Latest / Yeah Buddy! Podcast / Bright Coast Productions on The Right to Exist, Viral Zombies, and Sacramento Filmmaking

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Bright Coast Productions on The Right to Exist, Viral Zombies, and Sacramento Filmmaking · Yeah Buddy! Podcast

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Music.
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Yes, yes, yes. What's going on, y'all? This is your man, Buddy Ramming,
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and we are back at it with another episode of the Yeah Buddy Podcast.
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If this is your first time tuning in, thank you for checking it out.
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And if you are a returning guest, thank you for tuning back in.
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You know how we do every episode. I always try to bring one of my friends in
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the entertainment business in.
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We sit down, chop it up, see what we got going on in the entertainment business.
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And this episode is like no other. We got my good friend, the filmmaker.
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We met a couple of years ago back on some projects and stuff like that.
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We'll get to that later. But he owns Bright Coast Productions He's got a really
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cool documentary That's going to sit up here and talk to y'all about it Stuff
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like that And right now I want y'all to make it live From my good friend Mr. Nick Anderson Mr.
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Nick Anderson in the building Thank you man, thank you, thank you,
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thank you Absolutely man, I appreciate it Thank you for sliding through onto
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the podcast and stuff like that So let's just get into a little introduction And stuff like that,
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give people a background About how we met I think it was like a couple years ago It was on.
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It was like a Jesus project or something like that It was an Armageddon project
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and Jesus had came back and I played like a reporter and Nick was the sound
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guy on that and stuff like that.
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And then ever since then, we just kept in contact and stuff like that.
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He's brought me on on a couple of projects that he's had and stuff like that.
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So, yeah, man, I'm glad to have you up on the podcast and stuff like that. I appreciate it.
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So tell the people, how did you get started and find your way into film?
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So I was kind of a theater kid, you know, being from the Sacramento area.
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I wasn't exposed to too much film as a young child. And so I was kind of a theater
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buff and ended up going to film school at Chapman University down in L.A.
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And from there, I had a really good experience.
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I was a screenwriting major, ended
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up working at Warner Brothers in story development at Silver Pictures.
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And it was right after they finished The Matrix. So my last name's Anderson.
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Got a lot of Mr. Anderson for a while there and, you know, really enjoyed my
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time there, kind of experiencing like a large studio production.
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And then moved back up here and ended up meeting my wife and kind of staying
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in the greater Sacramento area.
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Wanted to kind of bring my film school and larger studio
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experience to creating stuff in sacramento and first
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you know lowest path of resistance ended up falling into documentary and stuff
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like that but i'm doing a lot of commercial work and then trying to break into
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more more narrative work as my life goes forward what was it like going from
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like you say you working on like for water brothers i didn't even know that
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stuff like that but working from like one of brothers down there in la and hollywood
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then coming up here to sacramento where it's kind of like.
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Not as busy, I would assume, especially back then. So what was the transition
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like finding work up here at Sacramento?
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Did you have those connects already, or was it just... Yeah,
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I was very lucky. I was able to use my film school connections,
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and also when I first left Warner Brothers, or first moved back up here,
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Warner Brothers actually kept me on, and I was able to work as a script reader.
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So I was writing coverage and reading much different screenplays and providing feedback on that.
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So I was actually able to do that remotely for a couple years after I first
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moved back up here. So that was really great.
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And then, you know, still continued
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working down in LA on commercial productions and stuff like that.
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I prefer to direct and produce whenever possible, but when I'm not doing that, I do sound.
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And so, you know, owning nice sound equipment, I found that that was kind of
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a lot of people in Sacramento are very talented and own nice cameras,
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but there's not a lot of sound guys.
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That's slowly changing. But at the time I was a bit of a unicorn and that was
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able to help me kind of find work. Yeah. I want to ask you about that.
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Because especially, like I said, up here in Sacramento, like 90% of the community
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wants to be in front of the camera.
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So what was it like, like I said, you being like as experienced as you are now
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coming up here in Sacramento, how were you able to like, you know.
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Give out like, I guess, information and stuff like that to help,
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you know, because you said you was a unicorn, able to like pass off information
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that you learned down in L.A., the tools that you learned in L.A.
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To pass it off to people, crew members up here in Sacramento?
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Know yeah i mean i think a big part of it was i
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love sacramento there's a lot of film being created in here a lot of people performing and
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creating great art and i think i hear from people that come from la
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and do productions up here about how good the talent is and how especially in
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front of the camera like a really great acting pool you've got things like you
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know b street theater and the sofia and like other places creating really powerful
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art and having a really good turnout for for actors and stuff like that yeah
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i think on the technical side of things you know sacramento has really come
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a long way since when i first,
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date myself, but first graduated film school back in 06. And so,
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you know, things have changed.
