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Dayna Goldfine & Dan Geller · The Bob Lefsetz Podcast

• 0:02
  Speaker 1: Welcome, Welcome, Welcome back to the Bob Left Sets podcast.
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: My guests today are Dana Goldfeind and Dan Geller, the
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: team behind the new film Peter Asher Everywhere Man. So,
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: what was the inspiration for this movie?
• 0:18
  Speaker 2: I never know if I should have Dan start this
• 0:20
  Speaker 2: or me because I was the one who saw the
• 0:23
  Speaker 2: show first. But Dan was the one who was a
• 0:25
  Speaker 2: very patient partner, romantic partner as well as filmmaking partner,
• 0:29
  Speaker 2: because it was really through my high school boyfriend who
• 0:32
  Speaker 2: both of us are still really close friends with, who
• 0:35
  Speaker 2: lives with Linda Ronstatt, and way back in twenty twelve
• 0:39
  Speaker 2: when Peter Asher first started doing his memoir show, which
• 0:43
  Speaker 2: is a cabaret a live cabaret show with the band,
• 0:47
  Speaker 2: and at the time it was also with you know,
• 0:50
  Speaker 2: lots and lots of you know.
• 0:52
  Speaker 3: Video clips and things like that.
• 0:54
  Speaker 2: Anyway, Todd called me and said, Hey, Linda Ronstatt has
• 0:59
  Speaker 2: an next her ticket to go see her old manager,
• 1:02
  Speaker 2: Peter Asher's memoir show tonight.
• 1:05
  Speaker 3: Do you want to come?
• 1:06
  Speaker 2: And all I could think of, because I knew nothing
• 1:08
  Speaker 2: about Peter, was oh, man, I said, can I sit
• 1:12
  Speaker 2: next to Linda? And he kind of told me I could,
• 1:16
  Speaker 2: and so I mercenarily went completely just to meet Linda Ronstad.
• 1:23
  Speaker 2: But I walked into the room and all of the
• 1:25
  Speaker 2: Bay area kind of entertainment luminaries were there, so you know,
• 1:30
  Speaker 2: Robin Williams was there, Ben Fong, Tourrez, Peter Coyote and
• 1:35
  Speaker 2: many many more. So I was like, Oh, something's going down.
• 1:37
  Speaker 2: It's not like everyone has come here to meet Linda Ronstadt.
• 1:41
  Speaker 2: And then Peter started his show, and within five minutes
• 1:45
  Speaker 2: my jaw dropped and I mostly was thinking, I can't
• 1:48
  Speaker 2: believe there wasn't a second ticket for Dan, because this
• 1:51
  Speaker 2: is a documentary waiting to be made.
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: Okay, were you familiar with Peter's career as Peter and Gordon?
• 2:00
  Speaker 4: No, it's interesting because I'm sixty five, Dana sixty seven.
• 2:04
  Speaker 3: Did you have to say that?
• 2:06
  Speaker 4: As it was coming out of my mouth, I thought, oh, no,
• 2:09
  Speaker 4: I'm going to pay for that one. But we're just
• 2:13
  Speaker 4: just slightly young enough that Peter and Gordon in their
• 2:18
  Speaker 4: heyday would not really have been in our consciousness. Really,
• 2:21
  Speaker 4: for me, it was late stage Beatles where things began
• 2:25
  Speaker 4: to enter my mind musically, and then of course everything
• 2:28
  Speaker 4: that Peter was doing in the seventies, so I didn't
• 2:31
  Speaker 4: know about Peter and Gordon. If I had been three
• 2:35
  Speaker 4: years younger, maybe four years younger, of course I would have.
• 2:39
  Speaker 4: So the surprises that came when I did get to
• 2:41
  Speaker 4: see the show several years later, when he was coming
• 2:44
  Speaker 4: back to town, the surprises were astounding to me. But
• 2:48
  Speaker 4: it's an interesting thing about Peter and Gordon particular, that
• 2:51
  Speaker 4: there are pop acts that have a shelf life, but
• 2:54
  Speaker 4: there are pop acts that maybe should have had more
• 2:58
  Speaker 4: of a shelf life except they broke themselves up. And
• 3:01
  Speaker 4: so Peter and Gordon had that run of four years arguably,
• 3:05
  Speaker 4: and then you called it quit. So it then becomes
• 3:08
  Speaker 4: harder for a group like that to keep on going
• 3:12
  Speaker 4: in subsequent decades unless you were exposed to them in
• 3:14
  Speaker 4: the first place.
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: Okay, Dana, why did you think this was a documentary
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: when your first.
• 3:20
  Speaker 2: Saw Because again I was just gobsmacked, you know, started
• 3:26
  Speaker 2: with again, like Dan, I didn't really know Peter and Gordon,
• 3:30
  Speaker 2: but the first thing I was impressed by was Peter
• 3:33
  Speaker 2: is such a charming, engaging storyteller. And so I was like,
• 3:39
  Speaker 2: who is this guy? You know, a kind of small
• 3:43
  Speaker 2: stature and not young, who is telling me one gobsmacking
• 3:48
  Speaker 2: story after another, and by the time he got to
• 3:54
  Speaker 2: you know, the Indica Maryanne Faithful Yoko Ono connection, I.
• 4:00
  Speaker 3: Was ready to jump out of my seat. And then.
• 4:04
  Speaker 2: The fact that I didn't know who he was made
• 4:07
  Speaker 2: me want to do something about him, because it's really
• 4:10
  Speaker 2: fun to do a documentary about someone not so well
• 4:16
  Speaker 2: known maybe and bring it to other people's attention.
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: Okay, Dan says he didn't see the show for a
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: couple of years. If you were so excited, why this
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: interim is that's a good.
• 4:27
  Speaker 4: Question question because at the time, a woman named Cec
• 4:31
  Speaker 4: Goldwater had started to make a film about Peter. And
• 4:35
  Speaker 4: in our film, when you see that clip of Robin
• 4:37
  Speaker 4: Williams grabbing Peter after it was the show Dana had
• 4:41
  Speaker 4: gone to and making a joke about the way Peter dressed,
• 4:44
  Speaker 4: that was footage CC shot. Over the years, Dana and
• 4:48
  Speaker 4: I really did become friends with Linda as well, and
• 4:52
  Speaker 4: we go over to replace it for Sunday Brunches on occasion,
• 4:55
  Speaker 4: and we would always ask what's going on with that
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  Speaker 4: film with CC Goldwater happening? And ultimately Ceci did not
• 5:02
  Speaker 4: push it further.
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  Speaker 2: And actually, you know, I just I can't tell you
• 5:08
  Speaker 2: as a filmmaker. This has happened a few times over
• 5:11
  Speaker 2: the years. I just get this feeling like this is
• 5:13
  Speaker 2: a story we're supposed to tell. Dan and I are
• 5:15
  Speaker 2: supposed to make this documentary. So as I was thinking that,
• 5:19
  Speaker 2: on the night of Peter's Caba ratio, I did look
• 5:23
  Speaker 2: up and I noticed a woman with a camera, and
• 5:25
  Speaker 2: at the break I marched over and I said, are you,
• 5:28
  Speaker 2: by chance doing a documentary about Peter? And she said
• 5:32
  Speaker 2: I am, and I said, you know, I talked to
• 5:35
  Speaker 2: her for a few minutes and I said, I just
• 5:36
  Speaker 2: have to tell you, and I don't say this very often,
• 5:39
  Speaker 2: but I'm really jealous of you, and that is a
• 5:41
  Speaker 2: big compliment.
• 5:42
  Speaker 3: I wish you well.
• 5:43
  Speaker 2: And we talked for a few more minutes, and there
• 5:45
  Speaker 2: was a piece of me that felt like we weren't
• 5:47
  Speaker 2: done with the Peter Asher concept that maybe I don't know,
• 5:51
  Speaker 2: it's not that I wished her unwell. But when I
• 5:55
  Speaker 2: got home and I told Dan about it, I said,
• 5:57
  Speaker 2: you know, there is already someone who's making a film,
• 5:59
  Speaker 2: but we should really care or eye on this.
• 6:00
  Speaker 4: So seven years later, Peter's coming back to town. At
• 6:04
  Speaker 4: this point, we knew that Linda had told us that
• 6:07
  Speaker 4: the movie wasn't going to happen with Ceci, and so
• 6:11
  Speaker 4: time out.
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: Why was the movie not going to happen?
• 6:14
  Speaker 4: I think she I'm not sure exactly if that she
• 6:16
  Speaker 4: didn't couldn't raise funds for it, or got busy with
• 6:21
  Speaker 4: other projects. It's a good question because I don't have
• 6:23
  Speaker 4: a definitive answer to it.
• 6:25
  Speaker 2: I mean, I think, look, these projects are really hard.
• 6:28
  Speaker 2: And music I mean, any documentary is hard. A music
• 6:31
  Speaker 2: documentary now that we've done too there are really really hard.
• 6:37
  Speaker 2: You have to be willing to be Sisyphus and hope
• 6:39
  Speaker 2: that you can actually, you know, outpace Sisyphis and actually
• 6:42
  Speaker 2: get the boulder over the hill.
• 6:44
  Speaker 3: Because you're dealing with.
• 6:46
  Speaker 2: You know, incredible music rights situation and it's not for
• 6:51
  Speaker 2: the faintom heart. So I think when I was talking
• 6:53
  Speaker 2: to Ceci, she had done less than we had done
• 6:57
  Speaker 2: in our track record, and I just got a sense
• 7:00
  Speaker 2: like it could be something where she realizes it's just
• 7:03
  Speaker 2: too big.
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: Was she a professional documentarian?
• 7:07
  Speaker 2: She had made one film and it was I think
• 7:12
  Speaker 2: about her uncle Barry Goldwater.
• 7:16
  Speaker 4: Is that right down or great uncle?
• 7:18
  Speaker 2: Yeah, So you know it wasn't a music doc it
• 7:21
  Speaker 2: was only one film. It was kind of a smaller
• 7:23
  Speaker 2: regional story. Not to put her down at all, but
• 7:27
  Speaker 2: you know.
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: I got it. I got it, Okay. So, yeah, you're
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: at Linda's house. You say, what about that documentary? Pick
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: it up there? Yeah.
• 7:37
  Speaker 4: Then Linda said that Tulas that Peter was coming to
• 7:40
  Speaker 4: town to perform his musical memoir of the sixties and
• 7:44
  Speaker 4: beyond it Bimbo's three sixty five Club, and would we
• 7:49
  Speaker 4: want to go. Of course, at that point I was
• 7:52
  Speaker 4: so curious as well, and Dana and I had said
• 7:55
  Speaker 4: to each other, and Dana's instincts are good about these things,
• 7:58
  Speaker 4: so I said, you know, if it resonates with me also,
• 8:02
  Speaker 4: then we should just arrange to ask him after the
• 8:06
  Speaker 4: show on the spot, because Linda was coming to the
• 8:09
  Speaker 4: theater at that point, she was a little bit more mobile,
• 8:12
  Speaker 4: and she had met with him ahead of time and
• 8:15
  Speaker 4: just planted the seed that these two filmmakers who were
• 8:19
  Speaker 4: making a movie about Leonard Cohen and the song Hallelujah
• 8:22
  Speaker 4: would be there and had expressed potentially expressed some interest.
• 8:26
  Speaker 4: So as soon as the show started unfold, I had
• 8:29
  Speaker 4: that same reaction that Dana did that this is a
• 8:32
  Speaker 4: fabulous topic but also a charming storyteller, and that would
• 8:38
  Speaker 4: be interesting to try to fuse his cabaret show into
• 8:44
  Speaker 4: a wider arranging documentary as an aesthetic challenge for us.
• 8:48
  Speaker 4: So we went over to Linda's table after the show.
• 8:51
  Speaker 4: People basically were dribbling out and Peter came over and
• 8:55
  Speaker 4: we asked him about the spot would we want would
• 8:59
  Speaker 4: he be willing to to be the subject of our
• 9:03
  Speaker 4: next documentary? And he was aware of the Leonard Coin
• 9:05
  Speaker 4: movie in process, and I'll never forget what he said.
• 9:09
  Speaker 4: He said, but why would you want to make a
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  Speaker 4: movie about me? I am no Leonard Cohen. And to me,
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  Speaker 4: that's a good response because it suggests and he was
• 9:20
  Speaker 4: not being disingenuous. It suggests that he has some perspective
• 9:24
  Speaker 4: about his own life. And so we said, okay, let's
• 9:28
  Speaker 4: just start, let's start talking about what that would be.
• 9:32
  Speaker 3: And then COVID happened.
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: Okay, just to let me get it exactly, covid is
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: March of twenty twenty. When was this conversation? It business?
• 9:40
  Speaker 3: So the conversation was December of twenty nineteen.
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: Okay, in between the couple of months in between Lockdown,
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: what did the two of you do?
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  Speaker 3: We traded emails with Peter.
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  Speaker 2: We talked about, you know, setting up a time when
• 9:56
  Speaker 2: Dan and I would fly down. We live in San Francisco,
• 9:58
  Speaker 2: and we said, you know, the first thing to do
• 9:59
  Speaker 2: is let's fly down and hang out with you in Malibu.
• 10:03
  Speaker 4: Without a camera, without a compact, to get to know
• 10:05
  Speaker 4: each other a bit.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, because Dan and I we I can't remember a
• 10:09
  Speaker 2: time when other unless it's with someone like James Taylor,
• 10:12
  Speaker 2: where you really just have a minute with them and
• 10:13
  Speaker 2: you have to be set up. But I can't remember
• 10:16
  Speaker 2: many times when we haven't tried to break bread with
• 10:20
  Speaker 2: our subjects ahead of time and get comfortable. So we
• 10:24
  Speaker 2: were starting to set that up, and before we could
• 10:27
  Speaker 2: even get down there for one, you know, get together,
• 10:31
  Speaker 2: everything got shut down.
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: Okay. You know, your documentarians, making a movie is a
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: herculean effort. You've done a number of these, more than
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: a few. There's an opportunity cost. This might be a
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: good idea, why Peter Rasher as opposed to all the
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: other things going around in your head or the other
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: opportunities huh.
• 10:53
  Speaker 2: Interesting?
• 10:53
  Speaker 4: You know there's there's a line that Peter has in
• 10:55
  Speaker 4: the movie. It's in one of those moments with Steve Martin.
• 10:59
  Speaker 4: I think Dana had up to the question on Cara,
• 11:02
  Speaker 4: or you could hear us asking off camera, why do
• 11:05
  Speaker 4: these things? For example, do a bluegrass record or a
• 11:08
  Speaker 4: comedy record? And Peter's answer was, well, it just it
• 11:13
  Speaker 4: sounds interesting and it could be fun and I might
• 11:16
  Speaker 4: learn something. And I think that's those are key pieces,
• 11:20
  Speaker 4: at least for me, of undertaking this kind of this
• 11:25
  Speaker 4: kind of project. But also I'm fascinated by projects that
• 11:30
  Speaker 4: allow us a longitudinal look at a life, either because
• 11:34
  Speaker 4: we're immersed in somebody's life for nine months the way
• 11:37
  Speaker 4: we were filming in a college freshman dormitory in the
• 11:39
  Speaker 4: early nineteen nineties, and to watch something unfold. But in
• 11:43
  Speaker 4: Peter's case, not only do we have that longitudinal study
• 11:47
  Speaker 4: of someone's life who'd been pretty well documented early on,
• 11:51
  Speaker 4: but also one where the narrative surprises were legion. I
• 11:55
  Speaker 4: just this is like a gift as far as every
• 11:58
  Speaker 4: five minutes there's a twist in his life. It's fascinating,
• 12:00
  Speaker 4: and you know.
• 12:01
  Speaker 3: That's so funny.
• 12:02
  Speaker 2: We've never been asked about the opportunity cost in any
• 12:04
  Speaker 2: of our films, and I don't really ever think about it,
• 12:08
  Speaker 2: because if I get the chills when I'm confronted by
• 12:11
  Speaker 2: a potential subject that I don't even know is a
• 12:15
  Speaker 2: potential subject when I first sit down with it, like
• 12:18
  Speaker 2: in the case of Peter's Cabareto in twenty twelve, I
• 12:22
  Speaker 2: never think, oh, opportunity costs. I just think, Wow, this
• 12:25
  Speaker 2: is something that could be really challenging and fun and
• 12:30
  Speaker 2: exciting to immerse ourselves in for however many years it
• 12:35
  Speaker 2: takes to do it. And wouldn't it be fun because
• 12:38
  Speaker 2: it's not so wellknown? And we really do like to
• 12:40
  Speaker 2: make films about things that are either ancient history or
• 12:43
  Speaker 2: not so well known, And wouldn't it be fun to
• 12:45
  Speaker 2: bring this amazing character, Peter Asher, to the attention of
• 12:50
  Speaker 2: many many people.
• 12:51
  Speaker 4: I mean, yes, we did turn down the twenty million
• 12:53
  Speaker 4: dollar Netflix offer to make a movie about the Beatles.
• 12:57
  Speaker 4: If that's an opportunity cost, I suppose it was question
• 13:00
  Speaker 4: a different way.
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: Are you just walking down the screen twiddling your thumbs
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: and you bump into Peter Rasher or do you always
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: have a number of films in mental or actual development?
• 13:12
  Speaker 3: You know what we're not?
• 13:15
  Speaker 2: I mean Alex Gibney, for instance, he's a he's a
• 13:17
  Speaker 2: documentarian who's who's got a shop. Basically, we're not cut
• 13:23
  Speaker 2: from that cloth. There are times when I feel sort
• 13:29
  Speaker 2: of humbled by the filmmakers who can actually have multiple
• 13:33
  Speaker 2: projects and you know, things up going up in the air.
• 13:38
  Speaker 2: I think we both prefer to just dig our teeth
• 13:41
  Speaker 2: in and do something really, really well.
• 13:44
  Speaker 4: But I would say usually they're there. We're overlapping too
• 13:48
  Speaker 4: at once. That's you're starting something, we're midway through a project,
• 13:52
  Speaker 4: another idea that seems particularly interesting comes up, and we
• 13:57
  Speaker 4: won't let that go. We'll we'll grab onto it and
• 13:59
  Speaker 4: try to develop it as we're pushing forward with the
• 14:02
  Speaker 4: one that's more fully in production. And that happened obviously.
• 14:06
  Speaker 4: It happened with the Leonard Cohen movie because we were
• 14:08
  Speaker 4: in the middle of the edit when we locked onto
• 14:11
  Speaker 4: Peter and Peter's story, and we've worked on Peter's story
• 14:14
  Speaker 4: at the same time now that we've got this other
• 14:16
  Speaker 4: movie that is in process. So I don't think there's
• 14:22
  Speaker 4: been a time where we've had four or five ideas
• 14:24
  Speaker 4: percolating at once.
• 14:26
  Speaker 2: Two feels full, yeah, because we're kind of a small
• 14:29
  Speaker 2: shop it's really the two of us, and you know, Dan,
• 14:31
  Speaker 2: Dan shoots, I do sound. We hire editors, but we
• 14:36
  Speaker 2: also spend a fair amount of time in the editing
• 14:38
  Speaker 2: room ourselves. It just it just feels good to do
• 14:42
  Speaker 2: one or two at a time.
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: Okay, you're a couple, Yes, do you have children?
• 14:49
  Speaker 4: No, well, there's a cat that might have been purring
• 14:51
  Speaker 4: into the microphone at one moment.
• 14:53
  Speaker 2: Our children are for sure our documentary. Okay, Well, and
• 14:56
  Speaker 2: the subjects.
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: We'll get into all that stuff maybe a little bit later. Okay.
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: Peter himself says, I'm no Leonard Cohen. You're intrigued by
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: his one person show. Do you then contemplate, well, I'm intrigued.
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: How is the rest of the world interested in? How
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: am I going to get them interested?
• 15:19
  Speaker 4: Well, there's so many incredible people attached to Peter throughout
• 15:24
  Speaker 4: his life that if you can't get people interested, because
• 15:29
  Speaker 4: you've got Paul McCartney deeply involved in his life, and
• 15:33
  Speaker 4: Apple Records and James Taylor and Linda Rossa and on
• 15:36
  Speaker 4: and on, it goes that these are people that are
• 15:39
  Speaker 4: household names and have massive following. So, at least for
• 15:43
  Speaker 4: me that my thought was it might be hard without
• 15:46
  Speaker 4: those people to get somebody to be interested to come
• 15:49
  Speaker 4: and watch a movie about Peter Asher. But those are
• 15:51
  Speaker 4: all the hooks that bring you in to the core.
• 15:55
  Speaker 4: And I mean, in the earlier days we were trying
• 15:57
  Speaker 4: to figure out, how do we articulate with this movie
• 15:59
  Speaker 4: really is out, we'd say it's about a guy named
• 16:02
  Speaker 4: Peter Asher. Now, if you're of a certain age, right
• 16:05
  Speaker 4: away the eyes light up. If you're not of that
• 16:07
  Speaker 4: certain age, that the eyes glaze over, and if they
• 16:10
  Speaker 4: do some quick spinning. But I do think that having
• 16:15
  Speaker 4: those names circulating around Peter, not in some simple testimonial
• 16:20
  Speaker 4: to say, oh I always like Peter, but because he
• 16:22
  Speaker 4: profoundly changed their lives, you know, by getting involved in
• 16:25
  Speaker 4: their lives, I thought, well that then they're going to
• 16:27
  Speaker 4: be interesting storytellers as well.
• 16:29
  Speaker 2: And you know, I think it's that it's, like I
• 16:32
  Speaker 2: said before, this chill you get when you come upon
• 16:34
  Speaker 2: a subject that you're not expecting to grab you. There's
• 16:39
  Speaker 2: a line in the film that Peter says, I ask
• 16:41
  Speaker 2: him this question, I say, Peter, it's about James Taylor,
• 16:46
  Speaker 2: who was probably the first person arguably that Peter took
• 16:50
  Speaker 2: a massive gamble on and I say, you know, Peter,
• 16:54
  Speaker 2: you're managing James. He's kind of a junkie. You know,
• 16:58
  Speaker 2: no one really knows who he is. What is it
• 17:01
  Speaker 2: that made you want to stake everything you know on him?
• 17:05
  Speaker 2: And he says something to the effect of, well, I
• 17:09
  Speaker 2: thought that he was, you know, brilliant, and I liked
• 17:11
  Speaker 2: his music so much that I just figured everyone else
• 17:14
  Speaker 2: would too. And I think that's kind of an allegory
• 17:17
  Speaker 2: to what we go through when we say, you know, well,
• 17:20
  Speaker 2: we are totally fascinated by this Peter Asher character in
• 17:24
  Speaker 2: his life story, so we think everyone else would be too.
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: Okay, you have the idea. Peter essentially says he's in
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: how much does it cost to make a movie like this?
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: And where do you get the money?
• 17:37
  Speaker 3: Oh?
• 17:38
  Speaker 4: So it's the biggest costs in a movie like this
• 17:44
  Speaker 4: have to do with, as you would well know, music rights.
