Latest / The Bob Lefsetz Podcast / Alison Ellwood

Transcript

Alison Ellwood · The Bob Lefsetz Podcast

0:02
Speaker 1: Welcome, Welcome, Welcome back to the Bob Left Sets podcast.
0:06
Speaker 1: My guest today is Alison Elwood, director of the new
0:10
Speaker 1: documentary Boy George and Culture Club. Alison, how did this
0:15
Speaker 1: film come to be?
0:17
Speaker 2: Well, Hi, thanks for having me.
0:19
Speaker 3: We met George when we were doing the Cindy Lapper
0:22
Speaker 3: film Let the Canary Sing. We interviewed him for that
0:25
Speaker 3: film and started talking to him about doing a culture
0:28
Speaker 3: club film then, and he was into it. His manager
0:32
Speaker 3: PK was into it, and then Mikey and Roy were
0:34
Speaker 3: into it, and we had to eventually convince John and
0:37
Speaker 3: we did, and so that's how it got going.
0:40
Speaker 1: Okay, So boy George is obviously a famous figure. Do
0:45
Speaker 1: you have a whole vision or do you say, oh,
0:47
Speaker 1: he's a guy, he's done enough thing, I can make
0:49
Speaker 1: a movie. Yeah.
0:51
Speaker 3: No, I mean he clearly had a vision and a
0:54
Speaker 3: story to tell more importantly, and that's what I was
0:57
Speaker 3: drawn to. And this was the story of the band
0:59
Speaker 3: and the and what was behind the music.
1:02
Speaker 1: So give us the process. You meet Boy George, result
1:06
Speaker 1: of the Cydey Law up or film. What's the next step.
1:09
Speaker 3: Oh, there's a lot of conversations back and forth, largely
1:12
Speaker 3: with the producer Trevor Burney at that point, and George's
1:15
Speaker 3: manager PK and then they involved Mikey and Roy and
1:20
Speaker 3: John was. We were talking to him all along, but
1:22
Speaker 3: he didn't agree to do it until fairly late in
1:24
Speaker 3: the process. But we're very grateful that he did because
1:27
Speaker 3: it wouldn't have been a film without him.
1:29
Speaker 1: So, so, how much does a film like this cost?
1:32
Speaker 3: This budget I think was around one point five million
1:35
Speaker 3: something in that vicinity.
1:37
Speaker 1: And where does the money come from?
1:39
Speaker 3: Various people, financiers, streamers. Sometimes this one's going, you know,
1:46
Speaker 3: making its money back from video on demand at the moment.
1:49
Speaker 2: You know, different sources. Every film is different.
1:52
Speaker 1: So in this particular case, is there a streaming deal already?
1:56
Speaker 3: It's there's only streaming deal it's on it's video on
1:59
Speaker 3: demand pay per view now.
2:01
Speaker 1: So how long does it take to raise the money?
2:05
Speaker 3: You know, I don't know exactly on this one. It
2:08
Speaker 3: was at least a year over a year because it
2:11
Speaker 3: and then we had to continue raising money because we
2:13
Speaker 3: had a huge archive budget that was over budget. We
2:16
Speaker 3: had to raise more money for that too, So you know,
2:18
Speaker 3: all in all, probably took two years of constant fundraising
2:21
Speaker 3: as we were going.
2:23
Speaker 1: Okay. So in this particular case, are you raising the
2:27
Speaker 1: money or do you have a team?
2:29
Speaker 2: No, I'm not doing it.
2:30
Speaker 3: There's a team of producers and their connections to financiers
2:34
Speaker 3: and all that.
2:36
Speaker 1: Okay, So under whose aegis are you operating? Is it
2:40
Speaker 1: your company or is it somebody else's company? You're making
2:42
Speaker 1: the movie?
2:44
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm hired as a freelance director from different companies.
2:47
Speaker 3: I've worked with Fine Point Films on a number of films.
2:49
Speaker 3: They were the production company and then they secured the
2:53
Speaker 3: financing through different different financiers.
2:56
Speaker 1: So how long after do you wait for the money
3:00
Speaker 1: to come in before you begin?
3:02
Speaker 3: Yeah, you have to have most of the money in
3:04
Speaker 3: because it's expensive to shoot and start collecting archival material.
3:09
Speaker 1: So what are the first steps? Is the director? When'd
3:11
Speaker 1: you know it's a go?
3:13
Speaker 2: When did I know it was a go?
3:15
Speaker 3: No?
3:15
Speaker 1: Once you know it's a go, what are your first
3:17
Speaker 1: steps you take?
3:19
Speaker 3: Well, you know, I was preparing for it to be
3:21
Speaker 3: a go, So I was researching, you know, reading whatever
3:23
Speaker 3: I could looking at or whatever I could listening to
3:26
Speaker 3: the music obviously, So when we finally got the green
3:29
Speaker 3: light to go, we were ready to start interviewing. So
3:31
Speaker 3: I was preparing questions for the band members, you know,
3:35
Speaker 3: individuals to each of them.
3:37
Speaker 2: Obviously a lot of crossover too. Yeah, So it's you.
3:41
Speaker 3: Know, a lot of research and then writing questions and
3:44
Speaker 3: starting to you know, mine through hundreds of hours of
3:47
Speaker 3: archival material and photographs too.
3:50
Speaker 1: Were you a culture club fan?
3:52
Speaker 3: I was, indeed, Yeah, Okay, so he's a public figure
3:58
Speaker 3: that being in his public success.
4:00
Speaker 1: You're doing the interviews. What surprises you is you gain information.
4:06
Speaker 3: Obviously it's different in every instance, but a few surprise
4:11
Speaker 3: I mean, I was really pleasantly surprised to learn how
4:14
Speaker 3: funny each of those band numbers are.
4:16
Speaker 2: I mean all of them. They're so funny.
4:18
Speaker 3: I would have loved to have been a fly on
4:20
Speaker 3: the wall with them back in the day when they
4:21
Speaker 3: were in their.
4:22
Speaker 2: Creative juices flowing you.
4:24
Speaker 3: There's a bit of it in the film, an audio
4:25
Speaker 3: moment where they're in the studio recording and they're having
4:28
Speaker 3: a big fight over something. But it's obviously very playful
4:31
Speaker 3: and creative. So their sense of humor was a great
4:35
Speaker 3: surprise to me. Learning that George's parents were very accepting
4:40
Speaker 3: of him and his kind of wild styling because he
4:43
Speaker 3: was doing that as a six seven year old boy
4:45
Speaker 3: as well. It's very authentic to who he is. And
4:50
Speaker 3: you know how smart they are. I wasn't surprised by that.
4:53
Speaker 3: I knew they were smart from having heard interviews of
4:55
Speaker 3: them before. But yeah, and also read discovering some of
5:01
Speaker 3: the music, like we all remember the big hits from
5:03
Speaker 3: the day, but rediscovering how great some of the other
5:06
Speaker 3: songs that weren't necessarily such big hits. Just a what
5:10
Speaker 3: a really creative and powerful discography they really have.
5:16
Speaker 1: So where are you from?
5:17
Speaker 2: Originally Melbourne, Australia?
5:20
Speaker 1: Okay, got to ask what happened your accent?
5:23
Speaker 3: I think I was just I only lived there till
5:26
Speaker 3: I was two. Then I lived all over this country,
5:28
Speaker 3: in England, all over the place.
5:30
Speaker 1: Okay, so you're born in Melbourne. What are your parents
5:33
Speaker 1: doing that you were in Australia?
5:36
Speaker 3: My dad was British, my mom was American, and my
5:39
Speaker 3: dad was working. He was an engineer and was working
5:42
Speaker 3: in Australia, and my mom followed him there, and then
5:45
Speaker 3: she and then we just we just moved all around
5:49
Speaker 3: where followed wherever his jobs were.
5:51
Speaker 1: So where were his jobs? Where did you go.
5:53
Speaker 3: Up all over Illinois, San Francisco, New Jersey, London, Texas,
6:00
Speaker 3: and then later I moved to New York in LA
6:04
Speaker 3: back and forth several times.
6:06
Speaker 2: Now I'm on Martha's vineyards.
6:09
Speaker 1: So how many kids in the family.
6:11
Speaker 2: I'm the eldest of four daughters, and what are the
6:14
Speaker 2: other three up to?
6:18
Speaker 3: What? As a retired school teacher, the other is a
6:21
Speaker 3: scientist doing massive important things caring cancer, and the youngest
6:26
Speaker 3: is also a school teacher.
6:29
Speaker 1: So you're traveling to all these places. You're constantly going
6:32
Speaker 1: to new schools. How tough was that? And are you
6:36
Speaker 1: good at making friends? Are you more relying on your
6:38
Speaker 1: friendships with your sisters?
6:40
Speaker 3: A bit of both. I'm pretty good at making friends.
6:43
Speaker 3: I saw it as an adventure. I really loved it.
6:46
Speaker 3: I thought it was exciting and going somewhere new, and
6:48
Speaker 3: especially living in London was really an exciting time. It
6:51
Speaker 3: was there in the seventies, which was really fun, although
6:55
Speaker 3: we weren't allowed out at night when football matches happened
6:58
Speaker 3: because it got so wild on the streets. But now,
7:02
Speaker 3: I mean, I have a very very tight relationship with
7:05
Speaker 3: all of my sisters. As a result of moving so much,
7:08
Speaker 3: we always had each other as a base.
7:11
Speaker 1: Okay, you lived in all these different places. The world
7:14
Speaker 1: is different, it's flattened as a result of the Internet.
7:17
Speaker 1: Places are much more similar. But you're living in all
7:20
Speaker 1: these places. What are the differences, I mean difference between
7:23
Speaker 1: Illinois and San Francisco.