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That being said, I think what I saw at the time was kind of Sacramento was comfortable
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churning out a certain level of product.
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And I think that's been elevating over the years. And Sacramento is really coming
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up as far as a proficient place to make film and really kind of higher caliber.
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You have people like Paul Thomas Anderson shooting, you know,
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his leader DiCaprio film here last year.
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And so I think that's showing something about what the city of Sacramento can
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create as far as the infrastructure and stuff here.
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But I think we're really still kind of stepping our game up in terms of
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like local homegrown talent because i think what happens a
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lot here is homegrown talent leaves for the bay area la and i get
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it that's where the money is i'm hoping to see if people will
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you know start to create more things here because sacramento is such a
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great hub both in location access and what's possible here
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and they've got things like the new rebate program and tax credits that are coming out
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that are hopeful people will create that and build that community yeah i
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think one of the things especially like being an actor up here
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because it's such an artistic scene up here
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dealing with the like the
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production side of things and stuff like that that that always tends
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to start to drift more towards like the business
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side of like the movie things because now you're really talking about like you
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know rates and it goes into like the budget list where like up
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here in sacramento you know actor might just i work for free
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i just want to act you know i just want to be the best actor that i can and stuff like
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that but when it comes to like being the crew it's all like nah because
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you can't really make it without the cruise that's where like the business side comes
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in and like yeah you got to make like what what are
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you going to pay what type of equipment are we using like the structure that's where
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like the structure i said the business side comes into which i
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said is i feel like it started to finally catch up to the acting pool up here
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so hopefully like i said going into 2026 uh we'll start to see a real change
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yeah absolutely there's a lot of opportunity to make a big change up here i'm
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hoping to be part of that yeah yes that's that's what we try to do You are,
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you are, you're definitely doing that, man.
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You have your own production company you have going on. It's called Bright Coast Productions.
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How did that come about um so right after film
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school i came up here and started working on a feature-length documentary
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i just had i had really thought myself as a sound guy i
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had a nice camera at the time and coming out of film school i was using that
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and working on documentaries and commercial projects out here and
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that kind of got me exposed and i decided to create right coast productions
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just kind of have my own arm both as like an llc for a legal front
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but also so i could do things again trying to like elevate the
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area so things like running payroll for productions you know properly if
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you need to have w-2s and stuff like that having insurance my
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productions kind of year round so whenever somebody needs to take it
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to the next level i have that opportunity you know ready to go and so
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i'll do things like ensuring the whole equipment for productions i've
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worked as production coordinators production managers stuff like that and other
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productions because of my my company so that's just allowed me a bigger access
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both in other productions and then to do my own work what's some of the the
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biggest challenges that you that you didn't realize you would face started starting
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off the bright coast productions i mean i don't love being a business owner.
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I hate kind of all the hats you have to wear. I hate, you know,
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doing the accounting stuff. I hate doing the setting up an LLC.
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This is actually my second production company. I had a business partner the first time around.
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We had a great experience, but it ended up being like one of those things where
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like, oh, we're going to go our separate ways.
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Exiting that's a huge mess. And so being a business owner is my least favorite part of it.
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I think if I had someone who wanted to run a production company and let me do
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my thing, I probably would be happy to be an employee.
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But right now, this just helps me a lot, especially in Northern California,
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where I think there's, you know there's a lot of companies up here that are
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trying to do this but there's not a lot with the credits and the caliber that
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i'm trying to bring to the table and so with your uh production company.
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What do you is there like a particular genre or
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type of films that you make or is it more so just whatever
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the client brings to your attention so for
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commercial work it's kind of whatever the client brings to my attention i work i mean i
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stumbled into the first documentary up here was called a last crop
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and it was about family-owned farms and kind of with the real estate prices
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being what they are and the value of land how do you become a young farmer and
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so just due to that i fell into kind of agriculture production
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so sacramento being what is it was called the farm before capital
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i've done a lot of stuff in the ag market one of my first things
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was before drones had really taken off i had
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canon 5d mark 3 and we would strap it to biplanes like
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prop dusters and fly out over you know fields and stuff like that and so i did
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work for cal fire and then various things and there's a local group called farm
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fresh to you and i did a bunch of video work for them so kind of being able
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to do aerial work before drones were popular was one of my my niche access and
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i ended up getting a to work on a large google production as a result of that just.
