here's the thing. I have
twin six year olds at this point. So I don't get out to the movies a lot. We got out to see
a quiet place last week. And that'll probably be the last movie I get to see without them other
than at film festivals for. We are also in echoes. Who are also there? They are in echoes.
Have speaking roles. They actually have to say lines. How was how was that directing your kids?
Especially at that age. Yeah. Well, we we learned an interesting thing. I was talking with some
of the crew there and someone said, you know, you don't usually see kids this age on in films.
Like usually they're like babies or they're a few years older. And then over the course of
production, we discovered why you don't see kids that age because they are incapable of taking
direction. So we kind of wrote the parts around what we thought they could do and what they would
do in normal life. But even that doesn't work out. There's like a scene where they're supposed to
walk away from their mom who was Brina who was here earlier. And they're in a mall and they're
supposed to walk away. And so I'm there with them. Their actual mom is like 10 yards down the hallway.
Now if we take them to a mall in real life, the first thing they do is wander off on their own
and get lost. So we're like, okay, they should be able to do this. So I'm like, okay, you just have
to like walk away down the hall. Mom's right down there. And they both just start crying. Like
somebody's going to steal us. We can't go without an adult. I'm like, where is that attitude when
we take you to the mall? And then I'm there for 15 minutes trying to convince them it's okay with
like an entire crew around them and their mom right in front of them to like walk away from me.
What they say the general rule in film is the two hardest groups of people to work with are
kids and animals. Yeah, we say the three things that will add budget and time to your movie is
shooting on water, shooting with kids and shooting with animals. So if you're shooting on a boat
with kids and animals, that would be like the worst. You know, triple your budget just instantly.
Your movie's just not getting made at that point. That's what happens. Have you got anything on the
docket that you want to talk about that's coming up? Well, honestly, I've been working on finishing
echoes. I've mentioned we premiered two weeks ago or sorry, two months ago. I was still working on
cleaning up visual effects this morning. Oh, wow. Which will not be the version that's screened here. So
if you pay very close attention, there's a couple of places the visual effects aren't quite right.
Allegedly. Allegedly. You know, it's one of those things that nobody's going to notice who
hasn't seen the film 20 times. It was bugging me. So I was still working on it. And the next big
project I'm tackling after that is a feature I've been writing for Brianna to star in.
You want to talk about it at all or is he keeping under wraps for now? It's like super still
not ready yet. Oh, okay, sure enough. We're working on the script. We've got a good idea and
can a draft, but it's going to be it's going to be a while just making sure that's really
polished and ready to go. And then we still got to make the film after that. So
All right, we got another guest, Jordy. Get you a cigarette if you want. You're more than
welcome. No, I'm going to go meet up with some of our people. Thanks for having me on there.
Thanks for being on Good Luck this evening. Echoes it shows tonight, but it's going to be as
websites. Is it on for it? Or do you have the Facebook? You can you can find us on Facebook or
our Twitter and Instagram at Echo's short mentioned. You can also go to Echoes hyphenfilm.com and
all the screening data is on there. And get on that guys. Echoes tonight here. See you here.
It makes us feel better. Thanks for sticking with us. Greetings, sir. Introduce yourself if you would.
All right, my name is Charles Bubba Willis. I am a film director for a short film called Reassurance.
Kind of a sci-fi time travel movie. And is it airing tonight? Is it in the nine o'clock block?
Nine o'clock block. I hope it takes like the third or fourth person from the nine o'clock block
we've had on tonight. Yeah, it's it was really it's it's really great. I like the USA Film Festival.