7:26
Speaker 3: Well, that difference I barely recognized because I was I
7:29
Speaker 3: was so young. But I'll tell you the biggest difference
7:32
Speaker 3: was moving from London to Houston, Texas. That was a
7:35
Speaker 3: culture shock and that was the hard That was a
7:38
Speaker 3: very hard transition.
7:39
Speaker 1: And how old were you when you moved to Houston?
7:42
Speaker 2: Sixteen?
7:43
Speaker 1: So what can you tell us about Texas?
7:47
Speaker 2: I love parts of Texas.
7:49
Speaker 3: I did not love Houston, but you know every place
7:53
Speaker 3: has some some lovely spots you if you search.
7:58
Speaker 1: So what kind of care you? Were you a bookworm?
8:02
Speaker 1: Were you watching movies? Were you an outdoor kid?
8:06
Speaker 3: I was obsessed with National Geographic as a very young
8:09
Speaker 3: child and wanted to be a photojournalist and travel and
8:13
Speaker 3: write and take pictures, and then fell into documentary filmmaking
8:17
Speaker 3: when I fell in love with movies. And I like
8:21
Speaker 3: fiction films too, And I've written some fiction. And you know,
8:25
Speaker 3: it's hard to make that transition, but I'm still trying.
8:29
Speaker 3: But I think documentaries are just such a remarkable way
8:33
Speaker 3: for people to experience different things in different places and
8:37
Speaker 3: different people.
8:39
Speaker 1: Okay, so you go to high school. What happens after
8:41
Speaker 1: high school for you?
8:44
Speaker 3: I bounced around in a few different colleges trying to
8:47
Speaker 3: figure out where I wanted to go, But I ended
8:49
Speaker 3: up at NYU Film School.
8:51
Speaker 1: Okay, little When did you realize that you wanted to
8:54
Speaker 1: go to film school?
8:57
Speaker 2: Probably after.
9:00
Speaker 3: My first semester of college, because I just I had
9:03
Speaker 3: kind of followed friends to a school in Texas and
9:06
Speaker 3: it was not a good experience and I just wanted
9:09
Speaker 3: to get back to what I wanted to do, and
9:12
Speaker 3: so ended up at NYU.
9:14
Speaker 1: Okay, So were you the type of kid who was
9:17
Speaker 1: watching a movie every day in high school before you
9:20
Speaker 1: go to film school? How immersed in it were you?
9:23
Speaker 3: I wouldn't say every day, but I certainly loved movies.
9:26
Speaker 3: I loved going to the cinema and seeing it in
9:28
Speaker 3: a theater with the large screen. That was just such
9:31
Speaker 3: a magical experience. As far back as I can remember,
9:35
Speaker 3: I loved doing that, you know. I mean, I watched
9:38
Speaker 3: a fairmount I was also very social and athletic, and
9:41
Speaker 3: so I was outdoors a lot too, So I wasn't
9:44
Speaker 3: like hunkered down watching doing nothing but watching movies.
9:48
Speaker 1: So what were a couple of the movies that you
9:50
Speaker 1: loved or impressed you back then? Oh?
9:53
Speaker 3: Way back then? God, that would be I'd have to
9:58
Speaker 3: think about that. The documentary that made a huge impression
10:02
Speaker 3: on me was Spinal Tap. To this day, my favorite documentary.
10:08
Speaker 3: I just loved the freedom of that and and how
10:13
Speaker 3: sort of especially now that I've worked in so many
10:15
Speaker 3: rock documentaries, there's such a there's such an underbelly to
10:19
Speaker 3: that world that was captured so amusingly in that film.
10:26
Speaker 1: In terms of documentaries other than the ones you've made,
10:31
Speaker 1: what's the best music documentary?
10:34
Speaker 3: Oh? You know this, I've been asked this before, and
10:36
Speaker 3: I I mean, don't look back as great obviously, I
10:41
Speaker 3: mean the classics. I'm sorry, I'm going to blank on
10:44
Speaker 3: names of things I'm not good at that. Throw some
10:49
Speaker 3: names at me and I and I'll know exactly what
10:50
Speaker 3: you're talking about. I just am blanking on names.
10:54
Speaker 1: Mean to put you on the spot. So you go
10:57
Speaker 1: to NYU Film School, what is that like?
11:01
Speaker 2: It was great?
11:01
Speaker 3: I made some good friends and had a writing professor
11:05
Speaker 3: there who's still to this day one of my dearest friends,
11:08
Speaker 3: people I'm still in touch with.
11:10
Speaker 2: So it was great.
11:11
Speaker 3: I mean, you know, film school, it's funny. There are
11:15
Speaker 3: kids that take it super super seriously and are a
11:17
Speaker 3: little intimidating. But then they also there's some kids that
11:21
Speaker 3: take themselves too seriously and you're kind of like, oh god,
11:24
Speaker 3: you know, but my favorite, I think one of my
11:27
Speaker 3: favorite experiences there was one of the kids who didn't
11:31
Speaker 3: take anything seriously, like, went out with his sixteen millimeter camera.
11:35
Speaker 3: We filmed it film back then and you know, didn't
11:39
Speaker 3: load the film properly, shot a escalator till the film
11:42
Speaker 3: ran out three minutes later, and showed that as his
11:45
Speaker 3: film that was completely out of focus and stuttering.
11:47
Speaker 2: The whole way.
11:47
Speaker 3: And that was a great experience of just wow, you
11:50
Speaker 3: just can do something crazy and own it.
11:55
Speaker 1: Okay. So you know, I'd certainly didn't go to film
12:00
Speaker 1: school and didn't go to NY you didn't have that
12:02
Speaker 1: kind of experience. You know that you can study film,
12:06
Speaker 1: you can make films. What is the program like.
12:10
Speaker 3: You know, it's both. I mean when I was there,
12:14
Speaker 3: there's film studies that I did, took classes and watched
12:18
Speaker 3: films and lectured and read books, and then there's the
12:23
Speaker 3: filmmaking process, and I just sort of very early on
12:28
Speaker 3: gravitated toward the editorial side of things. And I also
12:31
Speaker 3: hated using the upright movie ole as I could never
12:34
Speaker 3: master that.
12:35
Speaker 2: So the.
12:37
Speaker 3: Graduate students had access to flatbeds, so I would edit
12:42
Speaker 3: their films so that I could my films on their
12:45
Speaker 3: flatbeds versus the uprights.
12:47
Speaker 1: So what kind of films were you making?
12:50
Speaker 3: Really stupid stuff? I wasn't. Yeah, they're just really kind
12:56
Speaker 3: of silly, just experimenting with visuals. Mostly absolutely nothing of
13:00
Speaker 3: any worthnes these days, except there's some fun stuff of
13:03
Speaker 3: my little sisters in them.
13:06
Speaker 1: So you graduate, and then what's the next step.
13:09
Speaker 3: I started working so much as an assistant editor for people. Well,
13:14
Speaker 3: the professor I mentioned was making documentaries at the time,
13:17
Speaker 3: so I started working as her assistant. That that led
13:20
Speaker 3: me to other people, and then so I worked as
13:22
Speaker 3: an assistant for not terribly long, and then I got
13:26
Speaker 3: an opportunity to edit something and won an Emmy for
13:30
Speaker 3: that out of the gate, so that sort of bypassed
13:33
Speaker 3: my bypassed my you know, paying dues as an assistant
13:36
Speaker 3: years and years. I was really only an assistant for
13:38
Speaker 3: about a year and a half.
13:40
Speaker 1: Okay, in terms of editing, to what degree are you
13:46
Speaker 1: knowledgeable about the film and the footage before you sit
13:49
Speaker 1: down to edit it on somebody else's project.
13:53
Speaker 3: Oh you've got to you know, you've got to sit
13:54
Speaker 3: down and watch as much as you possibly can. So yeah,
13:58
Speaker 3: you A lot of it is watching and intaking and
14:01
Speaker 3: thinking and taking notes and you know, making selects and
14:05
Speaker 3: organizing things. So it's easy to find making you know,
14:09
Speaker 3: now on everything's in Avid or a premiere or something.
14:12
Speaker 3: You make bins that have things that are ideas that
14:15
Speaker 3: you have to play with. I have bins that are
14:18
Speaker 3: called all sorts of crazy things that are just you know,
14:20
Speaker 3: ideas I want to toss around.
14:23
Speaker 1: Okay, did you edit your own film with Boyd George
14:27
Speaker 1: and Culture Club?
14:27
Speaker 2: I did not know Paul Carlin edited that film.
14:31
Speaker 1: Okay, let's go back. When you're editing somebody else's film,
14:35
Speaker 1: to what degree are they so attached to the footage
14:38
Speaker 1: that they're actually hindering the final product? Or to what
14:42
Speaker 1: deg we that leave you alone? Or do you not
14:44
Speaker 1: want their input at first?
14:47
Speaker 3: Well, it's always it's different with everybody you work with. Obviously,
14:52
Speaker 3: generally speaking, people leave me alone to take my shot
14:56
Speaker 3: at something first that obviously, if they have an idea
14:59
Speaker 3: or a concept or structure in mind, we'll share it.
15:02
Speaker 2: We'll discuss that prior.
15:04
Speaker 3: But even if I veer away from that, usually they
15:06
Speaker 3: just let me do my thing and then we start
15:08
Speaker 3: to collaborate once we have something solid to talk about.
15:13
Speaker 1: Okay, So are there any specific tricks to editing?
15:19
Speaker 2: Got to be really really patient and absorb a lot
15:24
Speaker 2: of material.
15:25
Speaker 1: Okay. So at a more grand little level, you have
15:29
Speaker 1: all this footage, let's just use today where it's all
15:32
Speaker 1: digitized and it's much easier to access everything. How do
15:37
Speaker 1: you get from having all this footage to at least
15:41
Speaker 1: a rough cut.
15:42
Speaker 2: Well, I have a very.
15:45
Speaker 3: Systematic way of doing breakdowns of material, Like interviews are
15:48
Speaker 3: broken down to sometimes like literally a sentence. Sometimes I'll
15:53
Speaker 3: put everybody talking about one thing in a big chunk.