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Dope dope dope what's one of the craziest like things
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like the commercial like somebody's asked you to produce wise
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where you're like i don't know about this but you do it anyways i mean
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one of the things i'm working on right now it's not a
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commercial but i'm working on a vegan zombie musical which
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has to be one of the people always kind of just eyebrows go
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up when i mentioned just that okay yeah yeah yeah you
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was talking about that before like before we started recording the podcast i don't know
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if you want like how much you can get into it or like what it's
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about but like yeah yeah yeah let's let's get to this vegan zombie
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musical because they're that's funny because they're they're zombies but
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they're vegan yeah no exactly yeah that's
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the whole yeah part of the idea there was that uh
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you know if zombies ate vegetables suddenly they would be able
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to think better and then grow their brains back and so it's kind of a
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you know pro-vegan anti you know meat eating film
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but then we did a short film it's kind of proof of concept about a
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year ago and that did really well got over a million views on youtube and
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then we did a music video that went alongside it at the time there
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was no interest in converting it into a a feature
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link but it did so well we talked to the producer who's kind of uh
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the creative mind behind it director producer and uh
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he ended up deciding to convert the whole thing into a feature link and i
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sprinkled the idea out there like well what if we made it a musical you had
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this whole music video side of it the first time around and he'd been a composer
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on one of my projects okay and so i knew he had the musical chops and so he's
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now composed i think 13 songs and we are kind of working with some casting directors
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trying to attach some trying to have a go sag and have some actual talent brought
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on board but we're hoping to produce that this year or early next year okay cool.
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Getting a short film to get a million views on youtube is like no short feed at all what was the like,
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the marketing towards that or what do you think made people
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like to draw to that that film so our
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director has a bit of a music history behind him he does some
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soft jazz work and so i believe he was able to partner with some of
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the channels he markets that through to help promote the music video we released
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the music video first that got some traction and then
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we released the short film afterwards like an imax premiere it
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was on you know some news channels locally and got some attention but i
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think it was kind of a snowball effect you know we saw the first month or two
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you're getting maybe a hundred thousand views then it quickly skyrocketed to
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a million once it kind of hit yeah and so it's cooled off now but i think it
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was a short time when it's pretty hot yeah yeah so that was enough to get us
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interested in knowing there's a market for a feature that's all you need is
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just that one hit and then you know exactly and then then you also have.
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What we really came into to talk about today this
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really cool documentary that you have you already made
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it right it's already made it's let me uh grab her
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my notes because i don't i don't want to mess up the names i always say
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when i mess up the names and stuff okay the right to exist the right to exist
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it's a documentary about homelessness or
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is that what we still call them or unhoused people in uh
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in california sacramento what we'll play the trailer for it for people a little
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bit but uh what kind of compelled you to make talk about this situation and
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then more specifically make it a documentary so documentary has been something
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i've kind of stumbled into i think it's, it's.
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If you don't have a lot of money right now, I think one of the Sacramento suffers
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from is a lack of financial investment in the film community.
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You need investors who are going to create things.
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And so a documentary is something you can make without having to,
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you know, spend a larger budget on things because it's about access.
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And so this was a story that I felt, you know, I had access and the ability to produce.
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And I didn't really feel that as a, as a need until in 2021,
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I saw this stat come out that Sacramento had passed up San Francisco
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for the homeless population count and that was just so shocking
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for me i knew there was a you know you could drive anywhere and say
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there's a homeless situation that was that was spiraling out of control in
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sacramento and i knew about the housing crisis and kind of the unaffordability of
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the market here but seeing that pass up san francisco which i just in my mind
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always thought it was a bigger larger problem and i think the population there
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through the county is bigger but as a city sacramento had passed up san francisco
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and i thought that was that was a notable thing for me to hear and be like okay
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i should i should look deeper into this and do something yeah yes And so when
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did you start filming this documentary?
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Oh, so in 2021, I made a short. It was 20 minutes long called The Invisible Homeless.
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Separate project, but that was kind of beginning my journey into learning about this topic.
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And that was a really great experience, but that was really focused on women
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and children being kind of the invisible ones.
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What I found out was that so many people experiencing homelessness are actually in hiding.
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You know, you see the people who are on the streets, but that's actually like
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a really small portion of the population because so many are living in their
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cars, riding in tents, don't want to be seen.
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They don't want to be exposed to the public. And so from learning that,
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we screened the film and I would go to these Q and A's afterwards,
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and I would hear all these questions. And I thought, oh,
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I've now learned the answers from, you know, experts and people like that to these questions.
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I need to put those into a film. And so originally the right to exist was going
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to be a very data driven film, kind of academic looking at busting all these
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myths that I was exposed to in creating the invisible homeless.