• 17:49
  Speaker 4: That music rights in archival clips because they are essential
• 17:54
  Speaker 4: to the movie. And I think in our films we
• 17:57
  Speaker 4: don't play KOI why trying to to fair use and
• 18:00
  Speaker 4: play three seconds of a song. We want people to
• 18:03
  Speaker 4: feel the songs of those eras, so the actual production
• 18:07
  Speaker 4: putting that aside is reasonable. It's not an enormous amount
• 18:11
  Speaker 4: of money. I mean, yeah, we flew to England and
• 18:13
  Speaker 4: shot some things in England, but mostly it was the
• 18:17
  Speaker 4: cost of shooting two runs of his show at Bimbos,
• 18:20
  Speaker 4: which we staged for an invited audience, and then Dana
• 18:24
  Speaker 4: and I maybe a lighting person bumping around the country
• 18:27
  Speaker 4: getting these interviews. So the costs that jump up substantially
• 18:34
  Speaker 4: have to do with licensing seventy songs for a movie,
• 18:38
  Speaker 4: and that we hadn't done that before. I mean, even
• 18:41
  Speaker 4: the Leonard Cohen one, it's a little different. There are
• 18:44
  Speaker 4: twenty two songs. Leonard had blessed the project, the estate
• 18:49
  Speaker 4: had worked it out so that we wouldn't be paying
• 18:51
  Speaker 4: through the nose. But before that, our films have been
• 18:54
  Speaker 4: very modestly budgeted. How do we get the money. We
• 18:58
  Speaker 4: have good friends who circumstances had changed, and they'd always
• 19:04
  Speaker 4: wanted to support our work, and so we formed a
• 19:06
  Speaker 4: company with them to do this movie in the next movie,
• 19:10
  Speaker 4: and they have financed the film, and that has allowed
• 19:14
  Speaker 4: us enormous creative freedom to do the films the way
• 19:19
  Speaker 4: we always have done it. We've self financed everything before
• 19:22
  Speaker 4: by doing corporate media and not having the expensive kids
• 19:26
  Speaker 4: in college. So there's no way we could have done
• 19:30
  Speaker 4: this movie on our own without completely sacrificing our retirement.
• 19:34
  Speaker 2: I mean, you know, so our EPs had put a
• 19:38
  Speaker 2: small amount into Hallelujah, and like it was basically when
• 19:42
  Speaker 2: it came time to actually license the song Hallelujah from
• 19:46
  Speaker 2: Sony Publishing, which took us a year and a half
• 19:49
  Speaker 2: to negotiate a reasonable amount, there was a check to
• 19:53
  Speaker 2: be written and it wasn't huge, but it was bigger
• 19:55
  Speaker 2: than what Dan and I had in our bank account
• 19:58
  Speaker 2: at the time. And they put that in and then
• 20:00
  Speaker 2: because of that they became EPs, and then that film
• 20:04
  Speaker 2: had such an incredible life and they got to go
• 20:06
  Speaker 2: on a ride with it and they were like, Wow,
• 20:07
  Speaker 2: we want to do your next one, and we'll do
• 20:09
  Speaker 2: it all.
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: Okay, songs, music rights. What was the budget?
• 20:23
  Speaker 3: Okay?
• 20:24
  Speaker 2: Can we say somewhere between one point five and two No.
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: That's absolutely that.
• 20:28
  Speaker 4: I would say it was less the actual production costs
• 20:31
  Speaker 4: without all the music rights and without archival clips because
• 20:34
  Speaker 4: if there's so many, probably around eight hundred thousand dollars,
• 20:37
  Speaker 4: which is typical for a feature length documentary that it
• 20:40
  Speaker 4: doesn't have all this other stuff.
• 20:41
  Speaker 2: And minus the archival and the Okay, yeah.
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: So how much does it cost for the archival and
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: music rights? You know?
• 20:51
  Speaker 2: Just again, let's say let's double the eight hundred and
• 20:55
  Speaker 2: maybe add another couple hundred thousand, So somewhere between one
• 20:58
  Speaker 2: point five and two, we had the most incredible music supervisor.
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: Wait, wait, is the one point five to two additional
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: to the eight hundred or including the eight hundred including
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: when you're done with the film. We're in somewhere between
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: one point five and two.
• 21:16
  Speaker 4: Let's just say it's it's realistically, it's two million dollars.
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: Okay, So back to the music supervisor.
• 21:22
  Speaker 2: Oh well, so we knew that our biggest expense could
• 21:26
  Speaker 2: possibly be ironically, it was because we had such an
• 21:29
  Speaker 2: amazing music soup. You know, I think our biggest expense
• 21:33
  Speaker 2: was probably the archival materials. But we knew that we
• 21:38
  Speaker 2: were going to need a stellar music soup who was
• 21:40
  Speaker 2: kind of fearless because not only were we asking for
• 21:44
  Speaker 2: seventy plus songs, but we were asking for a bunch
• 21:47
  Speaker 2: of Beatles songs. So along the way we saw Eno
• 21:53
  Speaker 2: and that's this incredible documentary that changes every time you
• 21:56
  Speaker 2: see it, and it's about Brian Youino, and the music
• 21:59
  Speaker 2: in it is you know Eno and Roxy Music, and
• 22:03
  Speaker 2: you know David Bowie and the Talking Heads, and you
• 22:06
  Speaker 2: know you too, And so we were like, Okay, who's
• 22:08
  Speaker 2: that person, because if someone could clear that song, that
• 22:12
  Speaker 2: music for that movie, they're the perfect person. And so
• 22:16
  Speaker 2: Gary Hustwit, the director of Eno, got us in touch
• 22:22
  Speaker 2: with Don Sutter Medel and we said, you know, we
• 22:26
  Speaker 2: were blown away by the work you did on Eno.
• 22:28
  Speaker 2: Have you ever cleared a Beatles song? And she said no,
• 22:32
  Speaker 2: but I'm really excited to try.
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: Okay, it's one thing if Coca Cola comes along or
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: Steven Spielberg comes along, but this is a friends in
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: family operation. Peter knows and has worked with these people
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: who may or may not own the rights themselves. Doesn't
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: that make it easier and cheaper?
• 22:55
  Speaker 3: Yes, in some cases, in some cases.
• 22:58
  Speaker 4: In most cases actually, because people really feel that Peter
• 23:03
  Speaker 4: has As Linda said, we asked her, what would your
• 23:08
  Speaker 4: career have been like without Peter? And she said, oh,
• 23:13
  Speaker 4: it would have been oblivion. It's not in the movie,
• 23:16
  Speaker 4: but it's a great line. I mean, and she means it.
• 23:18
  Speaker 4: We know, Linda Wellen, there's no bullshit with Linda, there
• 23:22
  Speaker 4: is no fudging anything anytime, So she meant that, yes,
• 23:26
  Speaker 4: So in that sense, it is friends and family. And
• 23:28
  Speaker 4: also it's not a record company commissioned movie, where you know,
• 23:32
  Speaker 4: it's a different set of considerations at that point. So
• 23:35
  Speaker 4: people really did come onto the project helping and trying
• 23:41
  Speaker 4: any way possible. And you're right, most people actually don't
• 23:45
  Speaker 4: own their publishing rights, and so it becomes a little
• 23:50
  Speaker 4: more tricky that even though the artists may or artist
• 23:53
  Speaker 4: management may go to the record company say we really
• 23:55
  Speaker 4: want this to happen, there's only so much you can do.
• 23:59
  Speaker 4: At that point, record company itself has to come along.
• 24:02
  Speaker 4: And the truth is a lot of record companies know
• 24:04
  Speaker 4: that Peter was very instrumental in making them a lot
• 24:08
  Speaker 4: of money and continues to But that's and that.
• 24:10
  Speaker 2: Said, you know, or but that said, Peter made it
• 24:14
  Speaker 2: very clear from the beginning that he wasn't going to
• 24:16
  Speaker 2: help us. He's he's humble, and he thought it would
• 24:19
  Speaker 2: be unseemly, you know, if he were to go out
• 24:22
  Speaker 2: to either people we wanted to interview or the record companies.
• 24:27
  Speaker 2: You know, it was very much a hands off, like
• 24:30
  Speaker 2: I'll participate, you can do my show you know, I'll
• 24:34
  Speaker 2: collaborate with you in that way, but if you want to,
• 24:38
  Speaker 2: if you want to interview someone, I mean, we obviously
• 24:40
  Speaker 2: had Linda Ronstett and she ended up being our first interview,
• 24:43
  Speaker 2: which really opened a lot of doors because Linda doesn't
• 24:46
  Speaker 2: do interviews anymore. So when we could then write to
• 24:50
  Speaker 2: Carol King and et cetera, et cetera, and go, you know,
• 24:53
  Speaker 2: this is what we're doing. It's about Peter. We know
• 24:55
  Speaker 2: how fond you are Peter. Linda Ronstett is our first interview.
• 24:59
  Speaker 2: That helped, and the same with the with the music.
• 25:03
  Speaker 2: But we still had to down still had to go
• 25:05
  Speaker 2: to the record labels and and convince them to give
• 25:11
  Speaker 2: a couple of independent filmmakers with not a great budget
• 25:14
  Speaker 2: to to comply.
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: And how hard were the Beatles to get.
• 25:21
  Speaker 4: The you know, you have to go to all four camps, right,
• 25:24
  Speaker 4: and so we did so Jonathan Clyde, who was obviously
• 25:30
  Speaker 4: a big fan of Peter and at Apple, at Apple,
• 25:34
  Speaker 4: Jonathan Clyde, you know brothers Jeremy Clyde. For God's sake
• 25:38
  Speaker 4: of Chad and Jeremy and Peter, Jeremy tour all the time.
• 25:40
  Speaker 4: So Jonathan promised nothing, but said he would do his best,
• 25:46
  Speaker 4: and but he was. He was very careful about anything
• 25:53
  Speaker 4: that whatever was going on behind the scenes, if any
• 25:56
  Speaker 4: we had no idea. It was very supportive of of
• 26:00
  Speaker 4: the project, but very closed about the machinations. But he
• 26:04
  Speaker 4: got all four Camps to sign off, which is and
• 26:07
  Speaker 4: it took quiet a while.
• 26:09
  Speaker 3: It was really on.
• 26:09
  Speaker 2: We were on pins and needles on all It wasn't
• 26:12
  Speaker 2: just the Beatles' songs, but we were on pins and
• 26:14
  Speaker 2: needles about all the archival footage because again I think, well,
• 26:19
  Speaker 2: we had to do the same thing for the rolling
• 26:21
  Speaker 2: Stones piece, because you have to get them all to
• 26:25
  Speaker 2: sign off. And so you know, that was a combination
• 26:29
  Speaker 2: of Dawn and of Jonathan kind of believing in the project.
• 26:34
  Speaker 2: You know, we sent him the rough cut after we
• 26:36
  Speaker 2: had a full cut. It was more of a fine cut,
• 26:38
  Speaker 2: and it still took him a long time. It was
• 26:41
  Speaker 2: kind of like, okay, we got to do a sound mix.
• 26:43
  Speaker 2: Please tell us that we can use this music before
• 26:46
  Speaker 2: it came through.
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: Okay, anything that you wanted or had in the rough
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: that you had to cut because you couldn't get the rights,
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: isn't that amazing?
• 26:56
  Speaker 3: No?
• 26:58
  Speaker 2: No, not a single song and actually not even a
• 27:03
  Speaker 2: single art piece of archival material. There were times. Here's
• 27:07
  Speaker 2: an example. There's this one still photo that it's it's
• 27:12
  Speaker 2: really not necessarily important to our film, but it was
• 27:15
  Speaker 2: to the segment. So it's Neil Young in Los Angeles
• 27:18
  Speaker 2: and at the edge of the frame is Kate Taylor,
• 27:21
  Speaker 2: James's sister, and she's looking at him.
• 27:24
  Speaker 4: They're on a couch somewhere. Yeah, it's very informal, really
• 27:27
  Speaker 4: love in the seventies.
• 27:28
  Speaker 2: So we had been using that in the sequence we
• 27:30
  Speaker 2: cut about Kate Taylor and archival. One of our archival
• 27:36
  Speaker 2: clearance people, he's like, can you please just cut that.
• 27:38
  Speaker 3: That photographer will never let you use it.
• 27:41
  Speaker 2: He's he's very protective of Neil Young and Da da
• 27:44
  Speaker 2: da da da, And we never take no for an answer,
• 27:47
  Speaker 2: at least until it's at the questions posed. So we
• 27:51
  Speaker 2: made him go ask and the photographer wrote back really
• 27:54
  Speaker 2: quickly and he said, I love Peter Asher, you can
• 27:56
  Speaker 2: use it for free.
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: Well, I have to ask who was that photographer.
• 28:00
  Speaker 2: It was Joel Bernstein, Is that right?
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know him. That's why it's interesting.
• 28:05
  Speaker 3: Okay, yeah, maybe don't say he let us use it.
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: Free because then a protector of Neil Young. That's the
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: part that became interesting to me. Okay, so you've made
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: these documentaries, you're making this. It's a labor of love
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: to a degree. You know, there's somewhat of a built
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: in audience. But in terms economically, you've raised the funds.
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: Do you expect these movies to return their investment and
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: then make money.
• 28:32
  Speaker 4: We're perpetual optimists that it may be. Part of it
• 28:38
  Speaker 4: is you never know with a movie that it might
• 28:41
  Speaker 4: catch on and something could happen. I mean, we're not
• 28:44
  Speaker 4: running it as a nonprofit, so the assumption is somehow,
• 28:48
  Speaker 4: some way it might actually go into profit. The likelihood
• 28:54
  Speaker 4: of that, which is true with any movie, is unfortunately
• 28:59
  Speaker 4: for far too infrequent then one would like. So the
• 29:04
  Speaker 4: nice part is that we're not under pressure by Mike
• 29:08
  Speaker 4: and Robin, who are exec producers who also Robin was
• 29:12
  Speaker 4: the Allison Steeles newsreader or newsperson on w ONEWFM in
• 29:18
  Speaker 4: the seventies and came a CBS radio correspondent on the
• 29:23
  Speaker 4: Culture Beat. And Mike and Rob Mike and I worked
• 29:25
  Speaker 4: in college radio together, so they also understand the arts.
• 29:29
  Speaker 4: But they also have been fantastic collaboratives and looking at
• 29:32
  Speaker 4: rough cuts and things like that, but they are not
• 29:35
  Speaker 4: putting themselves or us under pressure to say we better recoup.
• 29:39
  Speaker 4: The hope is it might, but that might be ten
• 29:42
  Speaker 4: years out.
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: Well.
• 29:43
  Speaker 2: The other thing is that, you know, the question had
• 29:45
  Speaker 2: started getting posed around Hallelujah. People were like, oh, well,
• 29:48
  Speaker 2: so if you could just sell this to Netflix, this
• 29:51
  Speaker 2: film about Leonard Cohen, and they gave you, I don't know,
• 29:55
  Speaker 2: five million dollars, would you just do it before it's finished?
• 29:59
  Speaker 2: And I am particular, you know, it was very adamant.
• 30:03
  Speaker 2: I'm like, no, I want this to be in theaters.
• 30:05
  Speaker 2: I still believe, for whatever reason better or worse, that
• 30:11
  Speaker 2: there's a delight to be sitting in an audience in
• 30:14
  Speaker 2: a darkened room with a big screen.
• 30:16
  Speaker 3: And great music.
• 30:18
  Speaker 2: And so no, I think I think I'd convinced Dan
• 30:21
  Speaker 2: to turn down a Netflix offer.
• 30:23
  Speaker 4: We didn't have one.
• 30:24
  Speaker 2: Well, ultimately it got on Netflix because Sony SPC.
• 30:28
  Speaker 4: Well that's different. So after it's in theaters and has
• 30:30
  Speaker 4: its run, I hope it goes through a streamer, gets
• 30:32
  Speaker 4: onto a platform.
• 30:33
  Speaker 2: Oh yeah.
• 30:33
  Speaker 4: But it was a decision in the abstract, but there
• 30:37
  Speaker 4: was there's no there was no offer on the table
• 30:42
  Speaker 4: in that way and that. But but I want to
• 30:44
  Speaker 4: say that what was what with the price of ten million?
• 30:47
  Speaker 3: Well, but I want to say that where would you?
• 30:49
  Speaker 4: Where have you? No?
• 30:50
  Speaker 2: But we were having this conversation when I was in
• 30:54
  Speaker 2: a car heading to tell you right for the premiere
• 30:55
  Speaker 2: of Hallelujah, and Dan was already there, and he was
• 30:58
  Speaker 2: sitting with our business eat More EP Jonathan Dana And
• 31:03
  Speaker 2: then we had the folks from Dogwoof, who were selling
• 31:07
  Speaker 2: the film around the world on the line, and they
• 31:10
  Speaker 2: the Dogwoff folks, said, God, it's really interesting. We're not
• 31:13
  Speaker 2: getting a lot of traction with the streamers, but you know,
• 31:16
  Speaker 2: all the countries we've gone to want to do it theatrically.
• 31:19
  Speaker 2: And I said, oh my god, that's so fantastic. And
• 31:22
  Speaker 2: then the business e people on the phone were like, oh, Danny,
• 31:25
  Speaker 2: you're such an idiot because the theatrical people aren't going
• 31:28
  Speaker 2: to pay very very much money. But you kind of
• 31:30
  Speaker 2: see now, Bob, like where we're coming from. It's just
• 31:33
  Speaker 2: the delight of sitting in a room with people watch
• 31:36
  Speaker 2: And it's been the same with Peter and everywhere.
• 31:40
  Speaker 4: Man.
• 31:41
  Speaker 2: We've sat in so many different theaters since September when
• 31:45
  Speaker 2: it premiered at Tell You Rite festival screen Yes, at
• 31:47
  Speaker 2: festival screenings, and each time to I mean the audience
• 31:51
  Speaker 2: often sings along.
• 31:53
  Speaker 3: It's just so fun.
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: Okay, how many films have you made?
• 31:57
  Speaker 4: This? Is? Is this our ninth? There was one that's
• 32:00
  Speaker 4: or got sidetracked, that was almost finished that we had
• 32:02
  Speaker 4: to pull the plug on, But it's just number nine.
• 32:05
  Speaker 3: I think it's this is the completed number one.
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: Okay, of the number nine, did those returned their investment?
• 32:13
  Speaker 2: Yeah, but they were cheaper, I would say for sure.
• 32:16
  Speaker 2: Ballet roosted. That was kind of the first film that
• 32:19
  Speaker 2: put us on the map, and that was two thousand
• 32:21
  Speaker 2: and five.
• 32:22
  Speaker 4: In a bigger way, I mean, the very first film
• 32:24
  Speaker 4: we made about Isadora Duncan premiered it at Sundan. So
• 32:28
  Speaker 4: that all the films returning and as far as returning investment,
• 32:32
  Speaker 4: I'm trying to think Frost didn't cost much money. You know,
• 32:36
  Speaker 4: they probably all either came close or or would be
• 32:40
  Speaker 4: considered so if you also consider that we never got
• 32:44
  Speaker 4: paid for our time doing it, So if you take
• 32:48
  Speaker 4: out the labor costs, then they probably all have just
• 32:51
  Speaker 4: barely eked to that point.
• 32:54
  Speaker 2: And Isidora though, was the last film we made where
• 32:58
  Speaker 2: DVD sails made a huge difference.
• 33:00
  Speaker 4: No, that was sixteen millions.
• 33:02
  Speaker 2: Well, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I met Ballyus.
• 33:04
  Speaker 2: Belarus was the last film we made where it did
• 33:08
  Speaker 2: really well theatrically, but more importantly, DVD sales were huge
• 33:13
  Speaker 2: in the mid two thousands, and so I think that's
• 33:18
  Speaker 2: really how we got our money back.
• 33:20
  Speaker 1: Okay, you have the inspiration, you get the approval from Peter.
• 33:27
  Speaker 1: What are the next steps. It's the first step to
• 33:30
  Speaker 1: go have this conversation with him, or do you essentially
• 33:34
  Speaker 1: put up a big map on the wall and say, well,
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: this is where we're going to go, this is what
• 33:38
  Speaker 1: we need. How do you do it?
• 33:41
  Speaker 4: It's sort of a combination of both, because we wanted
• 33:43
  Speaker 4: to have once we were all vaccinated and could sit
• 33:46
  Speaker 4: outside and talk at a table in Malibu, to get
• 33:50
  Speaker 4: a better sense of each other and the asks that
• 33:53
  Speaker 4: we had and some ideas that he would have. Creatively,
• 33:59
  Speaker 4: it wasn't his f to make, but we did want
• 34:02
  Speaker 4: input as we were making it about ideas and bits
• 34:07
  Speaker 4: that we might not have examined about his life or
• 34:10
  Speaker 4: that are not in his show. But at the same time, yes,
• 34:14
  Speaker 4: we didn't. We probably didn't put it up on the
• 34:17
  Speaker 4: board quite yet because we do have these cards on boards,
• 34:20
  Speaker 4: but we were The initial challenge is to say, Okay,
• 34:24
  Speaker 4: we know we're going to film his musical memoir, and
• 34:28
  Speaker 4: that'll be a spine for the movie, not the entirety.
• 34:31
  Speaker 2: Of the movie.
• 34:31
  Speaker 4: And we know we want to get these certain interviews
• 34:36
  Speaker 4: no matter what they're they're they're so important. How do
• 34:39
  Speaker 4: we start to plan for that? And I think that
• 34:45
  Speaker 4: that begins to become solid over time. And as that's happening,
• 34:50
  Speaker 4: there are things like, well, why don't we take them
• 34:53
  Speaker 4: to London and walk around the old Haunts and see
• 34:56
  Speaker 4: what happens? And and then Peter had their grand idea.
• 34:59
  Speaker 4: He said, well, his daughter going to be over in Europe,
• 35:00
  Speaker 4: why not have him walk the old haunts with Victoria
• 35:05
  Speaker 4: Because it probably would just be a lot looser for
• 35:07
  Speaker 4: him to be walking around with her and telling stories. So,
• 35:13
  Speaker 4: you know, I'd say, we didn't know the range of
• 35:17
  Speaker 4: archival material that we would have on tap, so you
• 35:21
  Speaker 4: can't plan it out fully. And as we begin to
• 35:23
  Speaker 4: bring archival researchers on, then material begins to bubble up.
• 35:26
  Speaker 4: It may guide us in a direction to say this
• 35:28
  Speaker 4: is a rich vein to tap that we hadn't thought of,
• 35:30
  Speaker 4: or that we wouldn't have spent so much time on. Yeah.
• 35:33
  Speaker 2: I think the art of making a film like this
• 35:35
  Speaker 2: is you have a you have a sense in your
• 35:39
  Speaker 2: head about how it's going to play out, but you
• 35:42
  Speaker 2: have to remain incredibly nimble and open to new opportunities
• 35:46
  Speaker 2: and new ideas and embrace them. I mean, we had
• 35:50
  Speaker 2: no idea when we were in London with Peter that
• 35:53
  Speaker 2: we were going to be standing in front of the
• 35:56
  Speaker 2: old place where the Indica Gallery existed and just have
• 35:59
  Speaker 2: this tour bus filled with people happened to get off
• 36:04
  Speaker 2: at that moment and noticed that it was Peter. You know,
• 36:07
  Speaker 2: someone noticed it was Peter in that group, I think
• 36:09
  Speaker 2: maybe the leader, and all of a sudden, there's this
• 36:12
  Speaker 2: swarm of people around saying Peter Asher, Peter Asher.
• 36:16
  Speaker 3: You know, we just had no idea when we started
• 36:18
  Speaker 3: that it's such a rich fun.
• 36:19
  Speaker 4: We're also that when we were over in London, he
• 36:22
  Speaker 4: has a flat there that he's asked if we wanted
• 36:26
  Speaker 4: to see some of the scrap books his mother had
• 36:28
  Speaker 4: put together, and I hear that, I'm thinking, you know,
• 36:32
  Speaker 4: a little album with some vinyl pages or something, And
• 36:36
  Speaker 4: in fact he reached up on a shelf at about
• 36:40
  Speaker 4: fifteen of these leather bound, large scrap books his mother
• 36:46
  Speaker 4: had really from Peter's birth started.