15:56
Speaker 3: So I break things down by theme or by story
15:59
Speaker 3: or by care or depending on what the story is
16:01
Speaker 3: or what I'm doing. Organization is huge, huge, huge, because
16:05
Speaker 3: it you know, it's because you're dealing with so much
16:08
Speaker 3: material to be able to go back and find things quickly.
16:12
Speaker 3: It's it's got to be really well organized. So having
16:15
Speaker 3: great assistance is a huge help. But really it's organizing.
16:20
Speaker 1: Okay, so you get you know, footage and much greater
16:25
Speaker 1: quantity than the film will ultimately be. I mean, where
16:29
Speaker 1: do you start? What do you do?
16:32
Speaker 3: Yeah? The blank timeline is always intimidating. You just you
16:37
Speaker 3: got to start somewhere. So you just find some moment
16:40
Speaker 3: that inspires you. And it doesn't have to be the beginning.
16:42
Speaker 3: Sometimes I start at the end, sometimes I start at
16:44
Speaker 3: the middle. Just whatever sparks an idea. You just have
16:47
Speaker 3: to dive in and start somewhere, because once you get started,
16:50
Speaker 3: then it starts. Things start to populate. But that empty screen,
16:54
Speaker 3: it's like a blank page. As a writer, it's like, ah.
16:58
Speaker 1: So how long will it take to do.
17:02
Speaker 2: Again?
17:02
Speaker 3: Every film varies, but generally speaking, I sort of consider
17:07
Speaker 3: it like giving birth.
17:08
Speaker 2: It's nine months and okay.
17:11
Speaker 1: You start out in the wilderness and let's assume it's
17:14
Speaker 1: nine months. At what point does it sort of come
17:18
Speaker 1: together for you? We say, Okay, I see what I got,
17:21
Speaker 1: I know where I'm going.
17:23
Speaker 2: Well, you hope it happens sooner than later.
17:28
Speaker 3: I mean, there's lots of moments like that, there's not one.
17:31
Speaker 3: I always say that the beginnings of films, you either
17:34
Speaker 3: get it out of the gate and you don't change
17:36
Speaker 3: a thing, or it's the very last thing you figure out.
17:39
Speaker 3: And I've found that to be true across the board
17:41
Speaker 3: in my experience. Obviously not I can't speak for everybody else,
17:44
Speaker 3: but there's lots of AHA moments that lead to other
17:48
Speaker 3: AHA moments that lead to tearing apart an AHA moment
17:52
Speaker 3: that you had a week ago.
17:54
Speaker 1: Give me an example of an AHA moment.
17:57
Speaker 3: When you figure something out, when you go, I can't
17:58
Speaker 3: figure out how to tell this, and then suddenly you
18:02
Speaker 3: put a piece of archive against something, or an interview
18:05
Speaker 3: comes in that helps explain something, and then it all
18:08
Speaker 3: sort of makes sense, and then you show it to
18:10
Speaker 3: someone else who's like, I don't know what. That's too intellectual.
18:13
Speaker 3: I can't follow that.
18:14
Speaker 2: One of the things I.
18:15
Speaker 3: Learned early on is that you can't make films purely intellectually.
18:20
Speaker 3: They have to be an emotional connection to people watching,
18:23
Speaker 3: because my brain would work laying out a story in
18:27
Speaker 3: one way where yours might work in another way. And
18:29
Speaker 3: unless you have an emotional connection to it. You can't
18:32
Speaker 3: necessarily follow my line of thinking. And that was a
18:36
Speaker 3: really tough lesson to learn. Sheila Evans of HBO taught
18:39
Speaker 3: me that by scolding.
18:41
Speaker 1: Me once, can you tell us that story? You know?
18:46
Speaker 2: Basically she just said that to me. She called me up.
18:48
Speaker 3: We were working on an HBO special and she's like this.
18:53
Speaker 3: We put the film together very quick with Mark Levin.
18:55
Speaker 3: We put it together very quickly. We were all so excited,
19:00
Speaker 3: and she caused me, she said, this is shit. This
19:02
Speaker 3: is idea after idea after idea after idea. I can't
19:06
Speaker 3: follow it. I have no don't care about anybody. Start over.
19:09
Speaker 3: So we went back to the drawing board and she
19:12
Speaker 3: was right. We went back and looked at what we
19:14
Speaker 3: had done and we were like, oh, what were we thinking?
19:17
Speaker 1: So how do you go from the intellectual idea idea
19:21
Speaker 1: to the emotion.
19:23
Speaker 3: I've learned to work with them both simultaneously because I
19:28
Speaker 3: know that's what you have to do.
19:29
Speaker 2: You have to have an emotional connection.
19:31
Speaker 3: I mean I get shown films all the time that
19:33
Speaker 3: suffer from this, that someone's idea is pushing the structure
19:37
Speaker 3: and you don't engage in something till like thirty minutes
19:40
Speaker 3: in and then you know how to relay that to
19:45
Speaker 3: them is tough sometimes to explain, but you have to
19:49
Speaker 3: wear both hats, and it's tough.
19:50
Speaker 2: Sometimes it's tough.
19:53
Speaker 1: Can you go a little bit deeper? How you create
19:55
Speaker 1: the emotional connection?
19:58
Speaker 3: You don't create it, you find it. You have to
20:02
Speaker 3: find what's in the material, because obviously you know, certainly
20:05
Speaker 3: as an editor you do. You have to find that
20:08
Speaker 3: emotional connection. And sometimes it'll it comes in different ways.
20:13
Speaker 3: It's hard to explain because it comes in very different ways.
20:17
Speaker 1: Okay, can you give me an example of something you
20:19
Speaker 1: worked on where you found the emotional connection and what
20:22
Speaker 1: it was.
20:26
Speaker 2: Let me think about that and I'll come back to it.
20:28
Speaker 1: But I yeah, I guess what I'm asking is more
20:33
Speaker 1: for my audience. What exactly do you mean by emotional
20:36
Speaker 1: connection that we're seeing Let's say someone's talking, We're getting
20:40
Speaker 1: a feeling about them.
20:42
Speaker 3: Okay, I've got an example for you, en Ron, smartest
20:46
Speaker 3: guys in the room, and I'm speaking as an editor.
20:50
Speaker 3: When we Marie said cinematographer Marise ALBERTI had shot these
20:57
Speaker 3: helicopter shots back before drone and going at these buildings
21:01
Speaker 3: in Houston and she tipped the camera upside down. And
21:07
Speaker 3: when I first saw that footage, I'm like, hell, am
21:09
Speaker 3: I supposed to use that? And then and then I
21:13
Speaker 3: heard a Tom Waite song What's he building in there?
21:16
Speaker 3: And I was like, oh my god, that's how we
21:18
Speaker 3: do this. It's like this mysterious entering into this universe
21:22
Speaker 3: that's an emotional connection that's based on an idea.
21:27
Speaker 1: And to what degree is music important in these elements?
21:32
Speaker 3: Hugely important to me. I've always worked with music. I
21:34
Speaker 3: work obviously a lot with Alex Gibney, and music's a
21:37
Speaker 3: big thing for him as well, and I think that
21:40
Speaker 3: was one of the many reasons why we connected so much,
21:43
Speaker 3: as we had very similar music tastes and inclinations for
21:46
Speaker 3: how to use music to help tell a story. So
21:51
Speaker 3: it's huge, it's a big part. And that's also why
21:53
Speaker 3: I love doing music docs because there's a story of
21:56
Speaker 3: the people, but there's also the story of the music
21:58
Speaker 3: and the emotion of the music, which is fun to explore.
22:10
Speaker 1: Let's go back to something you said earlier about the
22:13
Speaker 1: money needed for archival footage for the Culture Club movie.
22:18
Speaker 1: What were you looking for? Why did it cost so much?
22:21
Speaker 1: How did you find it?
22:23
Speaker 3: Well, Kate and Mike Griffiths were archival producers and they
22:26
Speaker 3: were just searching everywhere for anything. Some amazing photographs we
22:30
Speaker 3: got from Alison Hey, Roy's ex wife, who was lovely
22:35
Speaker 3: and gave us a lot of material. They just are
22:38
Speaker 3: pros and nowhere to look, nowhere to dig, and we
22:40
Speaker 3: found and they found amazing things like those. Clip is
22:43
Speaker 3: very short clip, but nonetheless a clip of John playing
22:46
Speaker 3: drums with the.
22:47
Speaker 2: Clash, which is like who knew that existed?
22:50
Speaker 3: None of us knew that existed. You just keep digging
22:52
Speaker 3: and digging and digging, and then you find things. That's
22:54
Speaker 3: another example of finding a gem. It's like wow, it's like,
22:58
Speaker 3: I don't know, thirty seconds in the film, that's all
23:00
Speaker 3: it existed. But you see them and you see the
23:03
Speaker 3: clash there. It's kind of amazing. But archive will is expensive.
23:07
Speaker 3: It's just and it goes up and up and up
23:09
Speaker 3: every year.
23:11
Speaker 1: Okay, there's two issues. There's the music itself and then
23:14
Speaker 1: there's the footage. The footage footage is going up and up. Yes,
23:18
Speaker 1: what is closing that to go up?
23:20
Speaker 3: Well, a lot of it is that these libraries get
23:22
Speaker 3: bought out by other bigger libraries, and so then the
23:25
Speaker 3: prices there's not the competition that there was, but it's
23:29
Speaker 3: you know, just everything is costing more. The music rights
23:33
Speaker 3: costs more, the archive costs more. And you know, back
23:35
Speaker 3: in the day with documentaries, people weren't paying quite as
23:39
Speaker 3: much attention. You could get away with, you know, fair
23:42
Speaker 3: using some stuff, just throw it in. And now fair
23:46
Speaker 3: using material is very very difficult and risky legally, and
23:50
Speaker 3: lawyers will tell you don't do it, it's not worth it.