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And that was when I stumbled upon this camp, camp resolution,
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and was so inspired by the people there.
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Originally, I set out to do a profile of one of the founders,
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Sharon Jones, and was just going to interview her.
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And as I talked to more and more people at the camp and they kind of welcomed
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me in and became friendly and sharing their stories with me,
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I realized that that was the main subject for the documentary.
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And so I followed this camp for over a year, learning about their history,
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how the camp was created, and then fundamentally what was going on with the
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city who had leased them the property.
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Well, that's crazy, man. I appreciate that because I said, people don't realize,
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especially up here in Sacramento or just California in general and stuff like
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that, people, it could just be bad luck.
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It could really just be bad luck that could just lead to that situation.
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I'll go up to other cities and stuff like that outside of California.
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And not to, I don't know their situation, but a lot of them just look like they were on drugs.
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That was the main thing. But up here, I'd like to say, it could just be shit.
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It's expensive. Like, oh, I can't find a third job.
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Just little things like that where it could just be bad luck that could send
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somebody down that path to being, like you said, unhoused or being homeless.
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It's exactly one of the myths we try to bust in the documentary.
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It's about HUD, major studies have happened.
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Stanford just published one recently. UCSF had a study. And what they're showing
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is that only 20% to 30% of the population are really on drugs or having some kind of mental illness.
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And often those are the ones who end up in a cycle of needing support or services.
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And because of the system being so overwhelmed right now, are unable to get those things.
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And so that 20% to 30% often are kind of in a churn where they end up,
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maybe they get a little bit of support. Maybe they get a foot in the door of
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getting things better, and then they end up back on the streets.
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And that's kind of a cycle that we see repeating itself right now.
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But then so many others, the other 60%, 70% of the population are just people
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who kind of run into bad luck.
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And that's the thing I think you especially see in housing markets like California.
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What we've really discovered through the stats is that it's actually really
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affluent areas, areas where there are good jobs and where there are robust housing
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markets that have the explosions of homelessness.
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And that's because you see this income disparity or a small run of bad luck
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in an expensive area to live can put you on the street. So that's just kind
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of what we get up here in Sacramento.
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And then, so what was it like making a documentary as opposed to the difference
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between making a documentary as opposed to making a feature film?
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Well, documentary, I mean, I like that you can, if you have the equipment,
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you can go turn it on and, you know.
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Best foot forward, go out and start shooting, shooting your material.
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Um, in this case, I was lucky enough to receive grants.
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So based off doing the short film, the invisible homeless, which is about a
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20 minute film, I was able to show that as kind of the quality I could produce.
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And that was done with almost no budget. That was friends and family.
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We did a little bit of a social campaign that, you know, got some, got some attention.
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Um, but this case I was able to get a grant and that was great because I was
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bringing to people like be able to bring people like Joe catches,
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who's like a award-winning cinematographer locally.
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The Adonis Moquette worked on the project as a producer. And we had
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a lot of success working with like some of the best talent in sacramento coming
16:49
to elevate the film and i thought that was really important for me that i would bring
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the team i would shoot you know a corporate ceo for
16:55
a tech company with to shoot people who are experiencing homelessness and
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so i thought that that that quality would really elevate their stories and so
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i tried to bring kind of you know relatively a full commercial team to these
17:05
productions i did sound myself while doing the interviews and things like that
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but it was you know closer to what i would do for a narrative film minus the
17:12
lights and things like that just due to the situation but i tried to bring that
17:15
kind of higher quality of this and And I think that's,
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you know, documentary, you can kind of do it by the seat of your pants.
17:20
But this one really, I think, you know, looks better and sounds better.
17:23
We have amazing drone photography and stuff throughout the film.
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I'm very, very proud of how it looks.
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We have original music scored and stuff like that. So I think it's one of the
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best things I've created.
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And personally, I think I'm most proud of that I've created in my creative career.
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So right now, yeah, we're going
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ahead and let people take a look at the trailer for the right to exist.
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Is there anything you want people to know before you show the trailer?
17:43
Just that the trailer is from last year. So we're sending we're sending up new trailers right now.
17:48
We did a 40 minute cut that premiered last year and we are currently getting
17:52
it out there. But I'm very, very proud of the trailer that sits right now.
17:54
And I'm hoping to get more attention with the film because it's finishing up just now.
17:59
So cool. Yeah, we're going to check it out right now. Y'all,
18:01
this is the trailer to the right to exist.
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It's easy to think because I've never seen a United States without homelessness
18:08
that it's just always existed.