• 36:49
  Speaker 3: They were like twenty four.
• 36:51
  Speaker 4: Twenty four, but started for each of the three Asher
• 36:54
  Speaker 4: kids for every year, sometimes two years combined, created a
• 36:59
  Speaker 4: scrap book family photos, newspaper clippings from when the kids
• 37:03
  Speaker 4: were acting, from when Peters started to become a pop star,
• 37:07
  Speaker 4: really all the way through the early seventies or so,
• 37:10
  Speaker 4: and then it trailed off. But these are hundreds and
• 37:14
  Speaker 4: hundreds of pages of incredible archival material. Had no idea
• 37:18
  Speaker 4: they existed, and a lot of that obviously exists nowhere
• 37:22
  Speaker 4: else but in those scrap books.
• 37:23
  Speaker 1: Yep, yep, Okay. From the beginning, was it the idea
• 37:30
  Speaker 1: of shooting the show and building around that or was ever?
• 37:35
  Speaker 1: Do you ever wrestle with the concept maybe it's a
• 37:37
  Speaker 1: straight documentary.
• 37:40
  Speaker 2: No, I don't think we ever did, because well, part
• 37:42
  Speaker 2: of it is that we don't like to repeat ourselves,
• 37:44
  Speaker 2: which has actually hurt us in some ways in terms
• 37:46
  Speaker 2: of raising money from like traditional sources. Thank god, we've
• 37:49
  Speaker 2: got these EPs that believe in what we do. So
• 37:52
  Speaker 2: for us, what was so intriguing was, you know, we've
• 37:56
  Speaker 2: never done something based around a live performance.
• 37:58
  Speaker 3: Could we do it? Could we pull it off? Let's try?
• 38:03
  Speaker 1: Okay, I live through this era, you know, I know
• 38:07
  Speaker 1: a lot of details. You have Peter and Gordon. There's
• 38:11
  Speaker 1: a certain amount of Beatles history. Peter is a fount
• 38:14
  Speaker 1: of information. He'll tell you some great stories. But there's
• 38:18
  Speaker 1: all the seventies, all the productions. There are some people
• 38:22
  Speaker 1: who know this, it's in their DNA. But it seems
• 38:25
  Speaker 1: like you're kind of starting from scratch. So how do
• 38:28
  Speaker 1: you follow the threat? Where do you go?
• 38:32
  Speaker 4: Well?
• 38:32
  Speaker 2: You know again, we started with his show, and one
• 38:35
  Speaker 2: of the conceits was, okay, so we've got this really
• 38:38
  Speaker 2: fabulous one one man I mean, there's he's got musical backup,
• 38:42
  Speaker 2: et cetera, et cetera, but really a one man cabaret
• 38:44
  Speaker 2: sho what would it be like if we could actually
• 38:47
  Speaker 2: track down the people he talks about and interview them,
• 38:50
  Speaker 2: like maybe he's not even a reliable narrator, you know,
• 38:54
  Speaker 2: how fun would that be? And then we started finding
• 38:56
  Speaker 2: out more things about Peter's life there's a great book
• 39:01
  Speaker 2: called Peter Asher, A Life of Music, written by David Jacks,
• 39:04
  Speaker 2: and he spent We had no idea he was doing
• 39:06
  Speaker 2: his thing, and just like with us, Peter said, I'm
• 39:09
  Speaker 2: not going to help you. David Jack spent probably twenty
• 39:12
  Speaker 2: years and his book is like every last detail from
• 39:18
  Speaker 2: the hospital, you know, where Peter was born, all the
• 39:20
  Speaker 2: way through whenever the book came out. And so you know,
• 39:24
  Speaker 2: we would read his book towards the end and kind
• 39:27
  Speaker 2: of go, oh, that might be a person we should
• 39:29
  Speaker 2: go and interview, you know, and I think anyway, it's
• 39:35
  Speaker 2: just this unfolding process and you're open to it and
• 39:39
  Speaker 2: you go with your instincts and your gut.
• 39:42
  Speaker 4: Well, also, some of the archival material that popped up
• 39:45
  Speaker 4: we never imagined would exist. So David Jacks, because he
• 39:50
  Speaker 4: had taken so long to write this really good book,
• 39:53
  Speaker 4: had interviewed Betsy Asher on the phone, an amazing interview
• 39:59
  Speaker 4: about her, her life with Peter and her troubles with
• 40:02
  Speaker 4: drugs that doesn't exist anywhere else, and it brought so
• 40:07
  Speaker 4: that all of a sudden, okay, now Betsy's brought to life.
• 40:09
  Speaker 4: And Betsy was incredibly important in that phase of Peter's life. Obviously,
• 40:13
  Speaker 4: it's been married to Wendy for forty plus years now,
• 40:17
  Speaker 4: But that pops up out of nowhere. Keith Putney, who
• 40:22
  Speaker 4: manages Peter's live shows now and before that, had been
• 40:27
  Speaker 4: managing Gordon Waller's live performances. Well. Peter or Keith had
• 40:34
  Speaker 4: shot just a green room before one of Gordon's solo
• 40:38
  Speaker 4: performances in early two thousands, just with a handicam, an
• 40:44
  Speaker 4: extended interview with Gordon. Suddenly, now Gordon is brought to
• 40:48
  Speaker 4: life in our movie because Keith gave that material to us.
• 40:52
  Speaker 4: Gordon's brought to life in the movie in the way
• 40:54
  Speaker 4: that is impossible to sustain or to obtain in Peter's
• 40:59
  Speaker 4: live shows. So all these things, when you say starting
• 41:02
  Speaker 4: from scratch, if we had to go find those things
• 41:06
  Speaker 4: and build a movie entirely out of those pieces instead
• 41:09
  Speaker 4: of the live show, I don't know where we would
• 41:12
  Speaker 4: have even begun. I don't know if we would have
• 41:14
  Speaker 4: found any of it. But by connecting into the live show,
• 41:18
  Speaker 4: which is also filled with a lot of great archival
• 41:21
  Speaker 4: material that Jeff Allen Ross Peters then musical director, had accumulated,
• 41:26
  Speaker 4: we almost were given a great tray of great possibilities
• 41:31
  Speaker 4: to begin with.
• 41:32
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and I think again it was that, you know,
• 41:34
  Speaker 2: seeing Peter on stage, not knowing who he was, and
• 41:37
  Speaker 2: we were just like riveted and like leaning forward in
• 41:40
  Speaker 2: our seats from minute one. I mean, really, his show
• 41:45
  Speaker 2: does start or did it? Then started with you know
• 41:48
  Speaker 2: Eric Idol, and you know, that was the first thing
• 41:51
  Speaker 2: that made me go, wow, Okay, this is fab It's
• 41:53
  Speaker 2: going to be funny, and it's going to be you know,
• 41:56
  Speaker 2: kind of cheeky, and there's going to be great music.
• 42:00
  Speaker 2: So it just never occurred to us to do the
• 42:02
  Speaker 2: film without that show.
• 42:12
  Speaker 1: Okay, how much of the archival material was already part
• 42:18
  Speaker 1: of Peter's show and how much was not part of
• 42:21
  Speaker 1: his show?
• 42:22
  Speaker 2: Very little was really part of the show. I feel
• 42:25
  Speaker 2: like it was like just the tip of the iceberg, maybe.
• 42:29
  Speaker 4: I would say, because even the clips are kind of
• 42:32
  Speaker 4: small clips, but fifteen percent maybe or something like.
• 42:37
  Speaker 3: Him, it was really small.
• 42:39
  Speaker 2: Yeah, but it gave us ideas, I mean, you know,
• 42:41
  Speaker 2: the most incredible I mean, here's an example of a
• 42:45
  Speaker 2: discovery of archival material. We interviewed Barry Miles, who goes
• 42:49
  Speaker 2: by Miles and was one of the three collaborators who
• 42:53
  Speaker 2: started Indica and we really hit it.
• 42:56
  Speaker 1: Just from my audience expand went into kids. Because that's
• 42:59
  Speaker 1: revealed in the movie. Most people don't know what it is.
• 43:01
  Speaker 3: Okay, Dan, do you want to ask?
• 43:03
  Speaker 4: Sure? So, Peter. It was the mid nineteen sixties and
• 43:08
  Speaker 4: London at that point really was swinging away, and Peter
• 43:13
  Speaker 4: felt that he and Gordon in a way were being
• 43:18
  Speaker 4: left behind a bit because they were touring so much
• 43:20
  Speaker 4: in the US and they just weren't in at the
• 43:23
  Speaker 4: center of culture. But he had a friend John Dunbar
• 43:26
  Speaker 4: who was an art gallerist want to be and a
• 43:32
  Speaker 4: friend Barry Miles, who was an intellectual and a writer
• 43:36
  Speaker 4: and wanted to start a books and wanted to start
• 43:38
  Speaker 4: a bookstore. And they were all friends, and I think
• 43:43
  Speaker 4: the idea came up, probably over one stoned evening, to say, well,
• 43:48
  Speaker 4: why don't we just create a bookstore in an art gallery.
• 43:51
  Speaker 4: Initially it really had two different places, give it the
• 43:53
  Speaker 4: same name. Peter ponied up a little bit of money
• 43:57
  Speaker 4: to make it happen. It really did become the focus
• 44:03
  Speaker 4: of a lot of intellectual, political, and artistic and musical
• 44:09
  Speaker 4: energy in London at that time. There was a bar
• 44:12
  Speaker 4: right next to the art gallery that everyone would hang out,
• 44:15
  Speaker 4: you know, Jimmy Hendrix would come over after a show,
• 44:17
  Speaker 4: they'd all get bombed on scotch.
• 44:19
  Speaker 2: Well yeah, and as the tour guide says, that stumbled
• 44:22
  Speaker 2: that we stumbled upon as we were filming, you know,
• 44:24
  Speaker 2: in front of what had been Intoica. The tour guide goes,
• 44:27
  Speaker 2: you know, this was the place that rock stars and
• 44:31
  Speaker 2: musicians in the sixties came to graduate. It's where they
• 44:35
  Speaker 2: hung out together and rubbed shoulders and you know, engaged
• 44:39
  Speaker 2: with pop cultural things that were important.
• 44:43
  Speaker 4: It's also where John Dunbar proposed to Peter and to
• 44:49
  Speaker 4: Miles saying, you know, there's this completely wack adoodal fascinating
• 44:54
  Speaker 4: conceptual artists who probably would be great for one of
• 44:57
  Speaker 4: our very first shows. What do you have think? Should
• 45:00
  Speaker 4: we do it? And and that was Yoko Ono And then
• 45:03
  Speaker 4: of course he gets to this thing while John came
• 45:05
  Speaker 4: to a preview while Yoga is a hag in the show,
• 45:08
  Speaker 4: and you know, well there's son, there's.
• 45:10
  Speaker 1: So much you can't give it away. These are like teasers.
• 45:13
  Speaker 4: Exactly, thank you, and just to watch these people tell
• 45:15
  Speaker 4: their own stories dis fascinating. So that's so that's Indica
• 45:19
  Speaker 4: had a limited run, as most of these things do,
• 45:22
  Speaker 4: but that is Indica and uh and so Miles Barry
• 45:27
  Speaker 4: Miles having run the bookstore, bookshop, part of it was
• 45:33
  Speaker 4: such a delightful interview for us. And then he asked
• 45:37
  Speaker 4: if we wanted to have lunch the next day at
• 45:39
  Speaker 4: his little ramshackle private club restaurant. And in the course
• 45:45
  Speaker 4: of that conversation he asked whether we were aware that
• 45:51
  Speaker 4: of the tapes that he had recorded with McCartney for
• 45:54
  Speaker 4: the Many Years from Now book that came out in
• 45:56
  Speaker 4: the mid nineties. He said that sounds intrus.
• 46:00
  Speaker 2: Well, we'd read the book, so we knew what the
• 46:02
  Speaker 2: tapes said. We knew that he referred to the Asher household,
• 46:05
  Speaker 2: and you know, we knew how rich a gold mine.
• 46:07
  Speaker 4: That something like twenty two hours of interviews, and he
• 46:12
  Speaker 4: told us that the tapes were up at the University
• 46:14
  Speaker 4: in Liverpool, but that he had no problem with our
• 46:19
  Speaker 4: gaining access to it, but that Paul McCartney would have
• 46:22
  Speaker 4: to give his approval as well, And so we got
• 46:26
  Speaker 4: on that really quickly.
• 46:28
  Speaker 2: Actually, you know what happened is so we had put
• 46:30
  Speaker 2: in a request. Paul McCartney is the one person we
• 46:32
  Speaker 2: didn't get for a sit down interview, and we'd put
• 46:36
  Speaker 2: in the request to his manager, and the manager kept
• 46:40
  Speaker 2: running back and saying, you know, sorry, it's taking a
• 46:42
  Speaker 2: long time. Paul is really mulling this one over. He
• 46:45
  Speaker 2: doesn't normally do interviews, but I promise you are.
• 46:47
  Speaker 4: Interviews about things that are not his own products.
• 46:49
  Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly. And then we found out about these tapes,
• 46:53
  Speaker 2: and you know, again, we knew basically what they said
• 46:57
  Speaker 2: from reading the book, and we kind of looked at
• 46:58
  Speaker 2: each other and we're like, okay, so if Paul turns
• 47:01
  Speaker 2: us down, maybe he'll feel guilty enough that he'll give
• 47:04
  Speaker 2: us access to the tapes, which probably would be more
• 47:07
  Speaker 2: significant and better than having an interview from his perspective
• 47:11
  Speaker 2: of an eighty somethingter guy looking back. So literally, the
• 47:14
  Speaker 2: minute we got the note from his manager saying sorry,
• 47:18
  Speaker 2: Paul's really you know sorry, he just can't do it.
• 47:21
  Speaker 2: He just can't do it, we wrote back instantly and said,
• 47:24
  Speaker 2: well what about those tapes. And that's how I think
• 47:26
  Speaker 2: how we got access to the tapes.
• 47:29
  Speaker 1: Okay, we live in an era where so much is surface,
• 47:33
  Speaker 1: especially on YouTube. I saw stuff in your film that
• 47:38
  Speaker 1: I hadn't seen before. You know, there are certain houses
• 47:42
  Speaker 1: that have brought up some of these rights. If you
• 47:45
  Speaker 1: were inside, you're aware of them, you know, reeling in
• 47:48
  Speaker 1: the years, etc. Et cetera. Where did you look and
• 47:51
  Speaker 1: how did you find this stuff?
• 47:54
  Speaker 2: Are you talking about the Stills or the Coalition picture
• 47:57
  Speaker 2: of both?
• 47:57
  Speaker 1: Both?
• 47:59
  Speaker 2: Wow? Well, we had, in the same way that we
• 48:02
  Speaker 2: raved about Don Sutter Medel our rights clearance for music
• 48:06
  Speaker 2: music soup. We had an incredible British based archivist named
• 48:12
  Speaker 2: Andy Neil, who is intimately involved with like Apple and
• 48:16
  Speaker 2: all of you know. In fact, we have been looking
• 48:20
  Speaker 2: for Okay, So when we interviewed John Dunbar, he said,
• 48:24
  Speaker 2: you know, you're really interested in Indigo.
• 48:26
  Speaker 3: What you should do is see if you can.
• 48:27
  Speaker 2: Track down this documentary called Go Go Go, said the Bird.
• 48:31
  Speaker 2: It was about three of us who were sort of
• 48:33
  Speaker 2: at the epicenter of the swinging sixties, and I'm in
• 48:36
  Speaker 2: about a third of it was made in nineteen, I
• 48:38
  Speaker 2: don't know, sixty seven or something like that, and so
• 48:42
  Speaker 2: we start asking and no one's heard of this film,
• 48:45
  Speaker 2: and then we start trying to branch out, and we
• 48:47
  Speaker 2: finally someone introduces us to Andy Neil and we said, Andy,
• 48:52
  Speaker 2: you know nice to meet you. We're having a zoom.
• 48:54
  Speaker 2: He's in London, we're here and he's like, oh, go
• 48:58
  Speaker 2: go go, said the bird.
• 48:58
  Speaker 3: It's sitting right behind me on the show. And that
• 49:02
  Speaker 3: took six months, right right, I mean.
• 49:05
  Speaker 4: That kept happening. We had researchers here, Ed Colberg, who's
• 49:10
  Speaker 4: fabulous DC based researcher Eric. I mean to say they
• 49:15
  Speaker 4: and they each have certain specialties or certain areas or
• 49:18
  Speaker 4: certain eras that they're aware of and nowhere funny little
• 49:22
  Speaker 4: pieces are hidden that we might not have seen before,
• 49:25
  Speaker 4: you hadn't seen before. So they were in addition to
• 49:29
  Speaker 4: Chris Robertson really in the years, because there are so
• 49:32
  Speaker 4: many great things.
• 49:33
  Speaker 3: He's a Global Images.
• 49:35
  Speaker 4: Global Image Work. I'm getting in them all confused, Yeah.
• 49:37
  Speaker 2: Right, Rilland of theeers we licensed from, yes, but I'm
• 49:40
  Speaker 2: the one who does most of the archival slew thing.
• 49:42
  Speaker 2: I mean, you know, we hire people to really do
• 49:44
  Speaker 2: the sleuth thing. But it was Chris.
• 49:45
  Speaker 4: Robertson at Global Image, Global.
• 49:47
  Speaker 2: Image Works, it was Eric Kolberg at Universal Images he's
• 49:54
  Speaker 2: in d C.
• 49:55
  Speaker 3: And it was Andy Neil who's on his own in
• 49:57
  Speaker 3: the UK.
• 49:59
  Speaker 1: Okay the knee true of these productions, especially a film
• 50:02
  Speaker 1: which cannot go on forever other than the sorrow and
• 50:04
  Speaker 1: the pity. Sometimes you have to leave the best stuff
• 50:08
  Speaker 1: out because it doesn't fit the narrative. Can you tell
• 50:12
  Speaker 1: me about anything you left out just because it didn't
• 50:14
  Speaker 1: work in the film.
• 50:16
  Speaker 4: Well, there's one piece, because it's a great scene, but
• 50:21
  Speaker 4: it once you go to that scene, you can't get
• 50:24
  Speaker 4: back tonally to anything else. So Peter, his neighbor out
• 50:31
  Speaker 4: there in Malibu at one point was Pamela Anderson, and
• 50:35
  Speaker 4: Pamela was looking to change management, and she asked Peter,
• 50:40
  Speaker 4: and this is actually something that is on camera from
• 50:43
  Speaker 4: a reality TV series that Peter got.
• 50:47
  Speaker 3: Her into it kind of stars.
• 50:49
  Speaker 4: And was dragged into to be on camera. This is
• 50:51
  Speaker 4: in the early two thousand, So Peter, we asked him
• 50:55
  Speaker 4: about it. He said, well, you know, she was a neighbor,
• 50:58
  Speaker 4: and I thought, well I could help her and it
• 51:00
  Speaker 4: would be something interesting to do. And she needed to
• 51:02
  Speaker 4: help at that point because her career had sort of
• 51:04
  Speaker 4: gone sideways and it wasn't clear what was going on,
• 51:07
  Speaker 4: and the reality TV show itself, a friend of ours
• 51:10
  Speaker 4: turns out working on as an editor. At that point,
• 51:14
  Speaker 4: I think and said it was completely a disaster until
• 51:18
  Speaker 4: Peter came in to try to write the ship. So
• 51:20
  Speaker 4: it's a great scene, it's funny, it's crazy, you would
• 51:22
  Speaker 4: not expect it. It's so over the top. Reality TV
• 51:29
  Speaker 4: showed moment, but that's not this movie. And so once
• 51:33
  Speaker 4: you touch base with that and show some of the
• 51:35
  Speaker 4: reality footage, how do you get back to more rooted
• 51:40
  Speaker 4: material with Peter? Which and so it sat in one place,
• 51:44
  Speaker 4: and it sat in another place, and it sat in
• 51:45
  Speaker 4: a third place. Then ultimately it had a pop. And
• 51:49
  Speaker 4: then the other which is in the tail credits, is
• 51:52
  Speaker 4: a funny sequence, a wonderful sequence that again, wherever it sat,
• 51:57
  Speaker 4: you couldn't recover from and continue on with Peter's life story.
• 52:02
  Speaker 4: But put it into the tail credits and it works.
• 52:05
  Speaker 3: Our it's our tail credit easter egg.
• 52:06
  Speaker 2: You know, I think more problematic than oh, we have
• 52:09
  Speaker 2: to leave out this whole scene was how to condense
• 52:13
  Speaker 2: So the first pass at the Apple Records era of
• 52:19
  Speaker 2: Peter's life was twenty something minutes long. Obviously it can't
• 52:23
  Speaker 2: be twenty minutes long in our film, and so we
• 52:25
  Speaker 2: had to I think it's more of a case of
• 52:28
  Speaker 2: weeding out from chapters and figuring out like, what's the
• 52:33
  Speaker 2: absolute minimum that the audience needs to know? What might
• 52:37
  Speaker 2: they already know about the Apple story, you know. So
• 52:40
  Speaker 2: we didn't spend a lot of time going into the
• 52:42
  Speaker 2: Alan Klein you know, fall of Apple.
• 52:45
  Speaker 3: We just really.
• 52:47
  Speaker 2: Honed it into this is where Peter was, and this
• 52:51
  Speaker 2: is you know, where James Taylor got discovered and everything else.
• 52:56
  Speaker 2: If people want to know more about Apple, there's ways
• 52:58
  Speaker 2: to find it, Okay.
• 53:01
  Speaker 1: In terms of the timeline, are you foraging always having
• 53:06
  Speaker 1: the film and instructure in your brain or do you
• 53:09
  Speaker 1: forage and then see the timeline?
• 53:14
  Speaker 4: I think we kind of we gather and eat at
• 53:17
  Speaker 4: the same time as we forage, we're snacking. We have
• 53:22
  Speaker 4: the timeline in mind from the beginning, well, because we
• 53:25
  Speaker 4: have the show and we but of course the movie
• 53:28
  Speaker 4: goes beyond where Peter stops in his show. We keep
• 53:30
  Speaker 4: going in much more detail than he does in his show,
• 53:34
  Speaker 4: with parts of his life. But it's with that in mind,
• 53:38
  Speaker 4: and his life does lay out in certain ways. The
• 53:42
  Speaker 4: weights and balances of scenes begin to tip and move
• 53:46
  Speaker 4: around a bit based on the archival material or the
• 53:49
  Speaker 4: interviews that surface. So we didn't have all the interviews
• 53:52
  Speaker 4: at once. We're not the kind where we say we're
• 53:54
  Speaker 4: gonna set up a stage set, we're gonna fly in
• 53:56
  Speaker 4: these people. We're gonna do them one after the other
• 53:58
  Speaker 4: on a stage set, to go where they are, if
• 54:01
  Speaker 4: at all possible, film in their houses and just get
• 54:06
  Speaker 4: something a little more I think, more intimate that way,
• 54:09
  Speaker 4: But that takes time. Are they on tour, are they available,
• 54:12
  Speaker 4: or are they overseas Like Eric Idol was in France.
• 54:17
  Speaker 4: We had to wait for him to come back from
• 54:18
  Speaker 4: his summer in France. So we're building certain sequences with
• 54:24
  Speaker 4: a suspicion that they're not going to stay locked, that
• 54:27
  Speaker 4: they're going to open up, depending on what else we
• 54:29
  Speaker 4: bring into it.