I've been coming for about three or four years as a participant or just as a viewer and I just
I love the film festival here and what they do. How long did you shoot the film? It took us we
actually did it in 24 hours. And how long is it? It is about six minutes seven and a half minutes six
to seven half minutes. My buddy Andy who's the DP is a gaffer out of Atlanta. He moved out to
Atlanta about two years ago and so I had a very short window to get him to come out and shoot it
because he's like I'm going to be in town for like five days during Christmas break and I've got
one day that I can work and so I got with my writer friend Jason Walter Veil and told him this
is the concept I want to do a time travel movie. I had this beautiful shed on my property that's
it's it's it's a shed that my wife's grandfather has it's got all the old tools license plates
everywhere it just looks beautiful on camera and I said I've got this location that I want you to
write a story about and I want a time travel movie with a twist at the end and that's kind of the
what I gave my writer to to write and so over the next month and a half he developed this
awesome little story about this guy creating time travel to to give himself reassurance of
something that happened in the past. Cool. Is it was this something that you just kind of woke
up when I said you know I'm going to do this or was it something that came to you over time
what's there any influences that got you to it? Yes there was a short film I saw about five years
ago at the downtown Tyler Film Festival that had to deal with time travel. Actually it was more about
it wasn't time travel but it was international intercontinental travel and they locked it down so
you couldn't wherever you were in the world you couldn't inter you couldn't travel across continents
anymore so they shut it down so like his wife was stuck in another country and so he created time
travel so that he could go back and create a time travel so that he can go and see his wife and
the other country that she was stuck in and so it's just like man I really want to do a time travel
film and it wasn't your typical time travel movie and it wasn't you know just kind of crazy
time travel it was it was just it was story based with time travel in it and a sci-fi you know
feel to it. Is this something that you think you could expand to a bigger narrative or do you kind
of like it as a short? I think there is a narrative there that's bigger I think the characters
that we developed this this man that never got married this old man that spent his entire life
to figure out time travel so that he could go back and reassure his younger self with this
the stuff that this incident this the things that he was going through as a child I think there's
a lot more to develop there with his character and even the in the story of the younger kid and
bringing them together in some kind of like looper style connection and so yeah I think there's
a big story there that once he wrote the film I was like oh because originally I was like I just
want a short film just a short film that scanned alone and then when he wrote the story I was like
no this could be bigger this could really be a bigger film a bigger point a bigger story so
cool how long ago was it filmed we filmed it December 24 no no no one second so not even six months
ago not even six months so you were able to get all of this done in a very compact amount of time
um it I knew exactly how I wanted it shot because I the the locations on my property so I go there all
the time I study that location I know the beautiful angles I know how I wanted it where he I wanted
him where I wanted the machine to be like it was so well thought out and pre-planed that when we
got in there there was there was nothing to think about other than let's shoot some extra stuff
just in case we need it so it really just went really fast it kind of blew me away because I thought man
this might be take a little bit longer maybe two days because we had two locations we had the the
shed and then we had the pier part where he goes when he when he travels back in time he's on he meets
his old self on the pier where he runs to after this incident what's next for you anything new coming
up that you want to talk about yeah I've got a short film that I'm going to be doing this summer about
a hitman that his last hit that he took took a father from a young from a young girl and over the
last 10 years of his life he dealt with that and he was like I'm I need to make a connection with her
and basically say I'm sorry that you know this really changed my life and I you know just kind of
had this moment of change and then there's a twist at the end nice where she didn't forgiving
and she's been carrying the burden a lot as long as he has but couldn't ever find a way to
forgiving and so there's this little part at the end that's kind of a twist that where she takes
him out at the end all right so before we let you go kind of decompress before this whole thing
kicks off because that short starts here and just a little over an hour yep so you got to kind of
get things right shameless self-promotions give us websites Facebook social media everything you
can go to steeple house pictures.com that's my website that's our film companies website Facebook
at reassurance you can find us there on Twitter at reassurance short film and we'd love to see
you love to get plugged in with you and tell you more about what we're doing Charles Willis thank you
for hanging out with us sir thank you because we're getting close to the end of our time together
don'ts here uh-huh and you look drained uh now I'm fine thank you so much let's go wow how how fast
did that just give me a stealer thing we've got to send a couple of shout outs over sitting here
shout out to friend of the show John Wildman who's who's shaking hands and kissing basically I
saw him a couple times but for help we'll get us set up on this thing and Gailor Smith I believe
helped us out a lot of this yeah well the USA film and ends the big one so I mean it's this has
been so much fun as it is every year and the fact that the angelica always does such an amazing
job juggling their quote unquote normal schedule with the film pistol because this is this is a big