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But the reality is that we are living through a very unique moment.
18:13
The mayor had announced that he wanted to open up nine homeless shelters. They opened up none.
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Camp Resolution is an example of that. So they cleared out the homeless folks
18:21
there. Then they did nothing.
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At that point, people just squatted the land, and that became Camp Resolution.
18:26
The uniqueness of it is love.
18:28
It was thought of and created with love.
18:32
Camp Resolution is a place. It's a community. I love this community.
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It's truly incredible what they've achieved. Because we've been doing something the city ain't doing.
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They made this public announcement that they're going to close this.
18:43
The DA wants to criminalize homelessness.
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The city announced that they're going to be closing the camp.
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We're being swept. It's a danger that's killing people, and I don't want to die out here.
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How are we? And for solutions.
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What do we want? We'll be.
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Music.
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All right cool yeah yeah that was the the trailer to the right to
19:06
exist thank you for i said bringing the trailer
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on through so so
19:13
where where did you feel most like because i saw it was like the gated community
19:16
and stuff like that where where was can you say like where that was like what
19:19
part of sacramill that was filmed at or yeah it was colfax and arden i think
19:23
right around that area where the original chando's tacos was and so i had to
19:28
mention that because that was kind of our go-to for foodstops.
19:31
But yeah, it was this area of land that Camp Resolution had successfully leased from the city.
19:35
They had an agreement with the city to lease the land and the city provided
19:38
them with 18 trailers or campers to live in there.
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And so it was really this very unique opportunity for me to get access to a
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community that was staying in one place.
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And so because of that, I was able to build trust and speak with the individuals there.
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And I think when you first meet someone who's experiencing homelessness,
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they may not want to open up to you. And I totally get that.
19:56
This is that they're in the middle of experiencing something that is probably
19:59
based off systems failing them over and over again.
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And there's a lot of kind of people who come out there with a camera who maybe
20:04
are, you know, opportunist or looky-loos or just going to be there for,
20:07
you know, one-off, you know, day.
20:09
And so I think it took me showing up, you know, week after week,
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month after month, you know, kind of still being there, interested in what they
20:15
had to say coming out there.
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This was an amazing community that would have open mic nights and music.
20:20
And so that's one of the things that I thought was so amazing about the community
20:22
is they were bringing the neighborhood around them in and saying,
20:25
hey, you want to learn about your neighbors who are experiencing homelessness come in and
20:28
meet us you know we're regular people they would host these big barbecues and
20:31
it was just this like really you know warm familial feel
20:35
to the community there they had a an administrative trailer they would
20:38
hold like kind of like board meetings and here's the whole community there they had
20:40
a central group that was managing the decisions and voting if someone were to
20:44
get housing who do we bring in next into our community and so there was a really
20:48
intelligent and well-run camp and so i think it was such an exception yeah i
20:52
thought like oh this this has to be attention attention brought to this i thought
20:55
the individuals there were so well spoken about experiencing homelessness.
20:59
That's something you also, you know, you want to put the best foot forward as
21:03
far as people who have something to say about the issue.
21:05
And I think this is just a great community to be marching to City Hall and speaking
21:09
in front of the mayor and really raising the issues that were first and foremost affecting Sacramento.
21:15
Yeah, yeah. So that's what I was going to ask. So with making these short films,
21:18
these projects shed a light on what is going on in Sacramento,
21:22
do you work closely with the city of Sacramento? Like.
21:25
Or like keep it to keep up to date with what they're trying to do to fix the homelessness
21:31
situation up here i attended a lot of city hall meetings and then
21:34
i would also kind of keep track it's kind of
21:36
exhausting doing all the meetings and maybe five six hours long
21:39
so i would also look at the agenda topics afterwards and i
21:42
was able to access they record all the the city hall meetings on
21:45
video so you can watch them afterwards and go on topics and stuff like that
21:48
you'll see some of that footage in the film and so for that reason
21:51
i was i was kind of paying attention to what was going on the community i was also reading
21:54
you know sac b has got a pretty good team covering the
21:56
topic and i was also following their stories as well so i was kind of
21:59
able to see what's happening in the area what we kept seeing over and
22:02
over again was this increasing in enforcement and increasing in criminalization
22:05
at a time when i think you know we kind of needed more compassion and more yeah
22:09
yeah yeah less criminalization more therapy yeah yeah yeah because i one thing
22:14
i did notice because like i worked when they did the paul thomas anderson the
22:18
leonardo movie i here i I worked on it for maybe a week when they were filming in the downtown area.
22:22
And the first day we were filming out there, early in the morning,
22:26
they did absolutely nothing about it.