• 54:30
  Speaker 2: And you know what, I just thought of something else
• 54:31
  Speaker 2: that we did leave on the cunning room floor. That's
• 54:33
  Speaker 2: so amazing. So the first day that we were in
• 54:36
  Speaker 2: London with Peter and we're you know, we're pulling his
• 54:41
  Speaker 2: mammoths scrap books off the shelf. The first one we
• 54:45
  Speaker 2: open is from the mid sixties, and you know, Margaret Asher,
• 54:49
  Speaker 2: in addition to being a brilliant musician who you know,
• 54:53
  Speaker 2: trained George Martin at one point and performed et cetera,
• 54:56
  Speaker 2: et cetera. She kept these scrap books. So pull up
• 54:59
  Speaker 2: the f one and there's this weird dry cleaner bag.
• 55:03
  Speaker 2: We're like, why would Margaret Asher save a dry cleaner bag?
• 55:06
  Speaker 2: So Peter like starts opening it and lo and behold,
• 55:09
  Speaker 2: she saved it. Because on the other side, Paul McCartney
• 55:13
  Speaker 2: had handwritten in green ink the lyrics and the you know,
• 55:17
  Speaker 2: basic charts, the chord charting to nobody I know, which
• 55:22
  Speaker 2: was the second song, well really the first song that
• 55:25
  Speaker 2: he wrote specifically for Peter and Gordon. And you know,
• 55:28
  Speaker 2: if Peter had no idea for all those decades that
• 55:31
  Speaker 2: this dry cleaner bag was sitting, you know, in his
• 55:33
  Speaker 2: mom's scrap book. So we tried to get that into
• 55:36
  Speaker 2: the film. It just wouldn't fit.
• 55:39
  Speaker 1: Okay, Peter agrees to the film, does he have the
• 55:44
  Speaker 1: condition that he gets to see it and if he
• 55:47
  Speaker 1: doesn't like something, he can get it pulled.
• 55:49
  Speaker 4: No, And this is why it's important to us as
• 55:55
  Speaker 4: independent filmmakers to use that independence in it's fullest. So
• 56:01
  Speaker 4: he had we did arrange for a life rights contract.
• 56:05
  Speaker 4: You have to do these kind of things, and there
• 56:07
  Speaker 4: were two things that he stipulated and both I think
• 56:10
  Speaker 4: were completely fair. One was that we not disparage the
• 56:15
  Speaker 4: people he worked with, So it's very interesting requests. He
• 56:21
  Speaker 4: didn't say, don't disparage me. It was about not disparaging
• 56:26
  Speaker 4: people he worked with, and we agree to that because
• 56:29
  Speaker 4: that was not anything that we had intended to do.
• 56:31
  Speaker 4: These are great artists, these are good people. None of
• 56:33
  Speaker 4: them were shysters. And you know, we could be honest
• 56:36
  Speaker 4: with James as he is in the movie about his
• 56:38
  Speaker 4: drug addictions, and you know, honest with Linda about her
• 56:41
  Speaker 4: disappointments when Peter had refused to represent her first, so
• 56:46
  Speaker 4: that or even with Betsy Asher talking about her own
• 56:51
  Speaker 4: drug addiction and psychotic break. So that's not disparagement. That
• 56:55
  Speaker 4: was one thing, and any other was that whatever original
• 56:59
  Speaker 4: score that would commission, he would get to produce it.
• 57:02
  Speaker 4: So and we were like, well that's okay.
• 57:04
  Speaker 3: Yeah, We're like, really, that's a stipulation. We'll take it.
• 57:07
  Speaker 4: So, you know, I'm sure you know, if he if
• 57:10
  Speaker 4: he had his brothers, there would be things that we
• 57:12
  Speaker 4: touch upon in the movie that make him uncomfortable because,
• 57:15
  Speaker 4: as he says in the movie, he's a not a
• 57:19
  Speaker 4: particularly emotional man in a very British way, and so
• 57:23
  Speaker 4: you know, we're poking into some wounds with that. And
• 57:26
  Speaker 4: and for all I know, he might have wanted Havel
• 57:29
  Speaker 4: the film to be talking about actually was producing in
• 57:32
  Speaker 4: the nineties or two thousands or I mean, but that's nothing,
• 57:35
  Speaker 4: nothing he ever articulated to us.
• 57:38
  Speaker 2: But no, he was really hands off. He didn't see
• 57:40
  Speaker 2: it until actually really until we got ready to spot
• 57:45
  Speaker 2: it because he was going to produce.
• 57:46
  Speaker 4: The spot for the score, Spot for the score.
• 57:48
  Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, he must have had some thoughts at that point.
• 57:54
  Speaker 4: They were they were he did. They were in that
• 57:58
  Speaker 4: Peter way, articulated in one or two sentences. They were
• 58:02
  Speaker 4: not demands, you know, they were just there were expressions
• 58:05
  Speaker 4: of things that just a couple of two or three things,
• 58:11
  Speaker 4: And in that Peter way, yeah, once expressed and once
• 58:15
  Speaker 4: told that's it, and we could take take it or
• 58:19
  Speaker 4: leave it as we would. So I mean, it wasn't
• 58:24
  Speaker 4: I mean, there's some people would throw a tempera tantrum,
• 58:28
  Speaker 4: a fan, so yes, that's not his style. And so
• 58:32
  Speaker 4: you know, we weighed what he talked about very carefully.
• 58:35
  Speaker 2: Of course, believe me, there are things in there that
• 58:37
  Speaker 2: he's not thrilled with, although I would argue that there's
• 58:41
  Speaker 2: nothing that is pejorative or negative about Peter. But just again,
• 58:45
  Speaker 2: as he says, I'm, you know, a British guy who
• 58:49
  Speaker 2: doesn't like to share my emotion. So he really hadn't
• 58:51
  Speaker 2: talked about his father's suicide, you know, or even the
• 58:56
  Speaker 2: breakdown of Betsy Asher, his first wife. So I think that,
• 59:00
  Speaker 2: you know, he might have been happy, and those are
• 59:01
  Speaker 2: certainly not part of his show. I think he might
• 59:03
  Speaker 2: have been happy if we had just alighted his life
• 59:05
  Speaker 2: story and gone past those. But that's not the kind
• 59:08
  Speaker 2: of filmmakers we are.
• 59:10
  Speaker 1: Who of the iconic people, people that the average fan
• 59:15
  Speaker 1: or fans specific fans of Peter's work, did you interview
• 59:19
  Speaker 1: and ultimately non.
• 59:20
  Speaker 4: Include no one that's not true.
• 59:23
  Speaker 3: Who oh, oh my god.
• 59:25
  Speaker 2: Graham Nash. Yes, yes, Graham Nash.
• 59:28
  Speaker 4: It was great and wonderful. It just didn't plug into
• 59:31
  Speaker 4: that British invasion section. It's like, oh god, how could
• 59:34
  Speaker 4: we not do that well?
• 59:36
  Speaker 3: Because they didn't actually work together.
• 59:37
  Speaker 2: Although ironically, after the film came out, at the same
• 59:40
  Speaker 2: time that the film was premiering at Tell You Ride,
• 59:43
  Speaker 2: Graham Nash and Peter were on tour in the UK.
• 59:45
  Speaker 2: Peter was opening for Graham's solo show Last Paul, But
• 59:50
  Speaker 2: you're right, I forgot about Graham.
• 59:51
  Speaker 4: I mean, in every film there are moments with amazing
• 59:55
  Speaker 4: people where it just didn't. In the hallelij Len Cohen movie,
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 4: we had filmed this scene that was so meaningful and beautiful.
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 4: You might remember when on the night of Trump's first election,
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 4: or the first SNL broadcast after his election, they Cold
• 1:00:19
  Speaker 4: opened the show with Kate McKinnon playing Hillary Clinton at
• 1:00:23
  Speaker 4: the piano, singing Halleluliah, ending with I'm not giving up
• 1:00:26
  Speaker 4: and neither should you. It was an incredible moment, and
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 4: it's highly unusual for SNL to open cold with a song,
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 4: and so through how the late Hal Wilner, who was
• 1:00:37
  Speaker 4: the sketch comedy music soup and an incredible record and
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 4: event producer in his own right, how got us Laurence
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 4: Lauren Michael's permission and we shot in the writer's room
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 4: with Kate McKinnon and three head writers for SNL this
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 4: incredibly beautiful scene where Kate broke down crying about the
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 4: meaning of the song that she had interpreted Halleluiah all
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 4: along as this interesting song about religion and the soul.
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 4: And then realized that it was mapping directly to this
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 4: song about democracy and representation itself an incredibly beautiful scene.
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 4: It stayed in the movie for so long, cut after
• 1:01:15
  Speaker 4: cut after cut, but where it fit best was so
• 1:01:18
  Speaker 4: close to the end of the movie, and at that point,
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 4: everything in the movie is around Leonard's recognition of his
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 4: own mortality and the passage of life. That it got
• 1:01:30
  Speaker 4: in the way and we had and we cut it.
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 4: It's like, oh, it's one of the best scenes, but
• 1:01:35
  Speaker 4: it did not serve the movie.
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 3: Thank god, we didn't really have to have that.
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 2: Kind of a situation where we were cutting a true
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 2: darling from this film.
• 1:01:44
  Speaker 1: Okay, when you're interviewing these people, A, how hard was
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 1: it to reach them? B? Did they give you a
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 1: short window or was it more open ended?
• 1:01:59
  Speaker 4: You know?
• 1:02:00
  Speaker 2: So in most cases, well, I would say in the
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 2: case of people like James and Carol, it was a
• 1:02:08
  Speaker 2: relatively short window. I mean, I think with James they
• 1:02:12
  Speaker 2: were saying twenty minutes and then we ultimately got half
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 2: an hour. But you do have short you have you
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 2: have like thirty minutes, so you have well.
• 1:02:20
  Speaker 4: With Carol also that it was an interview over let's
• 1:02:23
  Speaker 4: all have lunch together. That's true.
• 1:02:25
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, But I would say for the most part,
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 2: you have to use your time economically. You have to
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 2: come in really prepared, and I mean I always I
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 2: do the primary editing or sorry, interview questions, and I
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 2: just come in thinking, Okay, this is going to be
• 1:02:45
  Speaker 2: a moment of no ego. It's not about me, It's
• 1:02:49
  Speaker 2: just about them. And all I'm doing is trying to
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 2: get them engaged in a dialogue and a conversation. And
• 1:02:55
  Speaker 2: if you do that, if you really go in that way,
• 1:02:57
  Speaker 2: I think you can get amazing material in twenty minutes, well, and.
• 1:03:01
  Speaker 4: Some somewhat longer because they weren't under the same time
• 1:03:05
  Speaker 4: pressure and we could keep exploring topics. And we sat
• 1:03:09
  Speaker 4: for quite a long time with Koch and Danny Kortchmar
• 1:03:13
  Speaker 4: and with Waddie and Lee. So those are completely involving
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 4: fascinating interviews for the archives someday hopefully as well. But
• 1:03:24
  Speaker 4: you know, for me, especially those musicians to sit and
• 1:03:32
  Speaker 4: have a chance to schmooze, because our interviews are you know,
• 1:03:35
  Speaker 4: in someone's house. As I mentioned, they tend to be
• 1:03:38
  Speaker 4: very conversational, they're very back and forth. To me, I
• 1:03:41
  Speaker 4: just didn't want any of them to end. I could
• 1:03:43
  Speaker 4: have been there all night if I could, if I
• 1:03:45
  Speaker 4: were permitted.
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 1: Okay, if you're inside, you can get a hold of
• 1:03:57
  Speaker 1: these people instantly, generally speaking, outside you can't get a
• 1:04:02
  Speaker 1: hold of them at all. But you're making a movie.
• 1:04:05
  Speaker 1: So what were the steps and how long would it
• 1:04:07
  Speaker 1: traditionally take to connect with these people?
• 1:04:11
  Speaker 2: So the only person okay, so we have Linda, and
• 1:04:15
  Speaker 2: that really did open a lot of doors. The only
• 1:04:18
  Speaker 2: person that we said to Peter we need some help
• 1:04:21
  Speaker 2: was James Taylor. And what he was willing to do,
• 1:04:24
  Speaker 2: very grudgingly was and very uncomfortably, was write a letter
• 1:04:28
  Speaker 2: an email to James's manager, so he didn't reach out
• 1:04:32
  Speaker 2: to James himself. And then the manager said, I can't
• 1:04:35
  Speaker 2: guarantee you that he'll do this. But once she responded,
• 1:04:38
  Speaker 2: then we you know, Peter turned it over to us
• 1:04:41
  Speaker 2: and it took I don't know that one probably took
• 1:04:42
  Speaker 2: about six weeks.
• 1:04:44
  Speaker 4: It was pretty fast, and well.
• 1:04:45
  Speaker 3: I mean six weeks did not feel fast. I was like,
• 1:04:47
  Speaker 3: he's going to say no.
• 1:04:48
  Speaker 4: Well, some of them, I mean even some of these
• 1:04:50
  Speaker 4: who were talking about Coach, well, not so much Cooch,
• 1:04:52
  Speaker 4: but Wattie it's on the road all the time with
• 1:04:54
  Speaker 4: Stevie nickt some some people. It took a long time
• 1:04:59
  Speaker 4: from the yeah to actually get it scheduled because they're touring,
• 1:05:02
  Speaker 4: musicians are on the road all the time, or they're
• 1:05:04
  Speaker 4: in the studio.
• 1:05:05
  Speaker 2: I mean, I think the most pleasantly surprising was, you know,
• 1:05:09
  Speaker 2: Peter said, look, if you want to get Carol, you're
• 1:05:11
  Speaker 2: going to have to track down her daughter. And he's like,
• 1:05:15
  Speaker 2: maybe this is her email. I have no idea.
• 1:05:17
  Speaker 3: So we shot a note to Sherry.
• 1:05:21
  Speaker 2: Condor, Carol's daughter, and she wrote back really quickly and said,
• 1:05:24
  Speaker 2: you know, sounds like a great project. My mom doesn't
• 1:05:27
  Speaker 2: really do interviews anymore.
• 1:05:28
  Speaker 4: But don't get your hopes, So don't get your hopes up.
• 1:05:31
  Speaker 2: But you know what, I'll go ahead and ask her.
• 1:05:34
  Speaker 2: And she wrote back half an hour later and she's like,
• 1:05:37
  Speaker 2: oh my god, I can't believe it.
• 1:05:38
  Speaker 3: She's going to do it. Let's put it on the books.
• 1:05:40
  Speaker 2: When can you be in Sun Valley?
• 1:05:42
  Speaker 4: Also as an expression of Peter and Peter knows he's
• 1:05:46
  Speaker 4: smart and talented, he has an ego, obviously, but he's
• 1:05:51
  Speaker 4: also at the same time kind of bashful, shy, wary
• 1:05:56
  Speaker 4: of impinging on people's friendships, and he the email he
• 1:06:02
  Speaker 4: wrote because we were c seed on it to James's manager.
• 1:06:07
  Speaker 4: It had lines in it like that, It makes my
• 1:06:09
  Speaker 4: skin crawl to have to ask for this about for
• 1:06:13
  Speaker 4: a movie about myself. I'm still amazed that these filmmakers
• 1:06:16
  Speaker 4: actually even want to make a movie about me. I
• 1:06:18
  Speaker 4: do this with such trepidation. But could you ask James?
• 1:06:22
  Speaker 4: I mean, and that is a measure of Peter's sense
• 1:06:27
  Speaker 4: that he really, in general, he does not want to
• 1:06:31
  Speaker 4: in this movie. He did not want to presuppose anyone's
• 1:06:35
  Speaker 4: participation or twist anyone's arm to do it.
• 1:06:40
  Speaker 2: I mean, even with Paul McCartney, who again ultimately said
• 1:06:43
  Speaker 2: no to the on camera but yes to the tapes.
• 1:06:45
  Speaker 2: Thank god. You know, we didn't go through Peter. We
• 1:06:49
  Speaker 2: went through Morgan Neville, who was one of our EPs
• 1:06:51
  Speaker 2: and was in the middle of doing the Wings documentary,
• 1:06:54
  Speaker 2: and Morgan acted as the go between in that case.
• 1:07:00
  Speaker 1: Okay, back to the timeline of production. You decide to
• 1:07:05
  Speaker 1: do it, you go to Malibu, we meet with Peter,
• 1:07:08
  Speaker 1: the world shuts down. It's now twenty twenty six, six
• 1:07:12
  Speaker 1: years later. How does this play out?
• 1:07:14
  Speaker 4: Well, there were quite a few really nice lunches in Malibu.
• 1:07:17
  Speaker 4: What was it called Tridonoi or something like that, a
• 1:07:19
  Speaker 4: nice Italian place in the plaza there in Malibu. And
• 1:07:25
  Speaker 4: at some point the world was beginning to wake up again,
• 1:07:27
  Speaker 4: right from COVID. At some point Peter actually say it
• 1:07:31
  Speaker 4: one of the lunches, I just I'm curious, how long
• 1:07:34
  Speaker 4: are we going to continue to have these lovely outdoor
• 1:07:36
  Speaker 4: lunches before you actually make the movie? And that Peter,
• 1:07:41
  Speaker 4: as Carol would say, gentle but very persuasive way and so,
• 1:07:47
  Speaker 4: and that probably was December of twenty twenty two at
• 1:07:52
  Speaker 4: that point, and Dana and I thought, all right, we
• 1:07:56
  Speaker 4: really need to to get moving. And that's when we
• 1:08:01
  Speaker 4: reached out to Linda and Janet Stark who's her right hand,
• 1:08:06
  Speaker 4: to say, hey, can we get an interview going? And
• 1:08:09
  Speaker 4: we did it January.
• 1:08:11
  Speaker 3: Yeah, so it was the beginning of.
• 1:08:12
  Speaker 4: January twenty twenty three.
• 1:08:14
  Speaker 2: And you know, again, this is a tribute to how
• 1:08:17
  Speaker 2: beloved Peter is. When we approached Linda, knowing that she
• 1:08:21
  Speaker 2: basically doesn't do interviews anymore, we said, all we need
• 1:08:24
  Speaker 2: is an audio interview, and she's like, you know what,
• 1:08:26
  Speaker 2: for Peter, I'll do it on camera, which is something
• 1:08:28
  Speaker 2: that she didn't do for her own documentary, The Sound
• 1:08:31
  Speaker 2: of My Voice. And our dear friends Robes Epstein and
• 1:08:35
  Speaker 2: Jeffrey Friedman, when they saw our film, they were like, Okay,
• 1:08:37
  Speaker 2: we're really jealous. How did you get that?
• 1:08:39
  Speaker 3: And we're like, well, because it wasn't about her, it
• 1:08:41
  Speaker 3: was about Peter.
• 1:08:42
  Speaker 4: But then so we started that. We took them to
• 1:08:45
  Speaker 4: England in March April of that year. We shot the
• 1:08:50
  Speaker 4: show beginning of June, with two runs at the show
• 1:08:53
  Speaker 4: over a weekend June, and we wound up going to
• 1:08:57
  Speaker 4: get James. He was doing his residency Vegas, so we
• 1:09:00
  Speaker 4: went there and then we picked up Cooch and Lie.
• 1:09:03
  Speaker 4: So we were shooting through the summer Carol by August
• 1:09:06
  Speaker 4: of that summer. So but we when we really began
• 1:09:09
  Speaker 4: the edit, I would say, and I think it was
• 1:09:12
  Speaker 4: February twenty twenty four, we brought on Ye Darren London,
• 1:09:17
  Speaker 4: Jason Reid, and then just we're barreling through and collecting
• 1:09:22
  Speaker 4: more material, picking up a little bit of shooting here
• 1:09:25
  Speaker 4: and there.
• 1:09:25
  Speaker 2: And you know, because it's in some ways a chapter
• 1:09:28
  Speaker 2: driven story. I mean, his show is as well. The
• 1:09:31
  Speaker 2: editing could be quite modular. So what we said to
• 1:09:34
  Speaker 2: our to both Jason and Darren was you know, we'll
• 1:09:39
  Speaker 2: be free for him here. What would you like to
• 1:09:41
  Speaker 2: start with? Like what section of Peter's life makes you
• 1:09:44
  Speaker 2: want to jump in and start cutting? And we were
• 1:09:45
  Speaker 2: blown away because, like Darren said, I want to do
• 1:09:47
  Speaker 2: the Indica year years, and we were like, whoa, Okay,
• 1:09:51
  Speaker 2: that's like, you know, really jumping in the middle of
• 1:09:53
  Speaker 2: the lake. And then Jason's like, I want to start
• 1:09:56
  Speaker 2: with Apple and we're like okay, and then I'm much
• 1:09:59
  Speaker 2: more restraints. So I'm like, I think I'll start with
• 1:10:01
  Speaker 2: just the conversation with you know, Peter and Lyle love
• 1:10:04
  Speaker 2: it on the couch talking about the Everly Brothers. So
• 1:10:07
  Speaker 2: we all could we could all contribute to the editing
• 1:10:10
  Speaker 2: in our own ways.
• 1:10:11
  Speaker 4: By way, this reminds me of another scene that sometimes
• 1:10:15
  Speaker 4: you go in these fishing expeditions for want of a
• 1:10:19
  Speaker 4: better term. So while we were editing Peter, turns out
• 1:10:24
  Speaker 4: Peter was going to be a resource advisor for Rodney
• 1:10:27
  Speaker 4: Crowell's songwriting workshop in Nashville, and we thought, well that
• 1:10:31
  Speaker 4: could be interesting. You know, they see what kind of
• 1:10:33
  Speaker 4: interactions show up there, and so we did go to shoot.
• 1:10:36
  Speaker 4: We shot for the whole weekend and it was really
• 1:10:39
  Speaker 4: wonderful to watch and see. But going into it, Peter
• 1:10:45
  Speaker 4: Peter was saying he didn't know what role he was
• 1:10:46
  Speaker 4: supposed to have at the workshop itself. It isn't surely
• 1:10:49
  Speaker 4: how involved should he be in evaluating people's songs as
• 1:10:53
  Speaker 4: they're stramming in front of a class. But we figured
• 1:10:57
  Speaker 4: it was worthwhile and there are lovely moments. But again
• 1:11:00
  Speaker 4: in the run of the film, they don't propel things
• 1:11:03
  Speaker 4: in quite the right way. But I think Grantwich Entertainment,
• 1:11:08
  Speaker 4: who has the film for the US releases, they want
• 1:11:11
  Speaker 4: to do a Blu ray and I'm thinking some of
• 1:11:13
  Speaker 4: this material would be just lovely as a Blu ray.
• 1:11:16
  Speaker 4: Extras just to watch these people interact with Peter, get
• 1:11:21
  Speaker 4: some Graham Nash's interview in there, really get the Pamela
• 1:11:25
  Speaker 4: Anderson bit in. They're really fun things, but in the
• 1:11:27
  Speaker 4: run of a movie are interruptive not additive.
• 1:11:30
  Speaker 1: Okay, So the beginning of twenty twenty four you start
• 1:11:34
  Speaker 1: to edit, when is his spotting session and when do
• 1:11:37
  Speaker 1: you start thinking about festivals and distribution?
• 1:11:40
  Speaker 3: Actually that's what I was going to say. Thank you
• 1:11:42
  Speaker 3: Bob amazing. Okay.