23:54
Speaker 1: And okay, let's say you start a production like with
23:59
Speaker 1: Culture Club in terms of getting the rights to use
24:03
Speaker 1: the music that can be a juggernaut. Do you first say, well,
24:08
Speaker 1: who owns it? How hard is this going to be
24:10
Speaker 1: to do? How much is it going to cost?
24:12
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm not generally speaking involved in those negotiations, so
24:16
Speaker 3: that's not my area of expertise at all, but yes,
24:19
Speaker 3: they can be very difficult. But it's also when you're
24:22
Speaker 3: doing a film about a band and it's their music. Unfortunately,
24:25
Speaker 3: these days most bands don't own their own music anymore,
24:28
Speaker 3: so it gets trickier then who owns it and sometimes
24:30
Speaker 3: the libraries are split up between different owners, so then
24:34
Speaker 3: you've got to get those guys in as financiers as well.
24:38
Speaker 2: It gets tricky.
24:40
Speaker 1: So I mean sometimes you're saying the rights holders will
24:45
Speaker 1: be investors in the.
24:46
Speaker 2: Film, yeah, because they own the music.
24:50
Speaker 1: And they would rather do that than get a check.
24:53
Speaker 3: Well, they got to check back because when the film's sold,
24:56
Speaker 3: they get paid for the music.
24:57
Speaker 1: So right, So the films you've made, what percentage of
25:03
Speaker 1: them have earned back their investment?
25:06
Speaker 2: I don't know honestly.
25:07
Speaker 3: Again, these are the financial side of it is not
25:10
Speaker 3: my area of expertise at all.
25:12
Speaker 1: Well, but you must have people saying, hey, Alison, don't
25:15
Speaker 1: spend any more money.
25:16
Speaker 2: Oh, I get it.
25:16
Speaker 3: All the time. I'm told to take things out, replace archive,
25:20
Speaker 3: replace songs. It happens all the time. It's very very
25:24
Speaker 3: frustrating because you know, you end up diminishing I think
25:28
Speaker 3: the product as a result.
25:29
Speaker 2: But you know, you have to do what you have
25:32
Speaker 2: to do.
25:33
Speaker 3: But that's why I was saying on Culture Club, we
25:34
Speaker 3: were really lucky that the investors were great and came
25:37
Speaker 3: in and covered the archival over just because you know,
25:41
Speaker 3: once you have.
25:42
Speaker 2: To use the material that exists that tells the story.
25:46
Speaker 1: Okay, Culture Club good example. Unlike Cyndi Lauper. There are
25:51
Speaker 1: four people in the band, and the odds of four
25:54
Speaker 1: people agreeing on things are not high. Right, So what
25:59
Speaker 1: do you say to you? Right up front? You say,
26:01
Speaker 1: I make the final decision or George gets a final decision.
26:05
Speaker 1: How do you wrestle with that?
26:08
Speaker 3: Well, it's always it's whenever I do these films, I
26:11
Speaker 3: talk to the artists and I say, look, this is
26:13
Speaker 3: a we have to establish a mutual trust here. Obviously,
26:17
Speaker 3: you have to trust me to tell your story. You're
26:19
Speaker 3: putting your trust in me, but I also have to
26:21
Speaker 3: trust you to tell your story. Honestly, I'm not interested
26:24
Speaker 3: in making a hagiography. I'm not interested in making some
26:28
Speaker 3: behind the music salacious, you know, pointing out all the craziness.
26:32
Speaker 3: I want to tell an honest story about what the
26:34
Speaker 3: arc is that brought the people together, what magic happened
26:39
Speaker 3: to create the music. That's the part of it that
26:41
Speaker 3: I'm interested in. So, you know, it's just a discussion,
26:45
Speaker 3: and you know, we give them an opportunity to give feedback.
26:50
Speaker 3: If they really are upset about something, we will discuss it.
26:54
Speaker 3: But they don't have final cut, because if they had
26:56
Speaker 3: final cut, especially in a band, you'd never get a filmmade.
27:00
Speaker 1: Wow. Okay, So the film is called Boy Georgian Culture Club.
27:08
Speaker 1: The act was Culture Club. Boy George was just the
27:11
Speaker 1: front person. Was that a monetary decision or was that
27:16
Speaker 1: based on what the film was? Why was it not
27:19
Speaker 1: just called Culture Club.
27:21
Speaker 3: I honestly wanted to just call it Culture Club, and
27:23
Speaker 3: it was for the longest time. But I think that
27:26
Speaker 3: in order to sell the film, the financiers felt that
27:30
Speaker 3: adding boy George would his name would help. And I
27:35
Speaker 3: don't know that they're wrong about that, but it was
27:37
Speaker 3: that was a tough pill for me to have to
27:39
Speaker 3: tell the band, the other band, Roy, Mikey and John
27:43
Speaker 3: that that had happened, because one of the things that
27:45
Speaker 3: I had promised them is that this is not just
27:48
Speaker 3: the Boy George show. This will be the Culture Club experience,
27:51
Speaker 3: not just about George. So I think they were disappointed
27:56
Speaker 3: that that happened with the title, but I think they
27:58
Speaker 3: were pleased enough the film and understood it that we
28:03
Speaker 3: as filmmakers had honored our promise to make it about
28:06
Speaker 3: culture Club.
28:08
Speaker 1: But in the film there is evidence of resentment of
28:12
Speaker 1: the attention that George gets relative to the others.
28:16
Speaker 2: Yes, yeah. I mean that's very common for lead singer
28:19
Speaker 2: syndrome in any case.
28:22
Speaker 3: But you know, he was very flamboyant and colorful and
28:25
Speaker 3: drew attention and people wanted to talk to him. They
28:30
Speaker 3: also they talk about resenting it a bit, but they
28:33
Speaker 3: also talk about the fact that, you know, as a result,
28:35
Speaker 3: George also had to do a lot of extra work
28:38
Speaker 3: and press that they didn't have to do. They were
28:40
Speaker 3: sort of free to, you know, run around to be
28:43
Speaker 3: rock stars, while he had to get up early and
28:45
Speaker 3: do press. Now they often did press together too, But
28:49
Speaker 3: you know, there were drawbacks to it, but it's in
28:52
Speaker 3: any band, there's always the lead singer issue, and Culture
28:58
Speaker 3: Club wasn't unique to that. People focus on the lead singer,
29:01
Speaker 3: rightly or wrongly. That's what people do, okay.
29:04
Speaker 1: In the film, John is very honest about his relationship
29:10
Speaker 1: with George. How hard was it to extract that information?
29:15
Speaker 3: I thought it was going to be potentially pretty difficult,
29:17
Speaker 3: given how long it took to convince him to be
29:21
Speaker 3: in the film.
29:22
Speaker 2: Surprisingly, he out of.
29:24
Speaker 3: The gate was very forthcoming and very honest and really
29:27
Speaker 3: emotional about it too. He I, you know, I had
29:32
Speaker 3: heard that he had had some discussions with his daughters
29:35
Speaker 3: about saying, look, I'm finally going to be really truthfully
29:38
Speaker 3: talking about this, and they were very supportive of him,
29:41
Speaker 3: and I was really pleasantly surprised that he was very forthcoming.
29:49
Speaker 1: Did you say to hear you that originally he was
29:51
Speaker 1: reluctant to be in the film? Yeah, okay, obviously George
29:56
Speaker 1: is in to what degree?
29:57
Speaker 3: With the other three in everybody was in fairly early on.
30:02
Speaker 3: John took the longest to convince. We had already filmed
30:05
Speaker 3: the interviews with George, Mikey and Roy, and we were
30:08
Speaker 3: probably I don't know, maybe a third of the way
30:11
Speaker 3: through our edit process and just going, oh God, we've
30:14
Speaker 3: got to get John, We've got to get John.
30:17
Speaker 2: And we finally did.
30:18
Speaker 3: Thanks a lot to Trevor Burnie, the producer, really worked
30:22
Speaker 3: that a lot and it was great.
30:25
Speaker 1: What was the convincing factor?
30:30
Speaker 3: I think that I think Trevor and John kind of
30:34
Speaker 3: became friends over the process of all the discussions they had,
30:37
Speaker 3: and I think also Mikey and Roy both called John
30:41
Speaker 3: and said doing the interview was very cathartic for them
30:45
Speaker 3: and that they thought that it would be cathartic for
30:47
Speaker 3: John as well. So I think that was ultimately what
30:49
Speaker 3: convinced him to do it. And John and I hit
30:52
Speaker 3: it off out of the gate, and I think he
30:55
Speaker 3: we had a really good time. I had a good
30:56
Speaker 3: time with all of them actually, Like I said, they're
30:59
Speaker 3: really funny. It was a lot of fun to talk
31:01
Speaker 3: to them.
31:02
Speaker 1: Okay, you said you were a third of the way
31:04
Speaker 1: through the edit. Generally speaking, at what point do you
31:09
Speaker 1: start to edit? Do you wait until you're completely through?
31:12
Speaker 3: I mean, again, every film is different, but generally you
31:16
Speaker 3: want to have as many of the interviews as you
31:18
Speaker 3: think you'll need as early as possible. And obviously John
31:22
Speaker 3: was a big one, so to have to get through
31:24
Speaker 3: like a third of the schedule without him was challenging
31:28
Speaker 3: and making us all a little bit nervous that what
31:32
Speaker 3: would we do if we didn't get him. But I
31:35
Speaker 3: think everyone was also convinced, including Mikey and Roy and George,
31:39
Speaker 3: that he would in fact come through in the end
31:41
Speaker 3: that he wanted to because he understood that this was
31:44
Speaker 3: about the band and his voice is so important and
31:48
Speaker 3: the songs are about him.