22:28
Homeless people were walking up on set and all this type of stuff.
22:31
But that second day, they had everything just cleared out.
22:36
And that's what I was kind of like. I sat back up. I'm like,
22:38
you know what? If they really wanted to, they could probably really just do
22:41
something to fix this situation.
22:44
If they could clear just this whole section out of downtown,
22:47
I'm pretty sure they could find some sort of resolution, some sort of solution to this problem.
22:52
So I'm glad that, like I said, you're somebody like he was out there doing something,
22:56
using your artistic talent to shed a light on this situation.
23:00
And hopefully, you know, we do something about it.
23:02
Because like I said, it's just bad luck. That's all you need out here.
23:06
Yeah, we have a solution section in the film where I talk about a couple of
23:08
different, like both philosophical ideas, but also practical ways to get things done.
23:12
And one of the things we talk about is housing first, which is kind of old school news.
23:15
It's like something that was great in the nineties, but it's something that
23:17
like, I think they're, they're talking about in the government right now about,
23:20
about getting away with or getting rid of.
23:22
And I think it's, it's a really good philosophy that's, that says like,
23:25
Hey, you might have a lot of other issues, whether it's drugs,
23:27
alcohol, mental illness, active stress for being on the streets.
23:30
But if we get you into a house first, we can address those problems because
23:34
now you've got a regular address. Maybe now you have, you know,
23:36
maybe some of the problems you had are so exacerbated by being on the streets
23:40
because, you know, at the time you were fighting to exist when you're on the streets.
23:43
And once you get a house, you know, suddenly some of those issues become easier to deal with.
23:46
Yeah. So you just got to like lay down at a bed, look up at the ceiling and
23:49
be like, all right, let me process some stuff.
23:51
And that's all that sometimes that's all they need. You know,
23:53
just some time to just think process and, you know, decompress, lose all that stress.
23:58
Yeah. So and then if people wanted to, because the documentary is done.
24:03
Right. okay so well at least you know for the most part for viewing and
24:06
stuff like that i know you say you had a couple of viewings coming up
24:09
yeah stuff like that a screening at sac state on september 10th
24:12
right now we're basically doing almost like test screenings kind of to expose
24:15
it to the greater sacramento community the people who actually really lived
24:17
this and kind of see their reactions hear back from them we were able to do
24:21
a screening of the first half of the film last fall it was a sellout crowd i
24:24
got really good responses you know one of the most important things to myself
24:27
was having people from the camp come and see the film and so i made sure for
24:30
those who couldn't make it to go and screen it privately for them.
24:33
But also taking a year to kind of wrap up the edit and compose the music,
24:36
we've gotten to do kind of a where are they now and find out what has happened
24:39
to the members of the camp we were following during the story.
24:41
So in the credits of the film, we also kind of catch up with a bunch of them.
24:45
That's what they wanted to ask. I forgot about that, too. Because I said,
24:48
with doing a documentary and stuff like that, the people in front of the camera,
24:51
they're not actors, they're not stars or anything like that.
24:53
But any time you put a camera in front of somebody, they just automatically
24:58
just feel like a star. You know what I'm saying?
25:00
So especially with them being in that type of situation, what was it like?
25:04
Because I'm pretty sure they lit up, smiles just lit up and stuff like that.
25:07
What was it like seeing their reaction to the film?
25:10
Yeah it was a balance i mean the their reaction to the film was amazing you
25:14
know they're cheering standing ovations i think they did get to feel like stars
25:17
that was really important to me for them to see themselves on a big screen with
25:21
an audience there and cheering and clapping and you know and really feeling
25:24
like that that level of respect that being said i do think you know.
25:28
People experiencing homelessness they do feel like a star you put the camera on
25:30
them but they also are they're talking about a very difficult subject and
25:33
something that might be embarrassing for them and so getting to open up and talk with
25:36
me honestly you know took some time and i think you
25:39
know it's something i i really respect everyone who's featured in the film
25:42
for for being willing to do because they're not talking about comfortable subjects yeah
25:45
i often felt like you know when you're writing a short film
25:48
or doing something fun you know comedy whatever you can put your passion
25:51
behind it it's your baby and in this case i feel more like
25:54
you know yeah i'm the director but i feel more like a steward of stories where
25:57
it's like i have to kind of protect these into existence and make sure that
26:00
their stories feel honored and their voices feel protected and
26:03
so it's very important for me to show uh the film to the people in the film
26:06
and make sure they didn't feel i i took advantage of them anyway yeah it's
26:09
like that's yeah because it's not like you're filming characters you're
26:12
filming people yes and this is some of the roughest part of
26:15
their life yeah yeah yeah and you it's very easy to
26:18
kind of like characterize you know real people or like you know manipulate whatever
26:23
it is on camera for them to be viewed any way you want them to be to be viewed
26:28
absolutely i have seen interviews with people experiencing homelessness now
26:31
that have kind of caused me to like take a step back and go oh is that okay is what they're doing,
26:35
they're asking someone to, you know, do something on camera that maybe,
26:38
you know, I try to be a little bit more...