• 1:11:45
  Speaker 2: So we get to kind of like February of twenty
• 1:11:48
  Speaker 2: twenty five, and we've got a pretty decent first two
• 1:11:54
  Speaker 2: acts of the film and we haven't really cut the
• 1:11:57
  Speaker 2: third act, which is a relatively short act, and we
• 1:11:59
  Speaker 2: were like, okay. The way we come up with deadlines
• 1:12:03
  Speaker 2: is we're like, what festival do we think would be
• 1:12:05
  Speaker 2: a great premiere spot? And what festival if we were
• 1:12:10
  Speaker 2: to get in, would we not go insane too much
• 1:12:12
  Speaker 2: getting ready to make the deadline? And we're like, well,
• 1:12:15
  Speaker 2: our dearest wish would be a play it Tell Your
• 1:12:18
  Speaker 2: Ride because it's like our our heart place as film
• 1:12:22
  Speaker 2: festivals go. But we also didn't want to drive ourselves
• 1:12:25
  Speaker 2: crazy for no reason, so we submitted to Tell Your
• 1:12:28
  Speaker 2: Ride without a third act and just said is this
• 1:12:31
  Speaker 2: the kind of film that you're intrigued by? And if so,
• 1:12:36
  Speaker 2: can you let us know what the odds are? And
• 1:12:39
  Speaker 2: the director actually wrote back and said, I really love
• 1:12:42
  Speaker 2: this and I trust you because you've made enough films
• 1:12:44
  Speaker 2: that you're going to come up with a great ending.
• 1:12:46
  Speaker 3: So she gave us the go ahead.
• 1:12:47
  Speaker 2: I think it was March first or something like that,
• 1:12:50
  Speaker 2: and then we were like, oh, man, we got to
• 1:12:51
  Speaker 2: get the score done and you know, we have to
• 1:12:53
  Speaker 2: get a third act, and so everything went into you know,
• 1:12:57
  Speaker 2: we got a book at Skywalker to do the mix.
• 1:13:00
  Speaker 2: So I think it was right after that that we
• 1:13:02
  Speaker 2: went down and sat with Peter and Jeff Allen Ross,
• 1:13:06
  Speaker 2: who was one of the two composers, the other one
• 1:13:08
  Speaker 2: being Lawrence Guber, and we spotted it.
• 1:13:12
  Speaker 4: Well, and Lawrence wasn't on board of that.
• 1:13:14
  Speaker 2: Lawrence was.
• 1:13:16
  Speaker 4: To admit some serious musical ignorance on my part. Maybe
• 1:13:22
  Speaker 4: a few weeks before that, we were in the car
• 1:13:24
  Speaker 4: listening to.
• 1:13:25
  Speaker 2: The year before because because we edited.
• 1:13:28
  Speaker 4: Oh that's right, that's right. So we were in the
• 1:13:30
  Speaker 4: car listening to the Serious XM, listening to the Beatles channel,
• 1:13:34
  Speaker 4: and there's this beautiful instrumental version of and I Love Her,
• 1:13:37
  Speaker 4: and we thought, well, that's great because we temp with
• 1:13:39
  Speaker 4: other music, and we're temping with other songs that we
• 1:13:43
  Speaker 4: would just sort of hold in the background but get
• 1:13:44
  Speaker 4: the feeling and the vibe for things that are not
• 1:13:47
  Speaker 4: specific on camera references to songs that Peter and was
• 1:13:50
  Speaker 4: involved with. So we're thinking, this is really beautiful, and
• 1:13:54
  Speaker 4: and we we found it or had our assistant editor
• 1:13:57
  Speaker 4: grab it all well and goods. So we're down there
• 1:14:02
  Speaker 4: and and.
• 1:14:03
  Speaker 2: We cut the whole scene where Paul meets Jane. So
• 1:14:06
  Speaker 2: we're to that instrumental version of and I Love It.
• 1:14:09
  Speaker 4: And so during the spoting session, either Peter or Jeff said,
• 1:14:13
  Speaker 4: where'd you cut that instrumental version of and I Love Her?
• 1:14:18
  Speaker 4: I think I stupidly said, I think it's like some
• 1:14:21
  Speaker 4: classical guitarists I forget his name, like Lawrence somebody or other. Peter,
• 1:14:26
  Speaker 4: Peter and Jeffy I looked at each other if they
• 1:14:30
  Speaker 4: might have at that moment, have they not seen the film,
• 1:14:33
  Speaker 4: thought oh my god, we made the wrong pick of filmmakers.
• 1:14:36
  Speaker 4: But uh, they said it's Lawrence Juber, you moron. And
• 1:14:40
  Speaker 4: and actually Jeff got his phone at that moment. He
• 1:14:44
  Speaker 4: and I have the same silly Samsung flip phone, and
• 1:14:47
  Speaker 4: so you know, he flips it open and says, I'm
• 1:14:50
  Speaker 4: calling LJ. Right now. We're standing right there at Peter's house, LJ.
• 1:14:55
  Speaker 4: You know, I got I'm here with the filmmakers were
• 1:14:57
  Speaker 4: they're doing a film about Peter, and I want to
• 1:15:00
  Speaker 4: do the original score with you. You want you want
• 1:15:02
  Speaker 4: in on it? And he said, yes, that was it.
• 1:15:05
  Speaker 4: Instantly details to be worked out later.
• 1:15:07
  Speaker 2: Yeah, So not only were we spotting for you know
• 1:15:10
  Speaker 2: what incidental music we wanted to you know, have needle Drop,
• 1:15:13
  Speaker 2: but we were spotting for our co composer, who was
• 1:15:16
  Speaker 2: this amazing you know wings his you know his his
• 1:15:21
  Speaker 2: resume in music, Laurence Duebers is quite remarkable.
• 1:15:25
  Speaker 1: Okay. The version that to Tell Your Ride is that
• 1:15:29
  Speaker 1: the final, final version.
• 1:15:31
  Speaker 4: You're asking a good question, Wow, how did you know
• 1:15:34
  Speaker 4: it wasn't the nature of the game.
• 1:15:39
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, it's pretty close.
• 1:15:41
  Speaker 2: It's probably the closest that any of our films have
• 1:15:43
  Speaker 2: been after a festival premiere to the final version, And
• 1:15:48
  Speaker 2: if you were to look at them, you'd probably have
• 1:15:49
  Speaker 2: to look at them back to back to figure out
• 1:15:51
  Speaker 2: where we made the incisions. But I would say it's
• 1:15:57
  Speaker 2: probably overall three minutes shorter than Tell Your Ride, and
• 1:16:01
  Speaker 2: it's just these little nips and talks that take it
• 1:16:04
  Speaker 2: to a new level. It's wacky how that can happen.
• 1:16:07
  Speaker 4: On Hallelujah, we did a slight restructuring and some surgical lifts.
• 1:16:14
  Speaker 4: But on the Galopicus Affair, we took ten minutes out
• 1:16:17
  Speaker 4: of that movie after its premiere Vallets we took five
• 1:16:20
  Speaker 4: minutes out of that movie scattered throughout, and I think
• 1:16:23
  Speaker 4: I remember sitting with the Galopicus Affair we had just premiered,
• 1:16:26
  Speaker 4: that was at Tell You Ride, and looking at it.
• 1:16:29
  Speaker 4: We have work in progress screenings with people we trust,
• 1:16:31
  Speaker 4: and we get lots of good feedback and we act
• 1:16:33
  Speaker 4: on it. But until you sit in an audience, until
• 1:16:35
  Speaker 4: you're really there with a group of strangers, you don't
• 1:16:38
  Speaker 4: really know. And I remember looking at the Galopicus Affair thinking,
• 1:16:42
  Speaker 4: oh Jesus Christ, you know this is ten minutes too long,
• 1:16:46
  Speaker 4: and this being morose, Knowing that we had another couple
• 1:16:49
  Speaker 4: of screenings and Tell You're Ride ahead of us, still,
• 1:16:51
  Speaker 4: I think I wish we could change it right now.
• 1:16:54
  Speaker 4: But we were sitting I was sitting next to Ted Hope,
• 1:16:57
  Speaker 4: who had produced with James Seamus for so many years,
• 1:17:00
  Speaker 4: A good machine. We're about to watch Gravity for the
• 1:17:03
  Speaker 4: first time at the festival, and I turned him, I said,
• 1:17:07
  Speaker 4: this is so fucking depressing. I cannot even bear to
• 1:17:11
  Speaker 4: look at this and how could we not know? And
• 1:17:13
  Speaker 4: he said that all sixty films that he and James
• 1:17:15
  Speaker 4: had produced, every single one of them. After a festival premiere,
• 1:17:19
  Speaker 4: they went back in and they made changes. So it's
• 1:17:22
  Speaker 4: the nature of the beast. I think it's just too
• 1:17:26
  Speaker 4: it's too hard to read an audience otherwise.
• 1:17:28
  Speaker 2: And sometimes it's something as small like I actually think
• 1:17:31
  Speaker 2: one of the biggest kind of additive changes we made
• 1:17:35
  Speaker 2: was to get rid of one black one dip to black.
• 1:17:39
  Speaker 2: It's very subtle, but at a certain point there was
• 1:17:43
  Speaker 2: this dip to black that made it feel too much
• 1:17:46
  Speaker 2: like we were heading towards an ending, and it gave
• 1:17:48
  Speaker 2: too much of a definitive pause, and just doing a
• 1:17:52
  Speaker 2: hard cut and getting rid of that dip propelled the film.
• 1:17:56
  Speaker 1: Okay, this is not your first rodeo. A lot of
• 1:18:00
  Speaker 1: independent films play festivals to stir up press, sometimes to
• 1:18:06
  Speaker 1: get distribution. So we've already established who wanted it to
• 1:18:11
  Speaker 1: be theatrical. Was this all done at once? Was it
• 1:18:14
  Speaker 1: plotted out to say, we'll start with tailor Ride, we'll
• 1:18:17
  Speaker 1: go to Venice blah blah blah blah blah blah. Or
• 1:18:20
  Speaker 1: did you say we'll start to tell you or I
• 1:18:21
  Speaker 1: will try to get a distributor, or we'll feel out
• 1:18:24
  Speaker 1: distribution before. How did it work?
• 1:18:26
  Speaker 2: The thing about tell You Ride is you can't really
• 1:18:28
  Speaker 2: tell people it's this weird, unique situation where they don't
• 1:18:34
  Speaker 2: announce the program until the first morning of the festival,
• 1:18:37
  Speaker 2: and so people are buying their passes not knowing but
• 1:18:42
  Speaker 2: totally trusting in the programmers. So we really didn't do
• 1:18:45
  Speaker 2: a lot of outreach beforehand, I think.
• 1:18:48
  Speaker 4: Because also because we were racing to finish them.
• 1:18:50
  Speaker 2: We're racing to the movie.
• 1:18:51
  Speaker 3: Yeah, but you know Submarine.
• 1:18:55
  Speaker 2: You know, Josh Braun was wrapping it, so he definitely
• 1:18:57
  Speaker 2: made sure that, you know, there were distributor in the
• 1:19:01
  Speaker 2: screenings that we had at Telly Ride and they could
• 1:19:03
  Speaker 2: feel the audience, they could hear them singing at the
• 1:19:06
  Speaker 2: end with Peter when he's you know, leading the on
• 1:19:09
  Speaker 2: camera audience and World Without Love. And we did start
• 1:19:12
  Speaker 2: taking we did start taking a lot of calls, and
• 1:19:18
  Speaker 2: it took about it took a few months of sort
• 1:19:20
  Speaker 2: of hearing different people's plans in terms of what they
• 1:19:23
  Speaker 2: would do. And remember, we really really really wanted a
• 1:19:26
  Speaker 2: theatrical and then ed Errents at Greenwich popped up and
• 1:19:33
  Speaker 2: we've been working with ed through one way or another
• 1:19:37
  Speaker 2: since the nineties when he was running Cinema Village as
• 1:19:41
  Speaker 2: a booker. The main booker at Cinema Village, and he
• 1:19:43
  Speaker 2: was like pretty much one of the only cinema bookers
• 1:19:47
  Speaker 2: in the United States that would talk directly to independent
• 1:19:50
  Speaker 2: filmmakers and put our films in his theater. And now
• 1:19:54
  Speaker 2: he's gone on and he first founded music Box and
• 1:19:57
  Speaker 2: now he's running Greenwich. And he just got this film.
• 1:20:00
  Speaker 2: He had done Linda Ronstadt and it was very successful.
• 1:20:03
  Speaker 2: He had done Echoes in the Canyon and it was
• 1:20:05
  Speaker 2: very successful. And I think, you know, and he believed
• 1:20:08
  Speaker 2: in us because we had this long track record with him,
• 1:20:11
  Speaker 2: and so we have this incredibly collaborative, wonderful, you know relationship.
• 1:20:17
  Speaker 2: It's been probably the most fun we've ever had trying
• 1:20:19
  Speaker 2: to get a film into theaters. I mean, it's terrifying
• 1:20:21
  Speaker 2: because next week the D Day happens and it actually,
• 1:20:24
  Speaker 2: you know, opens in New York.
• 1:20:27
  Speaker 1: Okay, a little bit slower. Before you align with Greenwich,
• 1:20:31
  Speaker 1: you have an agent to what degree have you booked
• 1:20:35
  Speaker 1: other festivals if any.
• 1:20:38
  Speaker 4: So there we had not been aware of this really
• 1:20:42
  Speaker 4: wonderful organization called the Film Collaborative. It's Jason Reid, who
• 1:20:47
  Speaker 4: was one of the two editors who earlier was on
• 1:20:49
  Speaker 4: our project. Is he's also a producer of other people's movies.
• 1:20:54
  Speaker 4: He's directed movies, And he mentioned the film Collaborative, which
• 1:20:59
  Speaker 4: it's miss is a worldwide festival booking festivals only that's
• 1:21:04
  Speaker 4: a documentary documentaries and and and predominantly LGBTQ and political documentaries.
• 1:21:12
  Speaker 4: So this was an outlier for them. But Jeffrey Winter,
• 1:21:14
  Speaker 4: who's one of the principles of the Film Collaborative, UH,
• 1:21:18
  Speaker 4: looked at a link at Jason Reid's urging and just
• 1:21:20
  Speaker 4: fell in love with the movie and said he would
• 1:21:22
  Speaker 4: take it on. And so he began to plant the seeds.
• 1:21:26
  Speaker 4: We didn't bring him on. They weren't aware, and so
• 1:21:29
  Speaker 4: he was really behind the eight ball as far as
• 1:21:32
  Speaker 4: getting Fall Festival's program Most of them had programs at
• 1:21:35
  Speaker 4: that point, but he did get them.
• 1:21:37
  Speaker 3: Yeah, so he told us.
• 1:21:38
  Speaker 2: Yeah, he was like, you know you guys, A, you're
• 1:21:42
  Speaker 2: you got one hand time behind your but I do
• 1:21:44
  Speaker 2: because you're you're opening it. Tell your ride. So there's
• 1:21:46
  Speaker 2: no way that I can really tell people until the
• 1:21:49
  Speaker 2: Fall Festival season is just about upon us and b
• 1:21:53
  Speaker 2: I didn't find out about this till the beginning of August,
• 1:21:56
  Speaker 2: and so probably I'm not.
• 1:21:58
  Speaker 3: Going to get you any bookings in the fall.
• 1:22:00
  Speaker 2: But he got Woodstock, he got Mill Valley, Montclair got Montclair.
• 1:22:06
  Speaker 4: Those are three really strong festivals that have a lot
• 1:22:10
  Speaker 4: of attention paid to them.
• 1:22:11
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and more.
• 1:22:12
  Speaker 3: I mean he was he was blown away by what
• 1:22:14
  Speaker 3: he got.
• 1:22:15
  Speaker 1: We're in this timeline. Do you make the deal with
• 1:22:18
  Speaker 1: Greenwich before or after these additional screenings in the.
• 1:22:22
  Speaker 4: Middle of it, I was say, in the middle of it.
• 1:22:24
  Speaker 4: We began discussions with him in the middle of it all,
• 1:22:27
  Speaker 4: and I think we sealed the deal in December. I
• 1:22:31
  Speaker 4: think it was.
• 1:22:31
  Speaker 1: To what degree your festival screenings helpful huge if your
• 1:22:37
  Speaker 1: film is successful?
• 1:22:38
  Speaker 2: I mean, you know, does your film? Do people show
• 1:22:41
  Speaker 2: up to see it? I mean, I think one thing
• 1:22:43
  Speaker 2: that our festival screenings proved is that there is a
• 1:22:46
  Speaker 2: bit despite the fact that it's about this guy who
• 1:22:48
  Speaker 2: you don't think, you know about audiences of a certain age,
• 1:22:52
  Speaker 2: no Peter Asher and no Peter and Gordon and you know,
• 1:22:55
  Speaker 2: James Taylor and Carol King and Linda Ronstadt. So we
• 1:22:58
  Speaker 2: were finding that the the screenings at festivals were selling
• 1:23:02
  Speaker 2: out almost first of any other film that was being programmed,
• 1:23:06
  Speaker 2: and then there would be lines around the block. And
• 1:23:09
  Speaker 2: so we could articulate that to people like Ed.
• 1:23:13
  Speaker 4: I think what he saw so Santa Barbara was Barbara
• 1:23:17
  Speaker 4: was huge. It was crazy because they kept selling out
• 1:23:19
  Speaker 4: and adding screenings and selling out and turning people away.
• 1:23:23
  Speaker 4: And I think that really at that point we'd already
• 1:23:25
  Speaker 4: signed with Ed at Granwish Entertainment. But I think it
• 1:23:29
  Speaker 4: just validated the effort that they were going to have
• 1:23:33
  Speaker 4: to put in, because it does take a lot of
• 1:23:35
  Speaker 4: effort to amount the campaign, to call the bookers to
• 1:23:39
  Speaker 4: fulfill everything that has to happen, and no one's looking
• 1:23:44
  Speaker 4: to no one's counting on it returning enough money. But
• 1:23:49
  Speaker 4: if it feels like the promise is there, it motivates everybody.
• 1:23:53
  Speaker 2: And the other thing about festivals right now, given the
• 1:23:55
  Speaker 2: current landscape of you know, independent theater distribution and you
• 1:24:00
  Speaker 2: know theaters are going under right so or there's fewer
• 1:24:05
  Speaker 2: and fewer screens available. So by being in a festival,
• 1:24:08
  Speaker 2: you know there are people who who their entire theatrical
• 1:24:13
  Speaker 2: run consists of playing festivals from coast to coast. And
• 1:24:19
  Speaker 2: I mean in our case, I think it really helped. Like,
• 1:24:22
  Speaker 2: for instance, the theater in Santa Barbara was one of
• 1:24:25
  Speaker 2: the first people to book it to come back in
• 1:24:26
  Speaker 2: a real run because they saw the demand for it.
• 1:24:31
  Speaker 1: Okay, so what kind of deal you do you make
• 1:24:33
  Speaker 1: with Greenwich?
• 1:24:35
  Speaker 4: In their case, it's an all rights deal for the
• 1:24:38
  Speaker 4: US only, so they then are the entity that then
• 1:24:44
  Speaker 4: can put it up on a transactional video on demand
• 1:24:47
  Speaker 4: or try to get a streamer and sell the DVD.
• 1:24:49
  Speaker 4: So it's not like they just get the theatrical. They
• 1:24:52
  Speaker 4: get all of that in order to hopefully create enough
• 1:24:58
  Speaker 4: to come back so that the thea which may may
• 1:25:01
  Speaker 4: make money or maybe a loss leader, that they're not
• 1:25:03
  Speaker 4: solely counting on that, so that it's sort of it's
• 1:25:08
  Speaker 4: a it's a very fair deal that way. And what's
• 1:25:12
  Speaker 4: nice about a smaller company like Greenwich that has a
• 1:25:15
  Speaker 4: good reputation, They can their reputation allows them to get
• 1:25:19
  Speaker 4: screens and to do good work, but they're not carrying
• 1:25:22
  Speaker 4: a huge overhead. And the problem with some of these
• 1:25:25
  Speaker 4: other companies is that the overhead is so big that
• 1:25:30
  Speaker 4: they have to charge crazy amounts of money or they
• 1:25:33
  Speaker 4: have to have an output deal. So for example, Sony
• 1:25:37
  Speaker 4: Pictures Classics I think is the last standing company that
• 1:25:41
  Speaker 4: has an output deal with Netflix. They did on when
• 1:25:45
  Speaker 4: they did our halleluj movie. That's who distributed it, so
• 1:25:49
  Speaker 4: it protects them on the back end. I think Roadside
• 1:25:53
  Speaker 4: and had Stars that's no longer the case. I think
• 1:25:56
  Speaker 4: some of these other distributors suddenly hung out to dry
• 1:25:59
  Speaker 4: in ways in a collapsing theatrical market without the guarantee
• 1:26:03
  Speaker 4: of a streamer to help them out. They're they're in
• 1:26:07
  Speaker 4: a very bad situation. But Greenwich does not have that
• 1:26:11
  Speaker 4: kind of output for a streamer. But they're not carrying
• 1:26:15
  Speaker 4: the same kind of overhead, so they can keep on
• 1:26:17
  Speaker 4: a chug and chugging.
• 1:26:19
  Speaker 1: Okay, is there an advance? And how is our moneies
• 1:26:22
  Speaker 1: ultimately split up?
• 1:26:25
  Speaker 3: It's you are so, oh my gosh.
• 1:26:30
  Speaker 2: It's kind of like a fifty to fifty costs off
• 1:26:32
  Speaker 2: the top deal, well off the.
• 1:26:34
  Speaker 1: Top meaning before expenses.
• 1:26:38
  Speaker 2: No, meaning you know, you take the expenses and then
• 1:26:40
  Speaker 2: you've split the deal.
• 1:26:43
  Speaker 4: Yeah, which is better than a lot of deals where
• 1:26:48
  Speaker 4: it's distributor gets a fee first, then expenses, which they
• 1:26:55
  Speaker 4: have less of an interest in constraining at that point,
• 1:26:58
  Speaker 4: and then you know you're here and after a fee
• 1:27:01
  Speaker 4: and expenses, good luck seeing much of anything material. So
• 1:27:05
  Speaker 4: we'd rather trade into this kind of deal and we
• 1:27:08
  Speaker 4: could have had. We didn't even push for an MGM
• 1:27:11
  Speaker 4: minimum guarantee. There are others who offered it. We didn't
• 1:27:13
  Speaker 4: push for it because we just felt like, let's all
• 1:27:16
  Speaker 4: be in this skin in the game. And then and
• 1:27:20
  Speaker 4: we raised, as is often the case these days, we
• 1:27:22
  Speaker 4: raised some P and A money, small amount, small amount
• 1:27:27
  Speaker 4: to sort of kick in to say, look, we're participating
• 1:27:29
  Speaker 4: in this as well, and you know, so that Greenwich
• 1:27:32
  Speaker 4: can can put more into a campaign that they might
• 1:27:36
  Speaker 4: have been a little more uncomfortable with otherwise putting all
• 1:27:40
  Speaker 4: of it in themselves.
• 1:27:41
  Speaker 2: But it's been this, it's been a really heartwarmingly collaborative
• 1:27:47
  Speaker 2: distribution experience. Ed for instance, is was very excited about
• 1:27:53
  Speaker 2: the social media aspect of this film, and you know,
• 1:27:57
  Speaker 2: and he's like, I really want you to talk to
• 1:27:59
  Speaker 2: social media some this woman I know who does social
• 1:28:02
  Speaker 2: media campaigns, and I think you should take some of
• 1:28:05
  Speaker 2: the money for the P and A and really really,
• 1:28:08
  Speaker 2: you know, work with.
• 1:28:09
  Speaker 1: Her, and please to find that acronym for my social media.