movie weekend sir yeah and everything's been I mean from from where I'm sitting everything has
just moved as smooth as glass there's been no issues people are here they're having a great time
there was there was a lot of foot traffic here like right about 30 minutes in and then everybody
just kind of got where they needed to go it's even Tobalowski's gonna be here this week yes he is
so I'm very excited too he's currently in one of my favorite shows he's on the Goldbergs he plays
the principal oh really okay I thought he was involved in something that you were
200 and 58 IMDB credits is here tomorrow try if he was here I get him oh I know you would
because that's what you do sir yeah also I want to give out shout out to patty for helping us out
we're looking forward to the film festival I know two weeks from tomorrow yeah and so let's talk
about the next three weeks donation coming oh we got we'll do that talk yeah we're going to talk
about the next three weeks next weekend is the Dallas International Film Festival so we're going to
be covering that across the freeway yep a little bit weekend after that the made the 12th yep we're
going to be at Garland high school for the second year in a row as we are industry judges
industry judges for the real outweigh film festival patty said we we get to it do it now to the award
yeah oh cool which we did last time we presented an award very much looking forward to seeing these
students films some of those student films are going to be in dip next weekend they got like four
like four or six kids I look at the like weekend week after that is the Texas high school musical
awards which we're getting the final details down on that hopefully we'll have that all taken care
for you as well high school short films here tomorrow at three o'clock as well
and in there somewhere we got to do backlash so that's going to be my waiting on the point
concerning our last let's just say everybody took a bath I took a bad bath at WrestleMania had to wait
two more days I will all I will tell you is the person that had the most amount of points just
for WrestleMania I won't tell you who it is me but they were in minus ten so nobody broke even
for WrestleMania there was I did get a couple of text messages this week about the greatest royal
rumble I didn't have enough time to put it together but it did happen today yeah do you guys want to
know I got the I got the updates all day you know okay throughout the event who won the big one
Strowman oh he went and it came out only with a trophy but with a belt that's bright green I heard
about that I heard about who he launched to yeah I mean they spoil Alex was giving me real time
updates spoiler three two right three two right and don't say the one he lost right into the
stratosphere apparently there were no belt changes I know there weren't going to be any belt changes
are you talking Jane oh yeah he threw Shane through the announce table who Braun Strowman
oh really yeah and I was shocked about the Undertaker's opponent we talked about that that they
wanted I just take her one now question on that what happened on that because he was out and we
thought he was blacklisted from what I've heard and we thought he was you know from what I've heard
Vince made the change because he thought takeer was offended by the tweet okay takeer was like no
fine with it and so they went back to the way it was okay okay all right that's that's what I
was all clear on I do love that Jericho was proclaiming to be undefeated casket matches I am
but but according to Alex really good show it was a well done show today over there in Saudi Arabia
yeah although apparently the cage match ended as Lesnar wins because he got spirit
and spirit him through the cage and he landed first and there was zip ties everywhere oh yeah you
always shocker so shall we wrap this up gentlemen sure first off we want to thank everybody here at
the Angelica for always being awesome like we love coming to the Angelica Adam rocks Adam and
everybody here are so amazing thank you to the USA Film Festival for having us here everybody that
puts it on I saw I saw a Catherine and Raymond are both here doing what they do some of our favorite
people on planet earth no show Sunday because we're doing the show today so we're going to have a
little bit of time off next next weekend's going to be kind of crazy yeah because Friday night grace
D is playing at a youth lock-in of an Allen we're going to be doing one hour set up there so pray for
us and then Saturday night will be at the dip so make sure you check out our website www.theclubhousepodcast.com
find out everything you need to know and some stuff you don't follow us on social media twitter is
at clubhouse show everything else is the clubhouse podcast all three words in that order or you will
wind up somewhere else you can follow me on social media if you would like it makes me feel better
about myself everything is yes that Rob Irvin that is spelled E-R-V-I-N I am at chat in PG-69 and
I'm at FanDongo and Twitter too is the beginning trios and email me at dawn at clubhousepodcast.com
email dawn for information on how we can come do a live show just like we did tonight here at the
USA Film Festival we love doing live remote shows and hanging out with the empire you can email me
questions comments concerns tell me to go pound sand I am Rob at theclubhousepodcast.com I am
chat at theclubhousepodcast.com the award-winning Charlotte Parker is on Pinterest because we are
morally obligated to say that Jules Womack hanging out the house we're going to get her something
to eat on the way there I'm sure fabulous faith forward how she feeling she's feeling better she
last night she was almost 100% sure we're glad to hear we're glad to hear face feeling better she's
she's all just like me she's been left under the weather this week our normal show if you want to
call it that is every Sunday night seven Eastern four Pacific but we won't be back in the studio
till the weekend before Memorial Day so keep keep keeping up with us on social media we'll tell you
where we're going to be come hang out with us so until next time for dawn for all of our guests
and for Chad I'm Rob clubhouse is close and when am I going to get a Brittany Palmer documentary win