26:41
Not avant-garde is the right word, but kind of more fly on the wall and observational
26:44
and being like, okay, you know,
26:45
you show me what you do for lunch and I'll just kind of capture that.
26:48
Then we can talk about, you know, the hardships that you're facing and stuff like that.
26:51
And, you know, the day-to-day life stuff sometimes is very uplifting.
26:54
Like I said, they had these open mic nights, these great, you know,
26:57
I think that's, that's part of the film was showing how, how warm this community could be.
27:00
I often say that I have not seen people as selfless as the people experiencing homelessness.
27:04
It is, it was regular for me to see someone who was shivering on the streets,
27:08
have another homeless person be the one to bring in the blanket you know often they're the
27:11
ones taking care of each other and that's so encouraging to
27:14
see when i think you know america's kind of in a point right now or even neighbors
27:17
you know don't know each other or don't help each other out you don't go next door
27:20
to ask for a cup of sugar if you're running out of sugar these days you just order anyone
27:23
on amazon and yeah you know and so seeing that that community
27:26
especially in sacramento and in and around the homeless community
27:29
it was really inspiring and really uh you know and them being willing
27:33
to be a part of my film i thought was something i took as you know
27:35
very very honored that they would yeah yeah did you get
27:39
any sort of like pushback from the people in the community where they
27:41
were just like no or for the most part they was all like yeah let's like let's
27:45
tell our story no they're more more often than
27:47
not everyone want to tell their story now it's very you know trying to be respectful
27:50
of that and making sure i took the time to like hear them out and also i think
27:54
if you're asking someone to relive the trauma of their life you know often i'm
27:56
asking like hey how did you become homeless that's not often a very uplifting
27:59
story yeah i would always try to make sure to stick around afterwards i feel
28:02
like you don't want to just talk to someone to take them to a dark place and then walk away,
28:06
stick around hang out with them afterwards make sure there's a relationship
28:09
there and I do really care about these people I'm not someone who's.
28:13
Potentially equipped to solve homelessness in sacramento but i think you
28:15
know for me i'm a filmmaker i can make a film i want to you
28:19
know both show that in front of the camera and behind the camera that i was someone
28:21
who's carrying and is trying to make the situation better and
28:24
when you say like talk to them after you mean like the camera stopped rolling you
28:27
still like just talk good yeah yeah yeah
28:30
of course yeah it's also good to have the uplifting stuff on camera too like hey you
28:33
know what are you doing now how's your life improving you know what can you talk about why
28:36
is this camp inspiring there's lots of inspirational stuff in the film and
28:38
so i think that's something making a film around homelessness you know
28:41
you can't just do dark topics all the
28:44
time there's a lot of stuff that's getting worse right now both politically and
28:47
also you know in the government and i get it the
28:50
population is exhausted an issue i
28:54
get it but you know i'm exhausted with being an issue you know
28:56
i want people to have housing yeah however i think
28:59
you know there's a lot of uplifting parts of the film too where you see you
29:02
know warm gratitude and smart people saying smart
29:05
things yeah people caring about the topic i think that's that's
29:08
the thing i thought that people should see is that there are a lot of smart people trying
29:11
to solve this problem and we need to support them and it's this
29:14
is a thing where you're going to fail at it and because it's not a commercial enterprise
29:17
it's a thing that requires you know tax dollars and
29:20
willpower and non-profits you know we need to give permission to fail because
29:23
we need to try different things to figure out solutions and i don't think a
29:26
solution that fits sacramento necessarily fits la or necessarily fit the bay
29:30
area and so it's not a one-size-fits-all thing which of course is how we are
29:34
as people you know one-size-fits-all for for problems you might have And so I think for that reason.
29:38
You have to be flexible and you have to be willing to experiment and fail and
29:41
come back and still keep trying to help people.
29:43
And if anybody wants to go to the free film screening that takes place September
29:48
10th, 2025, that's coming up. So when this airs, it'll be Monday.
29:51
So y'all come and check it out on Wednesday. That's Wednesday,
29:53
right? Yeah. Yeah. So Wednesday, that's at the, what the, Hindi?