• 1:28:15
  Speaker 3: So, you know, a P and A okay, sort.
• 1:28:18
  Speaker 4: Of an anachronism prints and advertising, but there are no
• 1:28:21
  Speaker 4: prints really anymore. But basically there's really no advertising. It's
• 1:28:24
  Speaker 4: it's a marketing fulfillment campaign, right.
• 1:28:28
  Speaker 2: So so he encouraged us to talk to this woman
• 1:28:33
  Speaker 2: and we did and and she said, you know, we could,
• 1:28:39
  Speaker 2: we could do this thing really based on everywhere man,
• 1:28:41
  Speaker 2: and you know, Peter is everywhere. It's like the six
• 1:28:44
  Speaker 2: degrees of Kevin Bacon. And she brought in this incredibly
• 1:28:48
  Speaker 2: talented team in Los Angeles called Sideways Media, and they
• 1:28:52
  Speaker 2: created these posts that I would have never known how
• 1:28:56
  Speaker 2: to create. I mean, okay, So, so it's been so
• 1:28:59
  Speaker 2: significant in terms of I mean, who knows if it'll
• 1:29:01
  Speaker 2: resultant ticket purchase. But our trailer dropped two months ago
• 1:29:07
  Speaker 2: and within about a month we were at two million views.
• 1:29:11
  Speaker 1: Okay, So recording this nine days before your theatrical release.
• 1:29:18
  Speaker 3: Do you have to remind me?
• 1:29:19
  Speaker 1: Which is the nineteenth of June? What is the theatrical plan?
• 1:29:24
  Speaker 4: So it starts in New York at the Quad Cinema,
• 1:29:28
  Speaker 4: and then this following week early starting the following week,
• 1:29:34
  Speaker 4: it starts it's run in La at the Royal and
• 1:29:37
  Speaker 4: at the They NoHo and probably Wendale after that, and
• 1:29:42
  Speaker 4: at I guess Friday the following Friday, the twenty six
• 1:29:45
  Speaker 4: it starts its run in San Francisco at Opera Plaza,
• 1:29:49
  Speaker 4: in Berkeley at the Elmwood, in Rafel at the San Rafel,
• 1:29:53
  Speaker 4: and in Sepassable at the rialto Cinemas. And at the
• 1:29:58
  Speaker 4: same time, it's I mean, at this point they're going
• 1:30:01
  Speaker 4: to keep adding bookings. I think they're forty at least
• 1:30:04
  Speaker 4: forty or fifty definite bookase definite booking cities around the
• 1:30:08
  Speaker 4: US through the summer. But everyone's going to sort of
• 1:30:13
  Speaker 4: see what kind of press bubbles up as it's starting
• 1:30:15
  Speaker 4: to how how it does that, how it goes first
• 1:30:18
  Speaker 4: weekend in New York or in La in the Bay Area,
• 1:30:21
  Speaker 4: and those bookings will ramp up, presumably hopefully We're.
• 1:30:26
  Speaker 3: Kind of blown away at how I mean.
• 1:30:27
  Speaker 2: So in addition to ed Errents being at granted, she's
• 1:30:32
  Speaker 2: got an incredible booker, Jasper, and Jasper is dogged because again,
• 1:30:38
  Speaker 2: there's very few art house screens in certain places. Shockingly,
• 1:30:42
  Speaker 2: San Francisco is one of them. When Dan and I started,
• 1:30:46
  Speaker 2: as you know, documentarians who expected our films to be
• 1:30:48
  Speaker 2: in theaters for some ridiculous reason back in the in
• 1:30:52
  Speaker 2: the late eighties early nineties, it wasn't that hard because
• 1:30:56
  Speaker 2: in San Francisco, there were Landmark theaters on every corner,
• 1:30:59
  Speaker 2: and you know, we really didn't worry about getting our
• 1:31:05
  Speaker 2: films into some of these art houses. And now in
• 1:31:08
  Speaker 2: San Francisco, as an example, it's just one Landmark.
• 1:31:12
  Speaker 3: It's called Opera Plaza.
• 1:31:14
  Speaker 2: There's four screens, only two of them have one hundred seats,
• 1:31:17
  Speaker 2: the other two are teeny And to get in there,
• 1:31:20
  Speaker 2: you're competing against all of the big Hollywood things. The
• 1:31:24
  Speaker 2: fact that Jasper got us into Opera Plaza on one
• 1:31:27
  Speaker 2: of those bigger screens is unbelievable. So you know, one
• 1:31:31
  Speaker 2: thing that you're getting with a good distributor is a
• 1:31:33
  Speaker 2: good booker.
• 1:31:35
  Speaker 1: Okay, since this is your area of expertise and the
• 1:31:38
  Speaker 1: windows are shorter and shorter, how long do these documentaries
• 1:31:42
  Speaker 1: play in a theater.
• 1:31:44
  Speaker 4: That's one of the reasons why we ultimately chose to
• 1:31:47
  Speaker 4: go with Gretach Jane Greenwitchy, because he said, you know what,
• 1:31:52
  Speaker 4: what do you need basically, and we said, well, sixty
• 1:31:55
  Speaker 4: days before it hits onto a transactional video where people
• 1:31:59
  Speaker 4: can rent it, not that it goes on. Who knows
• 1:32:01
  Speaker 4: if streamer is going to pick it up. We don't
• 1:32:03
  Speaker 4: know these days. But it will at that point sixty
• 1:32:06
  Speaker 4: days out, if people have heard of it, it didn't
• 1:32:08
  Speaker 4: come to their town, they want to look at it again.
• 1:32:10
  Speaker 4: You know you can. You would rent it for whatever
• 1:32:13
  Speaker 4: it is, six bucks, whatever it is. These days are
• 1:32:15
  Speaker 4: buy it for more. So we said if we have
• 1:32:18
  Speaker 4: a good sixty day window, and Ed felt like, that's
• 1:32:21
  Speaker 4: that's the outside range. That's good. People are still aware
• 1:32:25
  Speaker 4: of the movie. It can continue into theaters into other
• 1:32:28
  Speaker 4: cities while it's on transactional video and demand. It doesn't
• 1:32:32
  Speaker 4: suddenly shut it down. A lot of these other places.
• 1:32:35
  Speaker 4: It's fifteen days, maybe thirty days, and there's no chance
• 1:32:40
  Speaker 4: for the word of mouth to travel and for the
• 1:32:42
  Speaker 4: film to buzz up, because the other thing that happens
• 1:32:44
  Speaker 4: is that when things are out in theaters and when
• 1:32:48
  Speaker 4: local press often will write about it, and when word
• 1:32:52
  Speaker 4: of mouth bubbles up, the awareness of this of a
• 1:32:55
  Speaker 4: movie begins to rise, especially a little movie, so that
• 1:32:58
  Speaker 4: it's life after it's in theaters is much enhanced by
• 1:33:03
  Speaker 4: a reputation already. And to say you have fifteen days
• 1:33:07
  Speaker 4: and the boom it's out, it just feels like for
• 1:33:10
  Speaker 4: our kind of movie, it's just condemning it to invisibility.
• 1:33:14
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean we actually were in negotiations with another distributor,
• 1:33:18
  Speaker 2: a theatrical who wanted fifteen days, and we were like, no,
• 1:33:21
  Speaker 2: I mean, this is a word of mouse film. You're
• 1:33:23
  Speaker 2: not going to get it into a zillion you know festival.
• 1:33:26
  Speaker 2: I mean, sorry theaters right off the bat, it's going
• 1:33:28
  Speaker 2: to build and if you only have two weeks, it's ridiculous.
• 1:33:32
  Speaker 2: The other thing that, by the.
• 1:33:34
  Speaker 4: Way, that's two more weeks than Netflix is going to do.
• 1:33:36
  Speaker 4: Because that's true. The guy Dan what's his name at
• 1:33:38
  Speaker 4: Netflix just walked back the entire promise other than one
• 1:33:41
  Speaker 4: or two. Greta Gerwig Movies walked back the entire promise
• 1:33:44
  Speaker 4: to have some sort of theatrical engagement with their productions
• 1:33:48
  Speaker 4: because when the deal fell apart for Warners, then the
• 1:33:51
  Speaker 4: which the answer was, well then we don't care then yeah.
• 1:33:55
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 1:33:55
  Speaker 2: But anyway, I mean, we were very impressed by the
• 1:34:00
  Speaker 2: that Ed would give us a sixty day window and
• 1:34:03
  Speaker 2: really champions that and supports it.
• 1:34:06
  Speaker 3: So and the other thing.
• 1:34:07
  Speaker 2: So our social media folks have been in addition to
• 1:34:12
  Speaker 2: just running a campaign like here's a clip, don't you
• 1:34:14
  Speaker 2: want to see the whole thing, they've been doing a
• 1:34:17
  Speaker 2: At the end of those clips, they'll say, you know,
• 1:34:19
  Speaker 2: here's the place where it's places it's playing so far.
• 1:34:22
  Speaker 2: If you don't see your city on there, call your
• 1:34:24
  Speaker 2: local art house, and people have been doing that also.
• 1:34:27
  Speaker 4: The film's opening up. I forget the exact start date.
• 1:34:30
  Speaker 4: Right around the same time in Canada, there's a company
• 1:34:33
  Speaker 4: not till July July, a company called Films We Like,
• 1:34:36
  Speaker 4: which is wonderful run by Ron Man, who's a really
• 1:34:38
  Speaker 4: good filmmaker himself. We had not paid much attention to
• 1:34:43
  Speaker 4: the international market because again we were scrambling through all
• 1:34:46
  Speaker 4: of this, and we only reached out to get an
• 1:34:49
  Speaker 4: international sales agent a couple month and a half two
• 1:34:53
  Speaker 4: months ago who's now on it, and it has the
• 1:34:55
  Speaker 4: film out to all sorts of distributors around the world
• 1:34:57
  Speaker 4: for other territories. So sometimes that's a good idea for
• 1:35:02
  Speaker 4: a film about someone who's not like Peter, not instantly
• 1:35:06
  Speaker 4: well known everywhere in the world. It was different for
• 1:35:09
  Speaker 4: Leonard Cohen. Everyone knows Lenary Cohen around the world, and
• 1:35:12
  Speaker 4: if they didn't know Leonard Cohen, they certainly knew the
• 1:35:14
  Speaker 4: song Halleluilja. But in this case, I feel like letting
• 1:35:18
  Speaker 4: our film bubble up a little bit will help it
• 1:35:21
  Speaker 4: in these other markets. Hopefully we'll get into those other markets.
• 1:35:25
  Speaker 1: Okay, So the present state of streaming as you're waiting
• 1:35:28
  Speaker 1: for the theatrical run to happen to then put it
• 1:35:33
  Speaker 1: out to streamers.
• 1:35:34
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, we hope it does well enough theatrically
• 1:35:38
  Speaker 2: that streamers go, wow, this is a very visible title.
• 1:35:42
  Speaker 2: We think we have an audience that's going to want
• 1:35:43
  Speaker 2: to see it once we start, you know, if we
• 1:35:46
  Speaker 2: were to buy it and put it up, but.
• 1:35:50
  Speaker 4: We are guaranteed for transactional video on demand that I
• 1:35:55
  Speaker 4: don't know what platforms that puts things on these days,
• 1:35:57
  Speaker 4: we'll have to find out, but that it will be
• 1:36:00
  Speaker 4: available for someone to stream. I'm going to separate the
• 1:36:03
  Speaker 4: idea of streamers meeting Netflix, Apple, Amazon. It's kind of
• 1:36:08
  Speaker 4: it like there are all these ones that come and go,
• 1:36:10
  Speaker 4: Paramount plus, Disney plus I didn't even know what's happening now,
• 1:36:13
  Speaker 4: but that you can get it. You don't have to
• 1:36:15
  Speaker 4: go to a theater. You can you know, we'll get
• 1:36:18
  Speaker 4: a DVD or Blu ray out there eventually, but you
• 1:36:20
  Speaker 4: can just go click and rent it.
• 1:36:23
  Speaker 2: I mean, there are people who write on I mean,
• 1:36:26
  Speaker 2: I tend to try to get back to all the
• 1:36:27
  Speaker 2: messages that I can on Facebook. There are people that
• 1:36:30
  Speaker 2: will write in and going, you know, yes, i'd call
• 1:36:32
  Speaker 2: my local art house, but I'm kind of housebound and
• 1:36:35
  Speaker 2: I really need this to be streamed, and so you know,
• 1:36:39
  Speaker 2: for those people will write back and say, ye, you know,
• 1:36:41
  Speaker 2: you're going to have a chance in the fall to
• 1:36:43
  Speaker 2: stream it. So it's it's only fair to make these
• 1:36:47
  Speaker 2: things accessible through streaming as well as in theaters.
• 1:36:59
  Speaker 1: So the two of you meet.
• 1:37:02
  Speaker 4: Blind date, no setup date. It was a set up date,
• 1:37:05
  Speaker 4: a set update from a housemate of mine back when
• 1:37:08
  Speaker 4: I was in graduate school who met Dana at a party.
• 1:37:13
  Speaker 2: Dan was going to Stanford's documentary program and editing his
• 1:37:16
  Speaker 2: master's thesis and.
• 1:37:18
  Speaker 4: So my friend Terry was at a party. She came
• 1:37:22
  Speaker 4: back that night and she said, I met this amazing woman,
• 1:37:26
  Speaker 4: and if I were a guy, i'd asked her out,
• 1:37:29
  Speaker 4: but I'm not, so you have to.
• 1:37:31
  Speaker 2: In the meantime, I had gone to the party having
• 1:37:34
  Speaker 2: just quit my job and getting ready, which was at
• 1:37:37
  Speaker 2: a video post production house. I actually really did want to.
• 1:37:41
  Speaker 2: I left school thinking, you know, I'd love to do
• 1:37:43
  Speaker 2: something in production or post production of documentaries or whatever.
• 1:37:52
  Speaker 2: But in the nineteen eighties, so this was like eighty four.
• 1:37:56
  Speaker 2: It was so sexist, and I could look around that
• 1:38:00
  Speaker 2: video post house and I saw, Okay, the highest place
• 1:38:05
  Speaker 2: that a woman could get was as a scheduler, which
• 1:38:09
  Speaker 2: is the person that schedules the editing rooms. Anyone who
• 1:38:14
  Speaker 2: wanted to actually get to be an editor, which is
• 1:38:17
  Speaker 2: the top of those places at the time, was mail
• 1:38:21
  Speaker 2: and they were just given different, different entry level jobs.
• 1:38:24
  Speaker 2: So I was brought in as the office manager, and
• 1:38:26
  Speaker 2: it became really clear that that was kind of how
• 1:38:30
  Speaker 2: people pegged me, so much so that one of my bosses,
• 1:38:33
  Speaker 2: who was actually incredible and wise, took me out to
• 1:38:37
  Speaker 2: lunch and said, you know, Dana, I know you want
• 1:38:39
  Speaker 2: to do more, but no one here is going to
• 1:38:43
  Speaker 2: see you in that in any other way than an
• 1:38:46
  Speaker 2: office manager. So you're just going to have to leave
• 1:38:48
  Speaker 2: and then I bet you come back as a client.
• 1:38:51
  Speaker 2: So I did. And then a little bit after that,
• 1:38:55
  Speaker 2: I went to this party and I was wearing totally
• 1:38:59
  Speaker 2: in a pre at clothes. It was a very fancy
• 1:39:01
  Speaker 2: party and I didn't know that, and so I came
• 1:39:03
  Speaker 2: wearing jeans and I was about to just leave because
• 1:39:06
  Speaker 2: I was mortified. And I saw one other woman in
• 1:39:09
  Speaker 2: the room with jeans and it turned out to be
• 1:39:11
  Speaker 2: Dan's roommate, and so I said, I can't talk. I
• 1:39:13
  Speaker 2: can't leave without talking to this woman. So I introduced myself.
• 1:39:16
  Speaker 2: We talked, and she's like, you got to come meet
• 1:39:17
  Speaker 2: my We have.
• 1:39:18
  Speaker 4: To let her know the film's going to open in Boise,
• 1:39:20
  Speaker 4: I know.
• 1:39:20
  Speaker 2: Oh my god.
• 1:39:21
  Speaker 4: Yeah, she's moved to since.
• 1:39:23
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 1:39:23
  Speaker 2: Anyway, so it's one of those synchronicity wacky things.
• 1:39:26
  Speaker 1: Okay, So Damie, you're from where originally? Well?
• 1:39:30
  Speaker 2: I was born in Philadelphia, but honestly, I grew up
• 1:39:32
  Speaker 2: all over northern California, So I just sort of say
• 1:39:34
  Speaker 2: an indeterminate northern California Aura.
• 1:39:37
  Speaker 1: Okay. And where'd you go to college?
• 1:39:39
  Speaker 2: Stanford?
• 1:39:40
  Speaker 1: Stanford? And how long out of Stanford were you when
• 1:39:45
  Speaker 1: you met Dan?
• 1:39:47
  Speaker 2: Well, it took me forever to get out because I
• 1:39:49
  Speaker 2: loved it so much. I I was probably maybe nine
• 1:39:55
  Speaker 2: months out of Stanford, not that far soon.
• 1:39:57
  Speaker 1: Okay. So Dan, where are you from?
• 1:39:59
  Speaker 4: Originally from Mamerineck, New York.
• 1:40:03
  Speaker 1: And how do you end up in California?
• 1:40:05
  Speaker 4: Because after four years as an undergraduate at Cornell and
• 1:40:08
  Speaker 4: freezing my butt off, and hearing about this unusual small
• 1:40:14
  Speaker 4: documentary program graduate program at Stanford University, I thought, well,
• 1:40:19
  Speaker 4: this sounds interesting. I actually had driven a friend, another
• 1:40:22
  Speaker 4: college radio friend of mine, across country the year before.
• 1:40:25
  Speaker 4: He was taking a job out here in one of
• 1:40:28
  Speaker 4: the semi condutor companies, and coming out and dropping them
• 1:40:33
  Speaker 4: off in Palo Alter. I thought, good lord, this is
• 1:40:36
  Speaker 4: like Heaven. I want to get back here somehow. And
• 1:40:40
  Speaker 4: so I had applied to the Stanford grad program and
• 1:40:44
  Speaker 4: got in. There were like eleven people in there that year,
• 1:40:47
  Speaker 4: I think. And I was actually finishing my thesis film.
• 1:40:52
  Speaker 4: I'd taken a year back in New York to work
• 1:40:54
  Speaker 4: on another project, but then came shot the thesis film.
• 1:40:58
  Speaker 4: Was editing the thesis film, had just started editing it
• 1:41:01
  Speaker 4: when I was introduced to Dana, and then that was
• 1:41:07
  Speaker 4: that was it pretty quickly.
• 1:41:09
  Speaker 2: Well, Dan was editing his thesis film was about the
• 1:41:12
  Speaker 2: Sundance Laboratory, which had just kind of started. It's no longer.
• 1:41:16
  Speaker 2: It no longer exists.
• 1:41:16
  Speaker 3: Oh sure, it does exist in the same way as
• 1:41:18
  Speaker 3: what you filmed.
• 1:41:20
  Speaker 4: The director's life still exists as it.
• 1:41:21
  Speaker 2: Oh it does okay, but I feel like it was
• 1:41:23
  Speaker 2: really unusual and it had just started, like.
• 1:41:25
  Speaker 4: Oh yeah, nothing had been like it. I think it
• 1:41:27
  Speaker 4: was maybe yeh two years old at that point if that.
• 1:41:30
  Speaker 2: Yeah, And so he was editing this material that looked,
• 1:41:33
  Speaker 2: you know, so sexy and fun and all these different
• 1:41:36
  Speaker 2: actors and it was Robert Redford, and all of a sudden,
• 1:41:39
  Speaker 2: my urge to do something in media, which had been
• 1:41:44
  Speaker 2: squelched by my experience at the post production house, just
• 1:41:47
  Speaker 2: rose really in a demanding way. And I said, Dan, I,
• 1:41:51
  Speaker 2: you know, I think we're going to be together, Like,
• 1:41:53
  Speaker 2: how would you feel if, you know, I also become
• 1:41:56
  Speaker 2: a filmmaker.
• 1:41:57
  Speaker 4: And when Dana has an urge, she will not be stopped.
• 1:42:01
  Speaker 4: But I did say to Dana at that point was
• 1:42:04
  Speaker 4: that it would be best if she could get an
• 1:42:09
  Speaker 4: education sort of ramp up at least a reasonable education
• 1:42:14
  Speaker 4: in film, just even just film production and narrative in storytelling,
• 1:42:18
  Speaker 4: so that the first film we would make together, which
• 1:42:21
  Speaker 4: is our Isadora Duncan movie, would we'd make the film
• 1:42:24
  Speaker 4: as peers and not as an imbalanced relationship. And at
• 1:42:31
  Speaker 4: the time, at DeAnza College, a community college on the peninsula,
• 1:42:37
  Speaker 4: there was a program that basically in many ways was
• 1:42:39
  Speaker 4: the mirror of the Stanford graduate program. It was being
• 1:42:43
  Speaker 4: taught by people who had gone to that program in
• 1:42:47
  Speaker 4: years prior, and it cost twenty dollars a quarter equipment
• 1:42:51
  Speaker 4: access for free, including parking. So Dana did that and
• 1:42:57
  Speaker 4: got the basics down pretty quickly.
• 1:43:00
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so that's yeah, So that's how we started.
• 1:43:02
  Speaker 1: Okay, so the romance in the business sort of started simultaneously.
• 1:43:07
  Speaker 2: Well, the romance first, and then a few months later
• 1:43:09
  Speaker 2: I was like, Okay, I think I should just broach
• 1:43:12
  Speaker 2: this because I had long thought if I were to
• 1:43:15
  Speaker 2: ever have a long term relationship, it would be really
• 1:43:18
  Speaker 2: fun to work creatively together. So I did broach it.
• 1:43:22
  Speaker 3: And ironically so Dan.
• 1:43:25
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 1:43:25
  Speaker 2: So Dan said, you know, why don't you check out
• 1:43:26
  Speaker 2: DeAnza and start making short films on your own, which
• 1:43:30
  Speaker 2: I did, and then someone wrote us, a really dear
• 1:43:33
  Speaker 2: friend wrote us a letter about that led us towards
• 1:43:36
  Speaker 2: making this film about Isidora Duncan. And of course we
• 1:43:40
  Speaker 2: were trying to raise money in eighty six when we
• 1:43:42
  Speaker 2: had never done anything, so no one was funding us.
• 1:43:45
  Speaker 2: And finally we looked at each other and we were like,
• 1:43:48
  Speaker 2: you know, we told these people that were going to
• 1:43:51
  Speaker 2: start filming in nine months, let's and we were about
• 1:43:54
  Speaker 2: to get married. We were like, let's just use our
• 1:43:55
  Speaker 2: honeymoon money. And so our first documentary was Hunt.
• 1:43:59
  Speaker 4: That was the first shoot for the first the whole week.
• 1:44:02
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:44:02
  Speaker 4: Well, the other thing is Dana had been a passenger
• 1:44:05
  Speaker 4: in a car house and had a fractured vertebrae and
• 1:44:09
  Speaker 4: there was a settlement that came out of it, like
• 1:44:13
  Speaker 4: twenty five thousand dollars or something like that. We knew
• 1:44:16
  Speaker 4: it was going to be paid out, there was no risk.
• 1:44:19
  Speaker 4: So Dana went to her dad and said, can we
• 1:44:22
  Speaker 4: borrow against.