31:49
Speaker 1: So that's for sure. Hopefully in terms of the total
31:53
Speaker 1: from beginning to end, takes a year to get that
31:56
Speaker 1: money during that year you're doing your own personal research. Yeah,
32:00
Speaker 1: how long does it take? And what is the process
32:03
Speaker 1: getting from okay, I've got the money till I have
32:06
Speaker 1: the finished cut.
32:09
Speaker 3: I mean again, it's not it's usually nine months to
32:11
Speaker 3: a year once you once you have the money and
32:13
Speaker 3: you start cutting to get to get through. Usually the
32:18
Speaker 3: edits that its schedules or usually they budget them around
32:21
Speaker 3: six months and they almost always take nine. So I
32:23
Speaker 3: don't know why they underbudget those always. But okay, so
32:28
Speaker 3: you're a feature different you know, it's different for TV, right.
32:31
Speaker 1: So you're an end to be in person. So you're
32:34
Speaker 1: saying you're basically budgeting a year to make one of
32:36
Speaker 1: these movies. Yeah, and can you do anything else simultaneously
32:40
Speaker 1: or do you require lee?
32:42
Speaker 2: Yeah? No, I definitely can.
32:43
Speaker 3: I have to because it's I wouldn't be able to
32:45
Speaker 3: make enough money to live that way. But you know,
32:49
Speaker 3: and also because things sometimes they go in stages, like
32:51
Speaker 3: it'll three months, you'll raise some money, then you wait
32:54
Speaker 3: another six months to raise.
32:56
Speaker 2: Some more, so you got to fill it up with
32:58
Speaker 2: other things.
32:59
Speaker 3: Which that's also why I stopped editing my own films too,
33:03
Speaker 3: so that I could have time to direct other things
33:05
Speaker 3: and bounce back and forth between projects. And I actually
33:08
Speaker 3: find that helpful to me to have multiple things going.
33:13
Speaker 3: I think it just keeps me fresher on each thing
33:15
Speaker 3: rather than getting obsessed with things, and I'm able to
33:18
Speaker 3: step away and then come back and look with a
33:20
Speaker 3: fresh perspective.
33:21
Speaker 2: I think that for me it helps.
33:23
Speaker 1: Okay, we hear that films are made in the editing room,
33:28
Speaker 1: and you have experienced editing. What's it like to have
33:33
Speaker 1: someone else edit your film into what dedwe do? You
33:36
Speaker 1: get involved in the process.
33:39
Speaker 3: It varies from project to project, but when it goes smoothly,
33:43
Speaker 3: it's great because I don't have to do that, and
33:45
Speaker 3: it's fun to be able to sit back. I mean,
33:49
Speaker 3: I do look at all the footage generally, so I
33:51
Speaker 3: know what we have to work with.
33:54
Speaker 2: And I've been really lucky.
33:55
Speaker 3: I've worked with some incredibly amazing editors who are able
33:59
Speaker 3: to figure stuff out on their own, and when we
34:01
Speaker 3: do work, it's a real collaboration. It's like, you know,
34:06
Speaker 3: Paul on Culture Club, when I would give him a note,
34:09
Speaker 3: he'd kind of get mad at himself.
34:10
Speaker 2: With God, I wish I'd thought of that, you know. So,
34:15
Speaker 2: but you know, sometimes I'll jump on too.
34:16
Speaker 3: I did not in Culture Club, but some on Cindy
34:19
Speaker 3: I did because we had again, we had a kind
34:21
Speaker 3: of a tight schedule on that, so I would jump
34:23
Speaker 3: on to help. Sometimes sometimes I'll jump on and just
34:27
Speaker 3: sketch things out and then hand it back to the
34:29
Speaker 3: editor and say what do you think of this? What
34:31
Speaker 3: can you do with this? So it gets fresh eyes again,
34:34
Speaker 3: which is helpful.
34:37
Speaker 1: Okay, with these groups, with anything having to do with
34:41
Speaker 1: rock and roll in retrospect, comes down to the money.
34:46
Speaker 1: Doesn't start with the money, but it comes down to
34:49
Speaker 1: the money. Do you find with Culture Club or anybody
34:52
Speaker 1: else you've worked with that certain people have resentment because
34:55
Speaker 1: somebody else in the group ended up with more money.
35:01
Speaker 3: You mean in terms of their publishing exactly. Yeah, well
35:05
Speaker 3: sure it creates huge problems. Culture Club I think they
35:09
Speaker 3: shared the publishing though for the most part, I don't
35:12
Speaker 3: know exactly what they're what they worked out. The Go
35:14
Speaker 3: Gos did not share that that was their main problem.
35:18
Speaker 3: The Eagles did not share that was their main problem.
35:21
Speaker 3: I mean, that's the problem with a lot of the
35:22
Speaker 3: bands is because whoever writes the song gets the publishing,
35:26
Speaker 3: and they get the bigger techs when the checks start
35:28
Speaker 3: coming in. And a lot of these these bands when
35:32
Speaker 3: they start out, they're young, they don't know. I think
35:34
Speaker 3: they're much savvier today, although of course the music industry
35:37
Speaker 3: has changed so much, but people are savvier about that.
35:40
Speaker 3: But you know, the bands that have withstood that U
35:43
Speaker 3: two or just split the publishing four ways the whole way,
35:47
Speaker 3: and I think that that that helps, and I think
35:51
Speaker 3: it created a lot of problems for these bands and
35:53
Speaker 3: destroyed some bands too, which is which is a shame.
35:57
Speaker 1: Okay, you win an Emmy at the beginning of your
35:59
Speaker 1: career year, what is that enemy?
36:01
Speaker 2: For editing for a frontline?
36:05
Speaker 1: How did you get that? Gid?
36:08
Speaker 2: I was an.
36:08
Speaker 3: Assistant on the project and the editor had to leave,
36:11
Speaker 3: and then I just kept going and ended up completely
36:15
Speaker 3: recutting the film.
36:17
Speaker 1: And what was the film? What was there?
36:20
Speaker 3: It was called Living Below the Line and it was
36:23
Speaker 3: about four different welfare recipients, and one specifically one elderly man,
36:31
Speaker 3: a widower who had lost his job at the ship
36:36
Speaker 3: factory in Pennsylvania and his house was being taken from
36:41
Speaker 3: him and he was forced to go on welfare. And
36:43
Speaker 3: he was a very had a lot of dignity and pride,
36:46
Speaker 3: and it was you know, he never expected that his
36:49
Speaker 3: American dream would come crashing down like that, and he
36:52
Speaker 3: was so eloquent and so dignified going through this process
36:57
Speaker 3: in which he was humiliated by a lot of people
36:59
Speaker 3: who were insensitive to his particular situation, and people were
37:05
Speaker 3: so moved by his story that people sent in money
37:08
Speaker 3: to Frontline and he was able to save his house
37:11
Speaker 3: as a result. So that was amazing.
37:14
Speaker 1: So to what degree did your life change as a
37:17
Speaker 1: result of winning that Emmy?
37:21
Speaker 3: I was still very young, so people called me the
37:24
Speaker 3: kid for a long time, which was hard to take.
37:28
Speaker 3: I mean, you know, I didn't ever have to do
37:31
Speaker 3: assistant work again. I got editing work, but.
37:35
Speaker 2: You know, it was it took a longer time to
37:41
Speaker 2: transition to directing, that's.
37:43
Speaker 1: For sure, And that was always the goal.
37:47
Speaker 3: Not initially, but it was probably I don't know, like
37:51
Speaker 3: five or six or so years into it, just because
37:53
Speaker 3: I realized how hard the editor works in documentaries and
37:57
Speaker 3: what role the editor plays and making the film, structuring it,
38:02
Speaker 3: figuring it out. So it became frustrating to me too,
38:07
Speaker 3: you know. And then so Alex and I started Alex
38:10
Speaker 3: Gibney and I started co directing some things, which was great,
38:13
Speaker 3: and then I think the Eagles film is what sort
38:16
Speaker 3: of tipped me over the edge and people wanting me
38:18
Speaker 3: specifically to direct, especially with the music films.
38:22
Speaker 1: Okay, tell me more about the Enron movie. How that
38:25
Speaker 1: came to be.
38:27
Speaker 3: Alex had obtained the rights for the book by Peter
38:31
Speaker 3: and Bethany, and that was all Alex is doing. I
38:37
Speaker 3: had nothing to do with obtaining the rights to the
38:40
Speaker 3: book and then he started doing I mean, we knew
38:44
Speaker 3: we were going to work on it together from once
38:46
Speaker 3: he started working on it. We knew he knew what
38:48
Speaker 3: he wanted me on it. And actually I was living
38:52
Speaker 3: in LA at the time and I moved back to
38:54
Speaker 3: New York to edit with him on that.
38:59
Speaker 2: So yeah, I mean, I don't know how he got
39:02
Speaker 2: the rights to the book.
39:03
Speaker 1: Well, I guess that is that is a classic American story.
39:07
Speaker 1: You're working on something like that and you feel an
39:10
Speaker 1: importance beyond any music documentary, and were you doing it.
39:16
Speaker 1: You were the editor on that saying wow, this is
39:18
Speaker 1: going to have an impact and how it might change
39:21
Speaker 1: hearts and minds.
39:22
Speaker 3: Yes, but we used music very effectively in that film.
39:26
Speaker 2: Too.
39:26
Speaker 3: I mean, there's a lot of music helps tell that story.
39:30
Speaker 3: There's a lot of soundtracks in there, including the Tom
39:33
Speaker 3: Waits thing we discussed at the beginning. But you know,
39:37
Speaker 3: dear mister fantasy, you know there's a lot of songs
39:40
Speaker 3: in there that well.
39:41
Speaker 1: Let's just use that as an example, dear mister fantasy. Yeah,
39:45
Speaker 1: that's not obscure. How do you decide you want to
39:48
Speaker 1: use it? I mean, listen, most let's just use conventional
39:52
Speaker 1: Hollywood films. A lot of times they'll have temp music.