29:58
It's at Sacramento State University. Y'all see the fly. I'm not about to pronounce
30:01
all this shit, but you could scan the QR code to RSVP and then you could scan
30:07
to QR code if you want to check out the trailer for the right to exist again.
30:10
Like I said, that's September 10th from 6 to 8 at Sacramento State University
30:15
at that confusing-ass auditorium.
30:18
And we'll be doing a bunch more screenings as well. I'm trying to get a bunch
30:21
of reactions in the next six months, the next three months about the film.
30:24
And so I'm hoping to screen 20 times in the greater area if I can.
30:27
We have eight scheduled so far. So this is the first one, hopefully.
30:31
Cool, cool, cool, man. And then before we do wrap up this episode,
30:35
let me also put up the QR code.
30:37
So yeah, I got the QR code right there for the VIMO. So if y'all want to go
30:40
and support White Coast Productions, just scan this QR code right there in the bottom corner.
30:44
And then, yeah, so y'all go ahead and Venmo them, put some money in their pockets
30:49
so they could continue spreading the word about what's going on out here in Sacramento.
30:53
Continue to keep making these pretty cool movies.
30:56
Yeah, and I can say right now, if anyone were sending any funds,
30:59
we're not that we're expecting that.
31:00
But if anyone were to choose to, right now we are directly putting those funds
31:03
behind the Right to Exist film.
31:05
So we're going to do things like festival fees, marketing. We're hoping to hire
31:08
a sales agent to approach things like, you know, the Netflix appholes of the world.
31:12
I'm not, I'm not particularly focused on selling this film, but for me,
31:15
it's a balcony from the eyeballs.
31:16
I think this thing, you know, it's very timely, it deserves exposure right now.
31:20
And it's a film, like I said, I kind of feel like I'm storing it into existence
31:22
and I want to help get it out there.
31:24
The best job I can do is helping these people tell their story in public.
31:28
And I think sharing this is really important.
31:30
Cool, cool, cool, man. And then so if people want to find out more about like
31:33
you or Bright Coast Productions, where could they go to find that?
31:38
So brightcoastproductions.com is my website or you can follow us at Bright Coast
31:41
Productions on Instagram or Facebook. Okay, cool, cool, cool.
31:44
And so just a random ass question for me. So being a producer,
31:48
owning your production company, stuff like that, what is probably like the favorite,
31:52
the most favorite thing that you, you've learned to like about being a producer?
31:56
Honestly, it sounds funny, but I like creating jobs. I like,
31:58
you know, it's really nice to call people who want to do the creative work that
32:02
they do and find a way to support them.
32:04
And so, you know, it's really nice what I can call and be like,
32:06
Hey, I'm going to have a, you know, mostly commercial rate to offer you for
32:10
this project. Like, you know, we're probably not doing union rates yet,
32:12
or, you know, I've only worked on several SAG productions in the greater Sacramento area, more in LA.
32:17
But, you know, when I'm able to create jobs, that's really a good feeling.
32:20
And, you know, I probably have been working on projects where we're hiring 100,
32:23
200 people a year. And so that's been really nice.
32:25
Yeah, cool, cool, man, cool. Yeah, so, hey, Nick, man, I appreciate you coming on to the podcast, man.
32:29
Like I said, anytime you want to come through, man, you're more than welcome
32:31
and stuff like that. You know what I'm saying?
32:33
So I say, you know, this has been Buddy Ramik. You know what I'm saying?
32:36
You can follow me at YeahBuddyENT on all social medias. If you want to check
32:41
out more of the Yeah Buddy podcast, they're streaming on all streaming platforms.
32:44
I have all my stand-up comedy, my Yeah Buddy comedy nights,
32:49
www.yeahbuddyent.com. Oh, well, don't forget, October 4th. October 4th,
32:53
we got the return Yeah Buddy comedy night at the Uli Theater.
32:56
And, of course, you already know how we do it, man. It's live stream,
32:59
so you don't even have to be there to check it out.
33:00
Of course, if you want to come to the theater to watch it, you can,
33:03
or you can be at home and watch it on the couch of your PJs, whatever you want to do.
33:07
Like I said, if this has been your first time checking out the Yeah Buddy podcast,
33:10
I thank you for tuning in. If you're a returning guest, hey,
33:13
thank you for coming back.
33:14
Like I said, man, hey, I'll catch y'all on the next episode.
33:17
We're going to sign out on this camera right here. Boo-boo. So we'll catch y'all next time. Da-da.
33:23
Let me know when you're ready. Okay.