• 1:44:23
  Speaker 2: Until my settlement comes through? So I broke my back
• 1:44:25
  Speaker 2: and then Dan and I used our went on our
• 1:44:27
  Speaker 2: honeymoon and or did the film and as a way
• 1:44:29
  Speaker 2: of going on our honeymoon.
• 1:44:31
  Speaker 3: That's kind of what indies do.
• 1:44:33
  Speaker 1: What did your parents do for a living, Dana, My
• 1:44:36
  Speaker 1: dad was.
• 1:44:36
  Speaker 2: A doctor, a really good one, but very much like,
• 1:44:40
  Speaker 2: let me decide what I wanted to do. And my
• 1:44:42
  Speaker 2: mom did a whole bunch of different things after being
• 1:44:45
  Speaker 2: a homemaker. She so real estate, she did bazillion things.
• 1:44:49
  Speaker 4: Yeah, and Dan, your parents, my parents both started out
• 1:44:53
  Speaker 4: as public school teachers. My mom for her entire career,
• 1:44:59
  Speaker 4: teaching the Mamerda School District for the bulk of her
• 1:45:02
  Speaker 4: career as a primarily a kindergarten teacher, a master teacher
• 1:45:06
  Speaker 4: at that and my dad was teaching English and head
• 1:45:12
  Speaker 4: of the English department at Marina High School when he
• 1:45:16
  Speaker 4: because he'd written a lot of articles about media in
• 1:45:19
  Speaker 4: the classroom, media literacy, using films in the classroom to
• 1:45:23
  Speaker 4: stimulate discussions about the literature that the film was based on,
• 1:45:27
  Speaker 4: And the American Film Institute was just coming together for
• 1:45:31
  Speaker 4: the first time, and George Stevens Junior asked my dad
• 1:45:35
  Speaker 4: to become the first director of educational outreach projects, and
• 1:45:39
  Speaker 4: so we moved the family to Maryland for a year.
• 1:45:43
  Speaker 4: His depression era parents thought my dad was crazy because
• 1:45:49
  Speaker 4: my mom had taken time off teaching to raise me
• 1:45:51
  Speaker 4: and my sister for a few years. It's crazy, how
• 1:45:54
  Speaker 4: can you give up the stability of a teacher's income
• 1:45:58
  Speaker 4: and path. In fact, a year later it kind of
• 1:46:02
  Speaker 4: was proven to be true because the dad to receive
• 1:46:05
  Speaker 4: his junior did not mix. But he got picked up
• 1:46:08
  Speaker 4: by this strange McCluin esque organization called the Center for
• 1:46:12
  Speaker 4: Understanding Media again with educational outreach projects. But what really
• 1:46:17
  Speaker 4: changed his life was that one of the people they
• 1:46:20
  Speaker 4: brought in as a director to work with teachers to
• 1:46:23
  Speaker 4: learn how to teach kids how to make media. It
• 1:46:27
  Speaker 4: was Arthur Barron, who had done a very important documentary
• 1:46:29
  Speaker 4: in the sixties called sixteen at Webster Grove, who had
• 1:46:33
  Speaker 4: done one fiction film and wanted to do more, and
• 1:46:37
  Speaker 4: he asked my dad to collaborate write in National Endowment
• 1:46:41
  Speaker 4: for the Humanities grant and my dad's passion for American
• 1:46:45
  Speaker 4: short fiction in particular would be the core of it,
• 1:46:48
  Speaker 4: and they got a ninety thousand dollars grant to do
• 1:46:51
  Speaker 4: one adaptation of Parker Anderson's Ambrose Spears's Parker Addison Philosopher
• 1:47:00
  Speaker 4: for PBS, and then that then turned into a series
• 1:47:03
  Speaker 4: called the American Short Stories that Dad exec produced. It
• 1:47:07
  Speaker 4: was twenty one short stories over the course of a
• 1:47:10
  Speaker 4: bunch of years. There were very very important PBS presentations
• 1:47:15
  Speaker 4: with giving established and rookie actors their first chances, established
• 1:47:21
  Speaker 4: in rookie directors their first chances. And I grew up
• 1:47:24
  Speaker 4: watching that and being part of that, and watching my dad.
• 1:47:26
  Speaker 4: It was never about money. It was all grant money.
• 1:47:29
  Speaker 4: All nonprofit, but watching how rich and rewarding that life
• 1:47:34
  Speaker 4: was and how interesting the people on those projects were.
• 1:47:38
  Speaker 4: And that's really Even though I started out as a
• 1:47:41
  Speaker 4: physics major in college and wound up working at that
• 1:47:44
  Speaker 4: radio station WVBR, the film was always in the back
• 1:47:49
  Speaker 4: of my mind, and I kind of realized that in
• 1:47:51
  Speaker 4: my senior year of college. You know, I think I
• 1:47:54
  Speaker 4: really want to I'd made short films as a kid,
• 1:47:56
  Speaker 4: like stupid little stop motion animations, but I thought, I,
• 1:48:00
  Speaker 4: I think I really know what's calling me, and it
• 1:48:02
  Speaker 4: is not theoretical physics, because I do not have the
• 1:48:04
  Speaker 4: mind for that.
• 1:48:06
  Speaker 1: Okay, you get together, you get married, or in the
• 1:48:09
  Speaker 1: mid to late eighties, you make this a Zadora Duncan
• 1:48:12
  Speaker 1: film that's forty years ago. How do you survive for
• 1:48:16
  Speaker 1: forty years of the documentarians, which is not an easy path.
• 1:48:20
  Speaker 3: Well that's a good question.
• 1:48:22
  Speaker 2: So when we were in the middle of making Isidora
• 1:48:25
  Speaker 2: and sending you know, dozens of grant proposals out that
• 1:48:29
  Speaker 2: were getting rejected because of course we had no background
• 1:48:34
  Speaker 2: or resume, we both read this article that was written
• 1:48:38
  Speaker 2: by one of the original documentary like San Francisco Bay
• 1:48:42
  Speaker 2: Area filmmakers, in which he said, you know, we documentarians
• 1:48:50
  Speaker 2: spend a ton of time writing grant proposals and getting rejected.
• 1:48:54
  Speaker 2: What if instead we took all those hours and got
• 1:48:57
  Speaker 2: a day job, And what if we weren't afraid to
• 1:49:01
  Speaker 2: spend our own money to make these things? And Dan
• 1:49:04
  Speaker 2: and I looked at each other, and so Dan then
• 1:49:07
  Speaker 2: first he started a company to do corporate media for
• 1:49:12
  Speaker 2: companies in the Bay Area, and it was one of
• 1:49:14
  Speaker 2: the first to do that.
• 1:49:15
  Speaker 4: Really, we were early on a film school friend of
• 1:49:18
  Speaker 4: mine and I started it up. We were mailing VHS
• 1:49:22
  Speaker 4: tapes to places like Intel, you know, like a little
• 1:49:26
  Speaker 4: sizzle reel. That people weren't doing things like this, so
• 1:49:29
  Speaker 4: we had to convince them that video in any way,
• 1:49:32
  Speaker 4: shape or form was a viable marketing tool.
• 1:49:36
  Speaker 2: And then as that went along, at some point just
• 1:49:39
  Speaker 2: before two thousand, actually and I had a day job.
• 1:49:41
  Speaker 2: I was actually working three days a week for a
• 1:49:44
  Speaker 2: pension consultant and taking whatever. And it was a great
• 1:49:48
  Speaker 2: job because I could do all my work and I
• 1:49:50
  Speaker 2: could say I'm about to go off and do a
• 1:49:52
  Speaker 2: shoot for two weeks, but I got all the reports done,
• 1:49:56
  Speaker 2: I'll see you.
• 1:49:56
  Speaker 3: And so it was like the ideal day job.
• 1:50:00
  Speaker 2: And then Dan's partner in Storyline Productions, the corporate media side,
• 1:50:06
  Speaker 2: left just before two thousand and Dan's like, do you
• 1:50:10
  Speaker 2: want to quit your day job and do the corporate
• 1:50:12
  Speaker 2: stuff full time? And at that point I said, with
• 1:50:16
  Speaker 2: one stipulation that we hire other employees because I see
• 1:50:20
  Speaker 2: how hard you and Marshall work and if I'm not
• 1:50:22
  Speaker 2: there halftime to help propel things, our films wouldn't happen.
• 1:50:27
  Speaker 3: And so we ended up hiring two other employees.
• 1:50:30
  Speaker 2: So the three of us came on and joined Dan
• 1:50:32
  Speaker 2: in like I don't know, December of two thousand and
• 1:50:36
  Speaker 2: then we just got these great clients.
• 1:50:38
  Speaker 4: Most people, most documentarians either also are editors for other
• 1:50:43
  Speaker 4: people's projects, or cinematographers, or or they teach, or the
• 1:50:47
  Speaker 4: or their professors exactly do they teach, there's usually another
• 1:50:51
  Speaker 4: gig involved. There was this moment that is now ebbing away,
• 1:50:56
  Speaker 4: where the streamers particularly were commissioning work with serious budgets,
• 1:51:02
  Speaker 4: mostly because it's still cheaper. It was cheaper programming than
• 1:51:04
  Speaker 4: to try to make original fiction series or fiction movies,
• 1:51:09
  Speaker 4: and they could begin to try to garner awards because
• 1:51:13
  Speaker 4: then they could tell their stockholders. You know, look, we're
• 1:51:16
  Speaker 4: winning awards. We're going to get there. Hang on. That
• 1:51:19
  Speaker 4: moment is now in retrenchment. But for a while there
• 1:51:24
  Speaker 4: were a bunch of filmmakers where this was they could
• 1:51:27
  Speaker 4: afford to do the documentaries and only the documentaries and
• 1:51:31
  Speaker 4: not have a side gig.
• 1:51:32
  Speaker 2: But we've never we never benefited from that quote unquote
• 1:51:35
  Speaker 2: gold rush, and we didn't need you know, we didn't
• 1:51:37
  Speaker 2: even I don't know.
• 1:51:38
  Speaker 3: It's been so.
• 1:51:41
  Speaker 2: On the one hand, terrifying but also really exhilarating to
• 1:51:44
  Speaker 2: be able to pick our own projects and you know,
• 1:51:47
  Speaker 2: follow our bliss for the most part, and and just
• 1:51:49
  Speaker 2: go and make these mostly unlikely projects like I'm not
• 1:51:54
  Speaker 2: sure someone would have ever funded the Peter Asher documentary
• 1:51:58
  Speaker 2: or even the Glopicus Affair for instance, you know old
• 1:52:03
  Speaker 2: archival moldering footage from the nineteen thirties about this unsolved
• 1:52:07
  Speaker 2: murder mystery and the Galopicus Islands, and yet it ended
• 1:52:10
  Speaker 2: up being a really successful film. And we could just say, well,
• 1:52:13
  Speaker 2: we're just going to go off and do it. We
• 1:52:14
  Speaker 2: feel like spending time in the Glopicus Islands. Let's go
• 1:52:17
  Speaker 2: for it.
• 1:52:18
  Speaker 1: And was it a conscious decision to not have children.
• 1:52:21
  Speaker 4: Yes, Dana had put it to me because I would
• 1:52:26
  Speaker 4: sort of blindly probably have done it, but knowing that
• 1:52:29
  Speaker 4: we were making films together, Dana said she would get
• 1:52:32
  Speaker 4: she would carry a child, but I would have to
• 1:52:34
  Speaker 4: raise a child. And I thought, well, I wanted to
• 1:52:36
  Speaker 4: wait that whole idea. So I want to make movies
• 1:52:39
  Speaker 4: and we want to make them together. So that was
• 1:52:41
  Speaker 4: the conscious decision.
• 1:52:43
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm sorry. I majored in feminist studies. I never
• 1:52:46
  Speaker 2: wanted to have kids. I love kids. I mean, our
• 1:52:49
  Speaker 2: our subjects are our kids. Like the students that we
• 1:52:53
  Speaker 2: filmed at Stanford in nineteen ninety ninety one as frosh
• 1:52:58
  Speaker 2: they're now in their fifties. And there's some of our
• 1:53:00
  Speaker 2: dearest friends, and I felt like we kind of raised those.
• 1:53:05
  Speaker 2: We didn't stay in touch with all eighty, but we
• 1:53:07
  Speaker 2: raised about two dozen of them as kind of younger siblings.
• 1:53:12
  Speaker 3: So yeah, no, I was conscious.
• 1:53:14
  Speaker 1: Okay, I'm fascinated by your Stanford films. There's one about freshmen,
• 1:53:19
  Speaker 1: and there's one after four years of Stanford. Correct y,
• 1:53:23
  Speaker 1: that's right.
• 1:53:23
  Speaker 3: Do you want us to send you a link?
• 1:53:25
  Speaker 1: I would love it. What did you learn that.
• 1:53:28
  Speaker 3: I never want to go back I never want to
• 1:53:31
  Speaker 3: go back either.
• 1:53:32
  Speaker 4: But but you think.
• 1:53:33
  Speaker 2: You you think I used to say I did, and
• 1:53:35
  Speaker 2: then you live with them, and you're like, oh my god,
• 1:53:38
  Speaker 2: never never.
• 1:53:40
  Speaker 4: Still, no, no, I totally agree what we we had
• 1:53:45
  Speaker 4: a we surmised going in that putting people together from
• 1:53:50
  Speaker 4: vastly different backgrounds economically, uh, you know, socially, religiously, politically,
• 1:53:57
  Speaker 4: that that throwing them to this pressure cooker of a
• 1:54:01
  Speaker 4: dorm where basically they couldn't leave and they had to
• 1:54:04
  Speaker 4: deal with each other would result in lots of interesting
• 1:54:06
  Speaker 4: conversations about trying to find who you are, trying to
• 1:54:11
  Speaker 4: negotiate serious ethical differences and profound religious differences, and all
• 1:54:17
  Speaker 4: that sort of stuff that would come up organically, rather
• 1:54:20
  Speaker 4: than a movie about that. That just being in that
• 1:54:23
  Speaker 4: dorm and all the conversations that happened in every dorm
• 1:54:26
  Speaker 4: room as people's doors are open and someone flops down,
• 1:54:29
  Speaker 4: that it would be a tender portrait of what is,
• 1:54:33
  Speaker 4: in many ways the American rite of passage. It happens earlier,
• 1:54:37
  Speaker 4: typically in other countries, but in the US, especially at
• 1:54:40
  Speaker 4: a residential four year college in a dorm. A lot
• 1:54:44
  Speaker 4: of that maturation and the frustration involved with it would
• 1:54:48
  Speaker 4: come to the fore, so that it was really interesting
• 1:54:51
  Speaker 4: to watch. Because it was Stanford, we had inside access.
• 1:54:55
  Speaker 2: Because I had been an RA for two years and
• 1:54:57
  Speaker 2: I knew the residential education people. We were lucky because
• 1:55:01
  Speaker 2: the real world hadn't come out yet, so no one
• 1:55:03
  Speaker 2: knew about what reality TV could be or do, and
• 1:55:07
  Speaker 2: so we were really out there and it.
• 1:55:10
  Speaker 4: Was it was our film. We went to them and said, look,
• 1:55:12
  Speaker 4: we want to make a film. All we need from
• 1:55:14
  Speaker 4: you is permission and to pay for a food plan,
• 1:55:19
  Speaker 4: and that will pay for food plan and dorm room.
• 1:55:21
  Speaker 2: Yeah, give us a dorm room and give us a
• 1:55:23
  Speaker 2: food But.
• 1:55:24
  Speaker 4: They had no creative control whatsoever. They didn't seen anything
• 1:55:27
  Speaker 4: until the film was in theaters. So it was it
• 1:55:30
  Speaker 4: was a different time. But we chose Stanford sure we
• 1:55:33
  Speaker 4: had access or the possibility of access to cut through
• 1:55:38
  Speaker 4: red tape, but also because it was one of the
• 1:55:43
  Speaker 4: most diverse universities in the country at that point, and
• 1:55:47
  Speaker 4: it was not tech Landia at that point, so the
• 1:55:50
  Speaker 4: interests were more varied. They had a huge endowment and
• 1:55:53
  Speaker 4: they used it to get.
• 1:55:54
  Speaker 1: Okay, that's all set up to learn after doing it.
• 1:55:57
  Speaker 2: Yeah, thank you, I know, I know well number one,
• 1:56:00
  Speaker 2: that I don't want to go back, and yet I was.
• 1:56:03
  Speaker 2: So it was so thrilling to be there to witness
• 1:56:06
  Speaker 2: it again. And you know, it was our first verite film.
• 1:56:12
  Speaker 2: So and we literally, I mean, there were eighty kids
• 1:56:15
  Speaker 2: in the norm. We never knew what was going to happen.
• 1:56:17
  Speaker 2: We didn't know anything about any of them until they
• 1:56:20
  Speaker 2: arrived and got the room key. And so we learned
• 1:56:24
  Speaker 2: how to make verite films.
• 1:56:25
  Speaker 4: But also the other thing, the real thing that I learned,
• 1:56:29
  Speaker 4: and it just comes into real now you're mentioning it, Bob,
• 1:56:31
  Speaker 4: It comes into real relief. Highlight right now given this world,
• 1:56:36
  Speaker 4: in this country, is that if you force people to
• 1:56:41
  Speaker 4: stay in a place and not retreat to their corners,
• 1:56:44
  Speaker 4: that they're going to work out some broad understanding of
• 1:56:49
  Speaker 4: each other. Not that they will become best friends, not
• 1:56:51
  Speaker 4: for the most part, for the most part, but that
• 1:56:54
  Speaker 4: a fair number of people who otherwise might have given
• 1:56:57
  Speaker 4: the opportunity to retreat to the corner, having been forced
• 1:57:02
  Speaker 4: to stay in in place, they really did. They get
• 1:57:05
  Speaker 4: to understand and grow and and see each other, not
• 1:57:09
  Speaker 4: necessarily see eye to eye, but see each other and
• 1:57:11
  Speaker 4: open up their their minds and hearts a little bit.
• 1:57:13
  Speaker 4: And I feel like, God, now that you mention this
• 1:57:16
  Speaker 4: and you have me thinking about it, Jesus, could we
• 1:57:18
  Speaker 4: use that today?
• 1:57:19
  Speaker 2: But also now when I look at it, I mean,
• 1:57:21
  Speaker 2: it's not like I pull out my old films and look.
• 1:57:23
  Speaker 2: But we were asked to do uh screening and Q
• 1:57:27
  Speaker 2: and a of frosh and I think it was a
• 1:57:30
  Speaker 2: back to back crosh and now and then during COVID
• 1:57:35
  Speaker 2: and so. And what I learned from that is, oh
• 1:57:39
  Speaker 2: my god, life wasn't mediated by technology like these These
• 1:57:45
  Speaker 2: kids moved into dorms and their phones were still attached
• 1:57:48
  Speaker 2: to walls and they've still had to split the monthly
• 1:57:51
  Speaker 2: phone call and you know phone bill, and no one
• 1:57:54
  Speaker 2: had had desktop things. They went to a common room
• 1:57:57
  Speaker 2: to write their papers on you know, the dorm.
• 1:57:59
  Speaker 3: Can you know they actually.
• 1:58:03
  Speaker 2: Had conversations that weren't interrupted by their cell phone, so
• 1:58:07
  Speaker 2: they could sit there and look each other in the eye.
• 1:58:10
  Speaker 2: It was really a beautiful I mean, okay, I know
• 1:58:13
  Speaker 2: I'm sounding like an old art, but it really it
• 1:58:15
  Speaker 2: really does capture a beautiful time that doesn't exist anymore.
• 1:58:18
  Speaker 2: In my humble opinion.
• 1:58:20
  Speaker 1: Okay, since you've maintained contact with these people and they're
• 1:58:24
  Speaker 1: now in their fifties. Since you knew them as freshmen,
• 1:58:29
  Speaker 1: could you predict their relative level of success in the
• 1:58:33
  Speaker 1: future or their paths or were you surprised how people
• 1:58:37
  Speaker 1: turned out?
• 1:58:39
  Speaker 4: It kind of could predict it well or predicted where
• 1:58:44
  Speaker 4: they would head for the most part, not what level
• 1:58:46
  Speaker 4: of success they might create for themselves, but where they
• 1:58:50
  Speaker 4: would head. So yeah, I mean, I think especially by
• 1:58:54
  Speaker 4: the time of the follow up film which you mentioned
• 1:58:57
  Speaker 4: now and then from Frost to Seniors, where some of
• 1:58:59
  Speaker 4: the transformation had happened, where some people really did flip.
• 1:59:03
  Speaker 4: So at that point looking onward, Uh, it would be
• 1:59:07
  Speaker 4: more clear.
• 1:59:08
  Speaker 2: Uh, Like if we were to do a follow up now,
• 1:59:10
  Speaker 2: which people ask us to do, but we we feel
• 1:59:13
  Speaker 2: squeamish about it because we're so close to them, and
• 1:59:15
  Speaker 2: it really is doing a documentary about someone and turning
• 1:59:18
  Speaker 2: them into a subject. It's it's tough, and it's tough
• 1:59:22
  Speaker 2: on the relationship, and we we adore these people and
• 1:59:26
  Speaker 2: kind of don't want to rock the boat. But I
• 1:59:31
  Speaker 2: don't think I could have necessarily well actually, so one
• 1:59:34
  Speaker 2: of the guys, one of the ten that we focus on,
• 1:59:37
  Speaker 2: just really wanted to be a sports journalist and he
• 1:59:41
  Speaker 2: like laid it all out for us, like this is
• 1:59:43
  Speaker 2: where I'm going to be, I'm going to be working
• 1:59:44
  Speaker 2: at ESPN, and he did. So, you know, some people
• 1:59:48
  Speaker 2: were able to actualize themselves in a very specific, targeted way.
• 1:59:54
  Speaker 2: And then other people, you know, like one of the
• 1:59:58
  Speaker 2: one of the young women in the dorm really want
• 1:59:59
  Speaker 2: to to be a doctor but flunked out of you know,
• 2:00:01
  Speaker 2: Kim fall Quarter and left that behind. And then lo
• 2:00:07
  Speaker 2: and behold, she graduates and she decides that she's going
• 2:00:11
  Speaker 2: to try it again. And now she's a really successful
• 2:00:14
  Speaker 2: psychiatrist living in Davis or Sacramento.
• 2:00:17
  Speaker 3: So you know, you can't predict.
• 2:00:27
  Speaker 1: Okay, what's the genesis in the story of the Leonard
• 2:00:31
  Speaker 1: Cohen movie.
• 2:00:36
  Speaker 2: So we were having dinner with David Thompson and his
• 2:00:40
  Speaker 2: wife Lucy. David's a really important film critic and film writer.
• 2:00:46
  Speaker 2: And we had finished our galout because the Fair film,
• 2:00:49
  Speaker 2: and honestly we didn't know if we were going to
• 2:00:51
  Speaker 2: make another one.
• 2:00:52
  Speaker 4: We were pretty fried and burned out. It was fighting
• 2:00:56
  Speaker 4: tooth and nail in the edit room with us and
• 2:00:58
  Speaker 4: with our editor and.
• 2:01:00
  Speaker 2: Then but we went to a film festival, went to
• 2:01:03
  Speaker 2: Sheffield Film festival in England and it kind of restimulated
• 2:01:07
  Speaker 2: the urge to make another film. And so I think
• 2:01:09
  Speaker 2: we were open to the concepts. And we're having dinner
• 2:01:12
  Speaker 2: and David says, you guys, it's a line that you
• 2:01:15
  Speaker 2: hear so often as as a filmmaker. You guys, I
• 2:01:19
  Speaker 2: have the best idea for your next film.