39:56
Speaker 1: They just can't get it and it's far outside the budget.
39:59
Speaker 1: You're making a documentary, you want an iconic song? How
40:03
Speaker 1: do you decide you wanted? And then how hard is
40:05
Speaker 1: it to get?
40:06
Speaker 3: Well, during end run days, it was much easier than
40:09
Speaker 3: it is today. You used to be able to get
40:12
Speaker 3: most Favored Nations rates, and because PBS had a blanket deal.
40:18
Speaker 2: Everybody was able to get.
40:20
Speaker 3: You could pay for a song, a big song, for
40:22
Speaker 3: not that much money for documentaries. But then that all
40:25
Speaker 3: changed when documentary suddenly started becoming you know, potential money makers,
40:31
Speaker 3: and so now you have to pay like not full.
40:34
Speaker 2: Feature rights obviously because.
40:36
Speaker 3: That would be prohibitive, but much much much more than
40:39
Speaker 3: I mean, you fed be able to get one thousand
40:41
Speaker 3: dollars aside, which you know, so two thousand for a
40:43
Speaker 3: song that's unheard of.
40:44
Speaker 1: Now, Okay, you mentioned Alex Gibbey. How'd you hook up
40:49
Speaker 1: with him?
40:50
Speaker 3: Alex was living in Los Angeles and I was working.
40:54
Speaker 3: I was editing a film for a friend of his,
40:57
Speaker 3: Robbie Kenner, who was also La based, and Robbie said, oh,
41:01
Speaker 3: you got to meet my friend Alex.
41:04
Speaker 1: I love Robbie making a movie in the eighties.
41:09
Speaker 2: It comes back.
41:10
Speaker 1: Okay, good guy, keep going.
41:13
Speaker 3: Yeah, So Robbie introduced me to Alex, and Alex and
41:17
Speaker 3: I hit it off immediately and started working together. And
41:21
Speaker 3: then when he told me he was moving back to
41:24
Speaker 3: New York, I literally burst into tears. I'm like, no,
41:26
Speaker 3: you can't leave me. And then sure enough, a few
41:29
Speaker 3: years later, I followed it back.
41:32
Speaker 1: Okay, generally speaking, is this documentary world small and everybody
41:38
Speaker 1: knows everybody.
41:40
Speaker 3: Generally speaking, But you know, there's a lot of people there,
41:43
Speaker 3: and it's growing too.
41:44
Speaker 2: There's there's more and more.
41:45
Speaker 3: But certainly, certainly from the wave that I came up in,
41:51
Speaker 3: most of us know each other because there weren't that
41:53
Speaker 3: many of us then, but now there's more.
41:57
Speaker 1: Alex seems to be running an empire. You know, most
42:02
Speaker 1: do you think of one documentary. You know, they have
42:04
Speaker 1: a vision, they create this, they raise money. He seems
42:07
Speaker 1: to be making a million films, one for a million people.
42:10
Speaker 1: Is you know, to what degree is that true? And
42:13
Speaker 1: is anybody else doing it that way?
42:16
Speaker 2: I mean, it is it is true. He does have
42:19
Speaker 2: his hands in a lot of things.
42:21
Speaker 3: I mean, he's been epeing a lot of things now too,
42:23
Speaker 3: so he can you know, consult on the story and
42:28
Speaker 3: the film and everything without having to be in the
42:31
Speaker 3: trenches of directing everything. I mean, he's he's he's brilliant
42:36
Speaker 3: and he's able to i mean talk about someone who's
42:39
Speaker 3: able to multitask. That's like wow, he's able to ping
42:43
Speaker 3: pong between a lot of different things.
42:45
Speaker 2: So yeah, he It's true that he's doing a ton
42:47
Speaker 2: of work.
42:49
Speaker 3: But there's a lot of other people that are that
42:51
Speaker 3: are working hard out there too, that I've worked with,
42:53
Speaker 3: you know, David Gugenheim and R. J. Cutler, and you know,
42:56
Speaker 3: there's there's you know, there's a lot of a lot
43:00
Speaker 3: of good folks out there. But Alex is, you know,
43:03
Speaker 3: he and I've worked the most together.
43:04
Speaker 1: So now documentaries are burgeoning on streaming services. First it
43:21
Speaker 1: was a surprise how successful. Now a lot of them
43:25
Speaker 1: seem to be direct and they have the what's your
43:28
Speaker 1: view of the documentaries and the boom on streaming services?
43:33
Speaker 3: Well, I mean, I think there's a lot of good
43:36
Speaker 3: documentaries out there, and I'm grateful that streaming services are
43:41
Speaker 3: platforming them because I think the more that they get
43:43
Speaker 3: out there, the more that people say, oh, hey, this
43:45
Speaker 3: is a I really appreciate this because there was sort
43:48
Speaker 3: of a renaissance in documentaries for a while and then
43:50
Speaker 3: it's sort of unfortunately reality and reality TV kind of
43:54
Speaker 3: took over. And I don't watch that stuff. I don't
43:58
Speaker 3: care about that stuff, so I don't pay any attention
44:01
Speaker 3: to any of that. And I think that there's a
44:06
Speaker 3: lot of that going on obviously, and people are drawn
44:09
Speaker 3: to it for whatever reason. No judgment, I don't, you know,
44:11
Speaker 3: it's just not my thing.
44:14
Speaker 1: So how did you get involved with History of the Eagles?
44:18
Speaker 3: Don and Glenn approached Alex to direct that film, and
44:22
Speaker 3: Alex said he did not have time, and he said,
44:26
Speaker 3: but you should talk to Alison, and so that's how
44:30
Speaker 3: that happened, and Alex was an EP on it, and
44:34
Speaker 3: you know it was very involved in the process. And yeah,
44:39
Speaker 3: but that's how it happened. They approached Alex and he
44:41
Speaker 3: couldn't he had too much on his plate, so he
44:43
Speaker 3: handed that one to me, which was great.
44:45
Speaker 1: Okay, I mean, I know everybody in that organization, they're smart,
44:50
Speaker 1: they have opinions. They certainly want an image that they control.
44:55
Speaker 1: So what was the experience, like.
44:58
Speaker 3: You know, it was it was great when we when
45:01
Speaker 3: we showed them the cut, they were really really happy.
45:04
Speaker 3: They had a few comments that but nothing outrageous, nothing
45:07
Speaker 3: like don't do this, you can't. It was like, you know,
45:10
Speaker 3: donn Is if you know him, you know, he's very
45:12
Speaker 3: particular about being well spoken, and you know sometimes in
45:17
Speaker 3: an interview you don't speak perfect you know, you don't
45:20
Speaker 3: speak with perfect grammar. So he would want to redo that,
45:24
Speaker 3: which is like done, and you would say, what you
45:29
Speaker 3: have to do it.
45:30
Speaker 2: You know, he insisted on it.
45:32
Speaker 3: So you know, anyway, I mean that was if that's
45:35
Speaker 3: the hardest thing you have to deal with, that was nothing,
45:37
Speaker 3: you know, it was They were really actually really pleasant
45:41
Speaker 3: to work with for the most part. It was pretty smooth,
45:43
Speaker 3: I have to say, and I wasn't expecting it to
45:46
Speaker 3: be so.
45:48
Speaker 1: And what about portraying the differences between Randy Meisner and
45:54
Speaker 1: Don Felder with the two key members of the.
45:57
Speaker 2: Band, about the difference between.
46:00
Speaker 3: Them, Yeah, you know, I mean, Randy unfortunately wasn't in
46:07
Speaker 3: the best shape when we were filmed. We have an
46:10
Speaker 3: interview with him, but we didn't use very much of it.
46:13
Speaker 3: I mean that it was more it was more done
46:17
Speaker 3: and Glenn having issues with Felder. Randy didn't really have
46:21
Speaker 3: any issues with him.
46:23
Speaker 1: Well, you know, the film is phenomenal, one of the
46:27
Speaker 1: best of these music documentaries. But do you sit there
46:31
Speaker 1: when you're anything so I'm going to build up to
46:34
Speaker 1: these moments of dissension.
46:37
Speaker 3: No, But when I was aware when I was filming
46:42
Speaker 3: the interviews, because they were so brutally honest about their
46:47
Speaker 3: feelings and their anger, and you know, I knew we
46:51
Speaker 3: had something really unique. And you know, there's podcasts done
46:55
Speaker 3: about this film constantly, and people are just going on
46:58
Speaker 3: and on about how brutally honest that they are.
47:00
Speaker 2: It's like, God, there's guys are a cutthroat.
47:03
Speaker 3: And they came off that way. You know, they they
47:07
Speaker 3: let it, they let it, they let it shine. So
47:10
Speaker 3: I knew when we were getting those kinds of interviews
47:13
Speaker 3: that this was going to be, you know, kind of
47:16
Speaker 3: like an eye opener for people to hear. But you know,
47:19
Speaker 3: it was great because it was who they are were sorry,
47:23
Speaker 3: it was who they were at the time, because it
47:25
Speaker 3: was so heated again because of this publishing issue, because
47:30
Speaker 3: Don and Glenn were getting the majority of the publishing.
47:32
Speaker 3: And you know, again it's not for me to judge
47:35
Speaker 3: whether that's the right thing or the wrong thing, but
47:37
Speaker 3: it created a lot of problems and a lot of tensions,
47:42
Speaker 3: you know, the male egos just crashing into each other,
47:46
Speaker 3: and it was all very raw in that film.
47:49
Speaker 1: And with the success of that film, did you get
47:52
Speaker 1: more opportunities?
47:53
Speaker 3: I think a lot of a lot of the music
47:56
Speaker 3: documentaries that have come my way have been a result
47:59
Speaker 3: of that, and now accumulatively other things as well, But
48:02
Speaker 3: certainly in the immediate immediately after The Eagles that that certainly, Yeah.
48:07
Speaker 3: I mean it's a good film, and you know, it's
48:11
Speaker 3: it's an honest film, and I think that people get
48:14
Speaker 3: that when they watch it.
48:16
Speaker 2: It is not you know, it's not a fluff piece
48:19
Speaker 2: on them.
48:21
Speaker 1: So, all things being equal, which they're not, to what
48:26
Speaker 1: degree would you want to be making music documentaries as
48:29
Speaker 1: opposed to straight ahead documentaries.
48:33
Speaker 2: I don't honestly have a preference. As long as the
48:37
Speaker 2: story is good.
48:37
Speaker 3: I'm as long as I'm engaged with the story and
48:40
Speaker 3: the you know, music documentaries tend to have really good
48:43
Speaker 3: stories and they have good music too, So there's a
48:45
Speaker 3: double thing working for them. And now there's you know,
48:51
Speaker 3: financing is so difficult now, you know, so the music space,
48:57
Speaker 3: I think for financiers feels a little But even with that,
49:01
Speaker 3: it's still hard to get financing for things that are
49:03
Speaker 3: like what should seem like there should be no brainers
49:06
Speaker 3: or you know, taking longer to finance.
49:10
Speaker 1: Why is it taking longer today?
49:12
Speaker 3: I think everybody's very gunshry to spend money on stuff
49:17
Speaker 3: right now. I just think the market's wonky. I think
49:19
Speaker 3: the environment, the financial environment is just so I don't know,
49:27
Speaker 3: it's just and everyone I know is experiencing this. It's
49:30
Speaker 3: just things have really slowed down. I hope that it changes.
49:34
Speaker 3: I mean, I think it has a lot to do
49:35
Speaker 3: with the political atmosphere.
49:36
Speaker 1: Frankly, to what degree were you upset that Jacob Dillon's
49:44
Speaker 1: Laurel Canyon movie came out before your documentary.
49:48
Speaker 3: It didn't upset me in the slightest. I knew that
49:52
Speaker 3: what we were doing was very different from what he
49:54
Speaker 3: was doing, so.
49:57
Speaker 1: It certainly was. So, you know, you talk about making
50:01
Speaker 1: these documentaries with the different members who are not what
50:05
Speaker 1: were sharing the same amount of money. How was your
50:07
Speaker 1: experience with the Go Gos?
50:10
Speaker 3: My experience with them was amazing, It was great. But
50:13
Speaker 3: their experience with each other was very fractured because of
50:16
Speaker 3: the publishing issues as is experienced through the film, you know,
50:21
Speaker 3: and they were pitted against each other by different managers
50:24
Speaker 3: and you know, so that played a huge role. And ironically, Belinda,
50:29
Speaker 3: as the front lead singer, she wrote the least amount
50:34
Speaker 3: and so she was getting the least amount of money
50:36
Speaker 3: but the most amount of attention, which was sort of
50:38
Speaker 3: an odd thing for her to juggle too, so well
50:41
Speaker 3: for all of them to juggle. But yeah, no, it
50:43
Speaker 3: was definitely an issue with them.
50:46
Speaker 1: So to what degree do people now approach you about
50:50
Speaker 1: doing music documentaries and you say no, either that's not
50:55
Speaker 1: interesting to me or I'm too busy.
50:59
Speaker 3: That has not happened that I've had to turn anything
51:02
Speaker 3: down yet, so I hope that doesn't. I mean, there
51:06
Speaker 3: was one film that was approached and I decided not
51:10
Speaker 3: to do it because I, as much as I'm not
51:12
Speaker 3: going to say who the artist is, because as much
51:14
Speaker 3: as I respected the artist, I didn't think the story
51:17
Speaker 3: was strong enough to warrant a film. So but that's
51:23
Speaker 3: the only time I've turned something down.
51:27
Speaker 1: And what are you working on now?
51:29
Speaker 2: In development?
51:30
Speaker 3: On a feature film about the Black Crows. Yeah, it
51:34
Speaker 3: has not been fully financed yet, so that's another This
51:37
Speaker 3: is a case where we're having to stop, start, stop, start,
51:40
Speaker 3: waiting for financing.
51:41
Speaker 2: But that's a great story.
51:44
Speaker 1: It's a feature as opposed to a documentary.
51:47
Speaker 3: Well no, sorry, documentary. Feature is what I meant. Sorry
51:50
Speaker 3: feature length. Sorry sorry, not fiction.
51:53
Speaker 1: So what's a genesis of that?
52:00
Speaker 3: To remember how that came about? I think I don't
52:04
Speaker 3: remember how it started. I honestly don't know. I think
52:09
Speaker 3: I think the manager approached one of our producers and
52:13
Speaker 3: then and then I went and met with Chris and
52:16
Speaker 3: Rich and the manager a few times and we just
52:21
Speaker 3: agreed to go from there.
52:24
Speaker 1: When you say one of the producers, I mean you
52:27
Speaker 1: have a team or just Gibney's team.
52:29
Speaker 3: Or this is Fine Point Films in Ireland, so it
52:33
Speaker 3: would have been Emer O'Neill, Trevor Bernie and Andrew Tully
52:39
Speaker 3: are the producers. Where the producers at the time that
52:41
Speaker 3: project started. Imer has since gone off to a different company,
52:45
Speaker 3: but those Fine Point Films in Ireland.
52:48
Speaker 1: But you're totally independent, correct, So what'd you learn making
52:53
Speaker 1: the Cindy Lauper film? What did I learn?
52:59
Speaker 2: I learned I didn't.
53:01
Speaker 3: I mean, it's funny because by the time I interviewed her,
53:05
Speaker 3: I knew most of this, but I did not know
53:08
Speaker 3: prior to starting the project. Is I just assumed because
53:11
Speaker 3: she had such the high pitched voice and sort of
53:15
Speaker 3: the ditzy act, and she looked so young. I just
53:17
Speaker 3: assumed that she was in her early twenties when she
53:19
Speaker 3: hit it big. I didn't realize that she had spent
53:22
Speaker 3: all that time getting to the point, where as her
53:26
Speaker 3: vocal coach says in the film, she spent fifteen years
53:29
Speaker 3: becoming an overnight sensation. So she was in her early
53:33
Speaker 3: thirties when her first album and Girls Just Want to
53:36
Speaker 3: Have Fun hit, and I think that she had obviously
53:40
Speaker 3: was older and had a level of maturity and had
53:44
Speaker 3: only done drugs once and hated it, so she didn't
53:47
Speaker 3: fall into that eighties drugs trap. And she was older
53:50
Speaker 3: and more mature and had a very clear path for herself.
53:53
Speaker 3: So I think she avoided a lot of the pitfalls
53:55
Speaker 3: of the eighties. But I didn't realize that she was
53:58
Speaker 3: older when she got going. I didn't realize how her
54:04
Speaker 3: brilliant comic timing she I don't know if you remember.
54:10
Speaker 3: In the film, she tells this crazy story about how
54:12
Speaker 3: her mother was a fish doctor, and she's on Letterman
54:15
Speaker 3: saying in her mother just you know, dissected the fish
54:17
Speaker 3: and put the tail back on. She told me that
54:20
Speaker 3: story with virtually the identical cadence, and I wanted to
54:24
Speaker 3: do a split screen of her telling the story then
54:27
Speaker 3: and now, and that's the one thing I regret not
54:30
Speaker 3: being able to do, but we couldn't afford the archivele
54:34
Speaker 3: to do the split screen, so we had to just
54:36
Speaker 3: make it really quick, but literally the same cadence.
54:39
Speaker 2: She has brilliant comic timing. She knew what she was doing.
54:43
Speaker 3: There is nothing ditsy about her other than her act.
54:49
Speaker 1: So someone approaches you, let's say, I approach you to
54:52
Speaker 1: do a documentary on a establish heritage, Jack, what are
54:57
Speaker 1: your first questions going to be?
54:59
Speaker 2: What's the story? What's the story? What's the story?
55:03
Speaker 1: Does everybody have a story?
55:06
Speaker 3: If I'm going to make a film about them, they
55:08
Speaker 3: do or they have to. I mean, of course everybody
55:11
Speaker 3: has a story, but you know whether this does the
55:14
Speaker 3: story have a you know, a clear beginning, middle end?
55:18
Speaker 3: You know, sometimes you have to dive in a bit
55:22
Speaker 3: to understand that. But yeah, I mean the story is
55:26
Speaker 3: what interests me.
55:29
Speaker 1: Now. In the Culture Club movie, there wasn't a lot
55:34
Speaker 1: of footage on the last few decades in the story.
55:37
Speaker 1: Was that because there's not much story or the film
55:40
Speaker 1: could only be so long? What was that choice about?
55:44
Speaker 3: I think, well the film could only be so long
55:47
Speaker 3: as one one of the reasons. Definitely, their story did
55:50
Speaker 3: go on, it continued, but you know, there I wanted
55:54
Speaker 3: to focus on the period of the eighties where they
55:56
Speaker 3: made therefore albums the because they didn't do the fifth
56:02
Speaker 3: album until ninety nine I think, so it was almost
56:06
Speaker 3: ten year gap which they would break up come back together,
56:10
Speaker 3: and they said they never broke up. But whatever, stop start, stop, start, stop, start,
56:16
Speaker 3: whatever you want to call it. There was a lot
56:18
Speaker 3: of that, and then they finally produced another album, but
56:20
Speaker 3: I just thought it was better to focus on the
56:23
Speaker 3: years that everybody remembers, where there's the most footage that's
56:28
Speaker 3: so colorful from that time period. And those first four
56:33
Speaker 3: albums are just so good. The hits are, you know,
56:38
Speaker 3: there's just such What surprised me on that was I
56:41
Speaker 3: had forgotten how beautiful some of the other music is
56:44
Speaker 3: because we know all the big, big hits, but there's
56:47
Speaker 3: some other songs that don't get the same play time
56:51
Speaker 3: that the big hits get these days, and it's just
56:55
Speaker 3: beautiful music.
56:56
Speaker 2: They wrote some incredible songs.
56:58
Speaker 1: Let's just go back. You're kind of thinking in your mind,
57:02
Speaker 1: you raise the money, what is the whole process in
57:07
Speaker 1: terms of setting up interviews, getting our You're in charge,
57:11
Speaker 1: so how do you do it?
57:13
Speaker 3: That really falls much more to the producers. That's sort
57:15
Speaker 3: of I'm much more just the creative side of, you know,
57:19
Speaker 3: doing the interviews, figuring out how the footage comes in,
57:23
Speaker 3: gets put together. You know, certainly, if they're things that
57:26
Speaker 3: we know to ask the archival producers to find, we
57:29
Speaker 3: give requests. We're looking for something about this time period
57:33
Speaker 3: or that. What can you find that sort of thing.
57:36
Speaker 3: I do, but I'm not in the initial stages of
57:40
Speaker 3: putting the pieces together.
57:41
Speaker 2: That falls much more on the producers.
57:43
Speaker 1: So when you're interviewing the talent, to what degure you
57:47
Speaker 1: prepared or you phishing. That's got a bad connotation, but
57:51
Speaker 1: you figure, hey, i'll get the person rolling, they'll tell
57:53
Speaker 1: me a story. I don't know.
57:56
Speaker 3: I just try to listen. I mean, I'm very well
57:58
Speaker 3: prepared going into interviews. I have questions written down, often
58:02
Speaker 3: pages of them, and some people are. You know, you
58:07
Speaker 3: have a page of questions and someone will in their
58:09
Speaker 3: first answer knock off your first page. So you have
58:12
Speaker 3: to you have to pay attention. I want to keep
58:15
Speaker 3: it as conversational as possible and follow it.
58:17
Speaker 2: Listen and follow them.
58:19
Speaker 3: So if they jump to some later thing, I don't
58:22
Speaker 3: have to say, oh wait, we'll get to that later.
58:23
Speaker 3: I just go with them, and and you just have
58:26
Speaker 3: to try to remember that it's knocked off. I have
58:28
Speaker 3: someone always sitting behind me checking off and telling me
58:32
Speaker 3: if I miss something when we take breaks and stuff.
58:35
Speaker 3: But you know, the idea is, just have a fun conversation,
58:37
Speaker 3: keep it, keep it, keep it real and honest and
58:42
Speaker 3: it's it's it's. It honestly makes me a little nervous
58:46
Speaker 3: because it's you know, you've got to Mostly it's just
58:49
Speaker 3: that I want to make sure I'm here listening to
58:51
Speaker 3: what they're saying so that so that I can keep
58:55
Speaker 3: it conversational and not feel regimented in it.
59:00
Speaker 1: So what's the holy grail?
59:04
Speaker 2: I don't know. I don't know. I don't have an
59:11
Speaker 2: answer to that one.
59:12
Speaker 1: Well, I mean, you've done a number of these Let's
59:14
Speaker 1: start stay with music. You've done a number of these documentaries.
59:17
Speaker 1: Since you're familiar with Culture Club's music, it implies that
59:21
Speaker 1: one can infer that you're a music fan. So is
59:24
Speaker 1: there someone you say God that person either their music
59:27
Speaker 1: I love or the story fascinates me. I'd love to
59:29
Speaker 1: do a movie with them.
59:32
Speaker 3: There have been there There have been a few that
59:36
Speaker 3: two not that long ago, that didn't go my way,
59:39
Speaker 3: that are heartbreaking. So you know, you don't always get them,
59:43
Speaker 3: even if even if they're a dream, So you know,
59:47
Speaker 3: you just have to keep looking. But there's plenty of
59:49
Speaker 3: artists out there. Tracy Chapman, I would love to do
59:53
Speaker 3: a film about She's just I don't think she's ready.
59:56
Speaker 2: To do it.
59:58
Speaker 3: Other people that I had mentioned other people ended up
1:00:02
Speaker 3: getting those projects, and I obviously wish them.
1:00:06
Speaker 1: Well.
1:00:08
Speaker 3: There's there's a lot of artists out there, but there's
1:00:10
Speaker 3: a lot of topics too. I don't it doesn't have
1:00:13
Speaker 3: to just be music for me. I mean, one of
1:00:16
Speaker 3: my favorite films I worked on was American Jihat. I
1:00:18
Speaker 3: found that film incredibly fulfilling because I feel like we
1:00:23
Speaker 3: just took an issue that was so hard to understand
1:00:26
Speaker 3: and tried to humanize it.
1:00:29
Speaker 1: Do you have any pet projects non musical.
1:00:32
Speaker 2: In my own writing for fiction? I do.
1:00:37
Speaker 1: When you say you're wrot you write scripts, you write.
1:00:40
Speaker 3: By no scripts. But I have not successfully done that.
1:00:43
Speaker 3: I've come close to a couple of times, but I'm
1:00:48
Speaker 3: keeping at it.
1:00:48
Speaker 1: It's you know, okay, are you talking about a script
1:00:52
Speaker 1: that you would direct?
1:00:54
Speaker 2: I would like to. Yeah.
1:00:56
Speaker 1: And are these similar to documentaries in that they're, you know,
1:01:03
Speaker 1: based on human interactions or are they more like, you know,
1:01:06
Speaker 1: a comedy, superhero whatever.
1:01:09
Speaker 2: No?
1:01:09
Speaker 3: No, no, they're definitely definitely drama.
1:01:14
Speaker 1: Okay, So if you're working on these movies, you're writing script?
1:01:19
Speaker 1: This your whole life, or there's any other time do
1:01:21
Speaker 1: anything else?
1:01:23
Speaker 3: I have a rescue horse and Minnie Donkey that I
1:01:27
Speaker 3: spend a lot of time with caring for them. I
1:01:30
Speaker 3: live on the vineyards, so I spend time at the beach,
1:01:32
Speaker 3: and my family has a house, or I spend time
1:01:34
Speaker 3: with my family. I've blessed with a lot of tremendously
1:01:37
Speaker 3: wonderful friends all over the world. Really, and so yeah, No,
1:01:44
Speaker 3: I keep very busy and I love to read. If
1:01:47
Speaker 3: I'm not doing anything, I'm reading.
1:01:50
Speaker 1: Did you reading novels?
1:01:52
Speaker 2: Novels? Novels?
1:01:54
Speaker 1: So what have you read recently? And that's good?
1:01:57
Speaker 2: Kin Land?
1:02:01
Speaker 3: Oh my god, I'm terrible. The Calamity Club, just a lot.
1:02:06
Speaker 3: I've been reading a lot.
1:02:08
Speaker 1: How do you decide what to read?
1:02:11
Speaker 3: I read reviews or I read authors that I've read before.
1:02:18
Speaker 1: Did you read London Falling, no which is nonfiction? Yeah?
1:02:24
Speaker 1: How about Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow? Yes, I read
1:02:28
Speaker 1: that someone is making a film of that, right.
1:02:31
Speaker 2: I don't know. It wouldn't surprise me.
1:02:34
Speaker 1: So when you talk about these projects that you don't
1:02:38
Speaker 1: get to, what degree do you have to sell yourself
1:02:41
Speaker 1: and what is your pitch?
1:02:43
Speaker 3: I'm terrible at selling myself. That's the problem. I'm just
1:02:48
Speaker 3: I just I don't do self promotion while at all.
1:02:52
Speaker 3: It's like, I feel like my work should be my
1:02:55
Speaker 3: calling card, and if it's not, I just I mean,
1:02:58
Speaker 3: I know you. I think for whatever reason I didn't
1:03:03
Speaker 3: get these ones that I'm thinking of. It's I think
1:03:06
Speaker 3: it's hard to understand because I feel like I made
1:03:08
Speaker 3: a really good connection with the artists and it's just
1:03:12
Speaker 3: for whatever reason, they chose to go with someone else,
1:03:14
Speaker 3: and that happens.
1:03:15
Speaker 2: That's life. But I'm not good at self promotion.
1:03:19
Speaker 1: In terms of projects. To what degree are you waiting
1:03:22
Speaker 1: to see what comes over the transom and to what
1:03:25
Speaker 1: degree are you self starting reaching out to other people
1:03:29
Speaker 1: wanting to get them involved to do something.
1:03:32
Speaker 3: A little bit of both right now, I have there's
1:03:34
Speaker 3: so many things that have been in development for so
1:03:36
Speaker 3: long that I'm in a little bit of a holding pattern.
1:03:39
Speaker 3: So I've been using that time to read and write
1:03:42
Speaker 3: a bit so rather than worry about what's happening.
1:03:45
Speaker 2: But it's a little bit of both.
1:03:47
Speaker 3: But again, like I said, the atmosphere for funding right
1:03:50
Speaker 3: now is not a good time.
1:03:53
Speaker 1: So and how has this worked out financially for you?
1:04:00
Speaker 2: Waves?
1:04:01
Speaker 3: This has not been a good year, But Prior to
1:04:04
Speaker 3: this year things were pretty good.
1:04:05
Speaker 1: So well, got enough in the bank and carry through.
1:04:12
Speaker 2: Wow, that's getting personal, DIF for now.
1:04:18
Speaker 1: Okay, Allison, I want to thank you so much for
1:04:20
Speaker 1: taking this time with my audience. Your films certainly do
1:04:24
Speaker 1: speak for themselves. You know, Culture Club is great, as
1:04:27
Speaker 1: is all your work. I think you know the Eagles
1:04:30
Speaker 1: maybe since such an interesting subject as the apotheosis, not
1:04:33
Speaker 1: only in your work but in documentaries at large in
1:04:36
Speaker 1: music sphere. Thanks so much, thank.
1:04:39
Speaker 2: You, it was great to talk to you.
1:04:40
Speaker 1: You bet till next time. This is Bob Left SAIDs