• 2:01:21
  Speaker 3: And so you lean forward every.
• 2:01:23
  Speaker 4: Time and it's always dry and you don't want to
• 2:01:25
  Speaker 4: be rude, but you know, oh no, no.
• 2:01:27
  Speaker 3: But so but you know it was David Thompson.
• 2:01:29
  Speaker 2: He writes about film like maybe he's got something, and
• 2:01:31
  Speaker 2: he says, has to be a film about a song.
• 2:01:33
  Speaker 3: And Dan and I looked at each other and we're like,
• 2:01:35
  Speaker 3: that is the stupidest idea ever. We couldn't say that.
• 2:01:38
  Speaker 3: We just like pushed our remember.
• 2:01:39
  Speaker 4: The other what he said. What he said was talk
• 2:01:43
  Speaker 4: about like bad leftovers. He said it was a notion
• 2:01:48
  Speaker 4: he contemplated to write a book about, not with a
• 2:01:52
  Speaker 4: specific song in mind, but to write a book about
• 2:01:54
  Speaker 4: a song, and thought there's no way it would work.
• 2:01:56
  Speaker 4: And then he's handing it to us to say, wouldn't
• 2:01:58
  Speaker 4: that make a great idea for a film? What if
• 2:02:01
  Speaker 4: we do to deserve this sour idea.
• 2:02:03
  Speaker 2: So we kind of ducked the idea and tried to
• 2:02:05
  Speaker 2: change the subject. And then about ten minutes went by,
• 2:02:07
  Speaker 2: and I guess in my subconscious it was going around
• 2:02:12
  Speaker 2: in my head and I this image of Leonard Cohen
• 2:02:15
  Speaker 2: when we went to see him in concert in Oakland
• 2:02:18
  Speaker 2: on one of his you know, comeback doors, getting onto
• 2:02:25
  Speaker 2: his knees on the stage and singing Hallelujah, and it
• 2:02:28
  Speaker 2: was so profound, and I turned it in and I
• 2:02:30
  Speaker 2: was like, I actually think, I actually think I know
• 2:02:34
  Speaker 2: the song and it could be about Leonard Cohen and Hallelujah.
• 2:02:38
  Speaker 3: And then the next day we got.
• 2:02:40
  Speaker 2: Back, I woke up, I caught out of the shower
• 2:02:43
  Speaker 2: and I like, did google on Leonard Cohen Hallelujah, And
• 2:02:48
  Speaker 2: up came this book written by Alan Light, this music journalist,
• 2:02:52
  Speaker 2: and we kind of looked at each other and we
• 2:02:53
  Speaker 2: were like, well, let's get the book. But if someone
• 2:02:56
  Speaker 2: thinks that if someone could fill two hundred and fifty
• 2:02:58
  Speaker 2: pages in a book about that song and Leonard, there
• 2:03:02
  Speaker 2: must be something.
• 2:03:02
  Speaker 4: But I mean we knew that we wanted it would
• 2:03:05
  Speaker 4: be the mcguffin, that a song that everyone knew, but
• 2:03:09
  Speaker 4: not knew about. I knew about, but didn't really understand
• 2:03:13
  Speaker 4: necessarily would be a good pathway into a movie about
• 2:03:18
  Speaker 4: Leonard's life. And with the conceit was We're going to
• 2:03:20
  Speaker 4: start from the day that he announces he's going to
• 2:03:24
  Speaker 4: be a songwriter. We're going to We're not going to
• 2:03:25
  Speaker 4: cover his child and any depth. We're not going to
• 2:03:29
  Speaker 4: talk about being a poet or a novelist. We're going
• 2:03:30
  Speaker 4: to pick it up from there at age thirty whatever
• 2:03:34
  Speaker 4: unusual to start to become a singer songwriter at that age,
• 2:03:38
  Speaker 4: and so it felt like we could limb a life
• 2:03:44
  Speaker 4: as also we were dealing with a song that evolved
• 2:03:47
  Speaker 4: to reflect Leonard's preoccupations across his life, that kept changing,
• 2:03:51
  Speaker 4: kept changing, even the way literally the way he sang
• 2:03:54
  Speaker 4: it is his register of his voice would change.
• 2:03:56
  Speaker 2: But reading the book and then we reached out to
• 2:03:59
  Speaker 2: Alan and asked if he'd ever been approached by documentarians
• 2:04:04
  Speaker 2: on to turn it into a film, and he said,
• 2:04:06
  Speaker 2: I have actually several and if you want, I can
• 2:04:10
  Speaker 2: tell you the three reasons why they've ultimately decided not
• 2:04:13
  Speaker 2: to do it. And we were like, okay, do tell
• 2:04:16
  Speaker 2: He said, well, Number one, Leonard won't do an interview.
• 2:04:19
  Speaker 2: He's not going to sit down for an interview. So,
• 2:04:22
  Speaker 2: you know, most people walk away after that number two. Ultimately,
• 2:04:27
  Speaker 2: after thinking about it, they would decide it's kind of boring,
• 2:04:31
  Speaker 2: we can't really think about how to make this an
• 2:04:34
  Speaker 2: interesting film that would be future length. And then the
• 2:04:38
  Speaker 2: third one was there's no way in hell that Sony
• 2:04:41
  Speaker 2: Publishing is going to give you the rights to use
• 2:04:43
  Speaker 2: that song in, you know, in a film about it.
• 2:04:47
  Speaker 2: And so Dan and I were like, well, we don't
• 2:04:50
  Speaker 2: think it's boring, and we don't we really believe we
• 2:04:52
  Speaker 2: could do something interesting.
• 2:04:54
  Speaker 3: So that's out, and.
• 2:04:57
  Speaker 2: That's interesting that Leonard won't do do an interview, like
• 2:05:00
  Speaker 2: that'll be an interesting thing to work around and we'll
• 2:05:02
  Speaker 2: find another way to tell the story. The third one,
• 2:05:05
  Speaker 2: which was Sony not publishing not giving us the rights,
• 2:05:07
  Speaker 2: we were like, if that doesn't happen, we really can't
• 2:05:09
  Speaker 2: obviously do the film.
• 2:05:12
  Speaker 3: So Alan.
• 2:05:14
  Speaker 2: He said, well, if you want to pursue it, I'm
• 2:05:16
  Speaker 2: going to give you Leonard and his manager's email, but
• 2:05:20
  Speaker 2: when you write to them, make it very clear you
• 2:05:23
  Speaker 2: don't want to do an interview, and it'll change a lot.
• 2:05:27
  Speaker 4: There's a movie Dana and I find so deeply meaningful
• 2:05:33
  Speaker 4: for creative process, called The Five Obstructions, and it's a
• 2:05:37
  Speaker 4: film that Lars von Truer made about Jorgen Left, who
• 2:05:43
  Speaker 4: was Lars is a mentor hero, another Danish filmmaker who
• 2:05:49
  Speaker 4: at the time it's sort of wiped out and was
• 2:05:51
  Speaker 4: living in Haiti, a desolate and debouched life, and so
• 2:05:57
  Speaker 4: Lars wanted him to come back into making movies again
• 2:06:01
  Speaker 4: and not waste away the rest of his life. And
• 2:06:03
  Speaker 4: Lars is a Sato masochist and set up a situation
• 2:06:06
  Speaker 4: that would enact a Sato massacre.
• 2:06:10
  Speaker 2: I think he's the same.
• 2:06:10
  Speaker 4: Oh yeah, I think he is. I think he's both,
• 2:06:13
  Speaker 4: but so he he in Lars's view, there's a film
• 2:06:20
  Speaker 4: that Jorgen Left made, a short called The Perfect Human
• 2:06:23
  Speaker 4: or Perfect Man Human, Perfect Human. That is a short
• 2:06:26
  Speaker 4: film that it is exquisite, it's it's avant garde. It's
• 2:06:31
  Speaker 4: really cool and so and probably untoppable. So Lars Wontur
• 2:06:36
  Speaker 4: went to jorgan Left and said, I want you to
• 2:06:39
  Speaker 4: remake the film, but I am going to ask you
• 2:06:43
  Speaker 4: to do it by throwing all sorts of obstacles in
• 2:06:46
  Speaker 4: your way. You have to remake it five times with
• 2:06:48
  Speaker 4: different obstacles in the way, and I know you're going
• 2:06:51
  Speaker 4: to fail, and so Jorgan Leth agrees to do it,
• 2:06:54
  Speaker 4: and the obstacles are incredible, and each time he comes
• 2:06:58
  Speaker 4: up with a film that is in its own right amazing.
• 2:07:02
  Speaker 4: And then there are these debriefs in between each attempt,
• 2:07:05
  Speaker 4: and you see parts of film where he then depbriefs
• 2:07:08
  Speaker 4: with Lars Vrontier and this is the massacrest part because
• 2:07:12
  Speaker 4: it's not working out for Lars Vrontier to crush his
• 2:07:18
  Speaker 4: father figure, and it is working out in a way
• 2:07:20
  Speaker 4: that there is a masochistic collapse after each of these
• 2:07:24
  Speaker 4: come back and realizes, oh my god, the guy's watch
• 2:07:26
  Speaker 4: it better than I thought he was.
• 2:07:28
  Speaker 2: It's hard to find. You could probably still find it
• 2:07:30
  Speaker 2: on DVD. It's called The Five Obstructions and we watch it.
• 2:07:34
  Speaker 2: We have a DVD that's been played many times and
• 2:07:36
  Speaker 2: it's so inspiring in terms of the creative process and
• 2:07:40
  Speaker 2: how you can take something that's an obstacle like Leonard
• 2:07:43
  Speaker 2: Cohen not being willing to sit for an interview and
• 2:07:46
  Speaker 2: use that to maybe make a better film.
• 2:07:49
  Speaker 1: Okay, the two of you are a fascinating couple. We've
• 2:07:52
  Speaker 1: been talking here, and you have a great way of
• 2:07:58
  Speaker 1: passing the conversation to another, not interrupting each other. And
• 2:08:04
  Speaker 1: you're together nature of you know, being in the same work.
• 2:08:07
  Speaker 1: You're together all the time. Am I just seeing you
• 2:08:09
  Speaker 1: under the best of circumstances and you are?
• 2:08:13
  Speaker 2: You're not seeing us in the editing room, we argue,
• 2:08:15
  Speaker 2: we are. Oh my god, oh yeah, oh, every film
• 2:08:18
  Speaker 2: in the editing room we go to the brink. It's like,
• 2:08:21
  Speaker 2: is this going to be the one where we're finally
• 2:08:23
  Speaker 2: gonna split? It's so painful And actually we didn't do
• 2:08:27
  Speaker 2: it this time, but for many of our past films
• 2:08:32
  Speaker 2: we gave a credit in the tail credits which was
• 2:08:35
  Speaker 2: not she didn't get a title, but it was to
• 2:08:37
  Speaker 2: our therapist.
• 2:08:38
  Speaker 4: Marriage and family counselor this.
• 2:08:41
  Speaker 1: Is interesting to me. How long have you been seeing
• 2:08:43
  Speaker 1: a marriage and family counsel.
• 2:08:45
  Speaker 3: Well, we don't anymore because she did give us some
• 2:08:47
  Speaker 3: good I mean, there were times in the editing of.
• 2:08:49
  Speaker 4: This one, but across three different films, across three different films. Yeah.
• 2:08:53
  Speaker 2: In fact, sometimes oh, at the behest of our editor,
• 2:08:57
  Speaker 2: like in the Galopicus Affair, our editor had been in
• 2:09:01
  Speaker 2: therapy with his last director who he was also really
• 2:09:05
  Speaker 2: good friends with, and he knew that we were heading
• 2:09:07
  Speaker 2: off to see our therapist, and he said, what do
• 2:09:10
  Speaker 2: you think about having like a group therapy where I
• 2:09:13
  Speaker 2: get to come And we were like okay, and so
• 2:09:18
  Speaker 2: he did.
• 2:09:18
  Speaker 3: And then the editor.
• 2:09:20
  Speaker 2: Went on for like another year, and we were in
• 2:09:22
  Speaker 2: the middle of another crunch where we were getting at
• 2:09:26
  Speaker 2: each other and Bill said, can I come again to
• 2:09:29
  Speaker 2: your therapist? And we were like sure, and he started
• 2:09:32
  Speaker 2: mening and the therapist said, Bill, this is what you
• 2:09:35
  Speaker 2: said a year ago.
• 2:09:36
  Speaker 4: It stopped them, It stopped from like that. He said,
• 2:09:39
  Speaker 4: oh my god, you're right. You're right, you know, and
• 2:09:41
  Speaker 4: sometimes just having that reframing and reflection is so helpful.
• 2:09:46
  Speaker 4: But also so we have a lot of friends and
• 2:09:50
  Speaker 4: we like to go out together with our friends. And
• 2:09:53
  Speaker 4: Dana put it once so beautifully, she said, oh, going
• 2:09:56
  Speaker 4: out this way, you get to see your partner reflected
• 2:09:59
  Speaker 4: in someone else his eyes, and you sort of all
• 2:10:01
  Speaker 4: this other stuff goes away, of the squabbles during the day,
• 2:10:06
  Speaker 4: and and you are I mean, this is uh so
• 2:10:09
  Speaker 4: you are getting our dynamic where you know, I really
• 2:10:13
  Speaker 4: do it. After forty two years together, I absolutely love
• 2:10:16
  Speaker 4: and enjoy being around Dana. It's always interesting to me
• 2:10:19
  Speaker 4: to hear what she has to say.
• 2:10:20
  Speaker 2: Same, it goes both ways.
• 2:10:23
  Speaker 1: Okay, so you finished the film. What did you learn
• 2:10:28
  Speaker 1: making the film about process? What did you learn about
• 2:10:33
  Speaker 1: Peter Rasher that you didn't see going in?
• 2:10:38
  Speaker 4: I think well, we learned pretty quickly that Peter when
• 2:10:43
  Speaker 4: he's not on stage, is very internal and very shy.
• 2:10:49
  Speaker 4: So the guy who is a fabulous storyteller is you know,
• 2:10:54
  Speaker 4: is in his head a lot. He's brilliant, and so
• 2:10:58
  Speaker 4: we started to see it when we would go to
• 2:11:02
  Speaker 4: see was performing at the musical Instrumuseum. We wanted to
• 2:11:04
  Speaker 4: go see what the show was like. That he would
• 2:11:06
  Speaker 4: sign autographs scene it was very awkward, you know. People
• 2:11:09
  Speaker 4: would want to engage him and say how much something
• 2:11:13
  Speaker 4: meant to them. And you can see it a little
• 2:11:15
  Speaker 4: bit in that scene where the rock and roll tour
• 2:11:17
  Speaker 4: bus folks show up unexpectedly and one guy is saying,
• 2:11:22
  Speaker 4: you know, the very first song I've fell in love
• 2:11:24
  Speaker 4: with was to Know You was to Love You, and
• 2:11:26
  Speaker 4: Peter's sort of frozen. They're saying thank you, thank you,
• 2:11:28
  Speaker 4: very much, thank you. He's awkward in those situations, and
• 2:11:32
  Speaker 4: I so I didn't expect that. The other part, for
• 2:11:35
  Speaker 4: me at least is his deepest friendships with comedians like
• 2:11:42
  Speaker 4: Eric Idol, like then Robin Williams, like Steve Martin. It
• 2:11:46
  Speaker 4: brings out something different in him.
• 2:11:49
  Speaker 1: So, Dana, what did you learn from making the film?
• 2:11:53
  Speaker 2: I mean, I would echo with Dan said in that
• 2:11:55
  Speaker 2: it was the first time ever, like I pride myself
• 2:11:58
  Speaker 2: on being a good interviewer, and it was the first
• 2:12:01
  Speaker 2: time ever that I was stimied regularly because you cannot
• 2:12:04
  Speaker 2: ask Peter a how did it feel question? He doesn't
• 2:12:09
  Speaker 2: want to talk about his feelings, so you have to
• 2:12:11
  Speaker 2: find ways around that kind of questioning, which for me
• 2:12:17
  Speaker 2: was really hard.
• 2:12:19
  Speaker 4: What happened? Questions are great, Yeah, no problem.
• 2:12:21
  Speaker 2: There, And you couldn't ask him questions about like that
• 2:12:24
  Speaker 2: had anything to do with chronology. Like I would say,
• 2:12:28
  Speaker 2: were you were you at Westminster when Queen Elizabeth visited?
• 2:12:32
  Speaker 2: And he would go, no, sorry, I said in nineteen
• 2:12:35
  Speaker 2: sixty were you at Westminster? And he would go, I
• 2:12:40
  Speaker 2: don't know, don't ask me about dates. And then I
• 2:12:42
  Speaker 2: would say, well, were you there when Queen Elizabeth visited?
• 2:12:45
  Speaker 2: And he would say yes, of course. So you know,
• 2:12:47
  Speaker 2: it was a process of learning how to bring him out.
• 2:12:52
  Speaker 2: He's a man of very few words, and you can
• 2:12:55
  Speaker 2: kind of see it in the film. And yet so
• 2:12:56
  Speaker 2: his persona on stage is much more low, quiacious and open.
• 2:13:02
  Speaker 2: I think then, you know, like to get especially when
• 2:13:05
  Speaker 2: it was a tough subject like his father committing suicide.
• 2:13:10
  Speaker 1: Okay, you've dealt with a lot of household names. Any
• 2:13:16
  Speaker 1: pinch me moments?
• 2:13:18
  Speaker 4: Hmmm, well, Linda Ronstat to start with. And then that
• 2:13:25
  Speaker 4: was outside of starting the movie, right, that was just
• 2:13:28
  Speaker 4: getting to know her and you can have a brunch
• 2:13:31
  Speaker 4: or cooking dinner or whatever it might be. But that
• 2:13:35
  Speaker 4: was a pinch me moment first, because of course I
• 2:13:37
  Speaker 4: had a huge crush on her.
• 2:13:40
  Speaker 3: You pinch me as in like I can't believe I'm
• 2:13:41
  Speaker 3: sitting here right.
• 2:13:43
  Speaker 4: Yeah, So I mean so Linda, And then I think
• 2:13:46
  Speaker 4: that it would it doubled up because I thought, oh
• 2:13:48
  Speaker 4: my god, she's so interesting and so smart and so
• 2:13:52
  Speaker 4: much wants to talk about other things than music, about politics,
• 2:13:56
  Speaker 4: about life, about books she's read. So there are all
• 2:14:00
  Speaker 4: these other people we met who are wonderful, But that
• 2:14:05
  Speaker 4: truest pinch me moment and it stays with me to
• 2:14:08
  Speaker 4: this day. Every time I see her is like, god,
• 2:14:10
  Speaker 4: I mean, Linda Ron's dead, She's fabulous.
• 2:14:13
  Speaker 2: She mean a friend now, I mean for me. I
• 2:14:15
  Speaker 2: didn't think of it as a pinch me moment, but
• 2:14:17
  Speaker 2: it clearly was because it's the only time this happened.
• 2:14:21
  Speaker 2: So we sat down with James Taylor, and James was
• 2:14:24
  Speaker 2: my first album, you know, it was like sweet Baby James,
• 2:14:27
  Speaker 2: and it was Mudslide Slim, and then of course it
• 2:14:30
  Speaker 2: was Carol King Tapestry and Linda Runstadt. But I thought
• 2:14:33
  Speaker 2: I was totally composed and together, and the interview started
• 2:14:37
  Speaker 2: and I looked down and after five minutes, I hadn't
• 2:14:39
  Speaker 2: turned the my sound on. So thank god we have
• 2:14:43
  Speaker 2: a really good camera mic because the first five minutes
• 2:14:46
  Speaker 2: of that interview, so I must have had one of
• 2:14:48
  Speaker 2: those pinch me moments then.
• 2:14:50
  Speaker 3: I mean, I think also when.
• 2:14:51
  Speaker 2: We were in the room with Peter and Steve Martin,
• 2:14:55
  Speaker 2: it was such a fun to get that to happen
• 2:14:57
  Speaker 2: was really hard. Peter was like, I don't want to
• 2:15:00
  Speaker 2: be there, you know, just interview Steve, and we're like, no, no, no,
• 2:15:03
  Speaker 2: we have enough of those. We think you know, you
• 2:15:05
  Speaker 2: guys are friends. We just think it'll be great. You know,
• 2:15:08
  Speaker 2: we're gonna do it with Eric Idol too, and he
• 2:15:10
  Speaker 2: kind of huffing and puffing said he would do it.
• 2:15:12
  Speaker 2: And then we're like, and we want you to bring
• 2:15:13
  Speaker 2: your guitar, and he was like, no, I'm not going
• 2:15:18
  Speaker 2: to play my guitar. Steve is like a brilliant banjo player,
• 2:15:21
  Speaker 2: and so we kept going back and forth about that,
• 2:15:22
  Speaker 2: and then when he finally showed up with his guitar,
• 2:15:26
  Speaker 2: which he'd put in the trunk just in case, and
• 2:15:29
  Speaker 2: Steve walked in playing the banjo and the two of
• 2:15:31
  Speaker 2: them just started in on these riffs. That was a
• 2:15:36
  Speaker 2: pinch me moment for sure.
• 2:15:38
  Speaker 1: Okay, the obvious question, what's next, Well, it's not another
• 2:15:42
  Speaker 1: music movie.
• 2:15:44
  Speaker 4: It's a it's a it's a subject that we've been
• 2:15:48
  Speaker 4: interested in for quite a few years actually, and in
• 2:15:52
  Speaker 4: this case, there was a book that was written that
• 2:15:56
  Speaker 4: was tied up for an option for a fiction at
• 2:16:00
  Speaker 4: adaptation that we sort of kept trying to feel out about,
• 2:16:05
  Speaker 4: and then it fell out and we grabbed it, and
• 2:16:09
  Speaker 4: it's about there were three Silent era film directors who
• 2:16:15
  Speaker 4: really ran the roost to run in many ways as
• 2:16:17
  Speaker 4: the three most important directors at that time. Huge output
• 2:16:22
  Speaker 4: in nineteen twenty nineteen. It was Cecil B. Demil, and
• 2:16:25
  Speaker 4: it was d W. Griffith. And then there's the third
• 2:16:27
  Speaker 4: guy that most people had never heard of because he
• 2:16:30
  Speaker 4: was found shot dead in his garden apartment in the
• 2:16:31
  Speaker 4: prime of his career, William Desmond Taylor. And it's a movie,
• 2:16:35
  Speaker 4: a documentary that we're basically going to make. It'll have
• 2:16:40
  Speaker 4: voices of people, actors portraying, but it's all going to
• 2:16:45
  Speaker 4: be made out of silent era footage that we are
• 2:16:50
  Speaker 4: getting out of archives that we were restoring, and a portrait.
• 2:16:56
  Speaker 4: It's the mcguffin again that the murder, mystery and the
• 2:16:58
  Speaker 4: circumstances around are fascinating, but it's also really a portrait
• 2:17:03
  Speaker 4: of Hollywood in that moment when this new technology movies
• 2:17:06
  Speaker 4: were threatening the status quo culture, Hollywood, free code, Hollywood,
• 2:17:11
  Speaker 4: that there was a big drug under culture, there were
• 2:17:14
  Speaker 4: scandals abounding, and it was it was hot. It was
• 2:17:19
  Speaker 4: Babylon at that moment.
• 2:17:20
  Speaker 2: But tos like if you see If You Saw Babylon,
• 2:17:23
  Speaker 2: that is very much the era that we're going to
• 2:17:26
  Speaker 2: try to capture. It's going to be scary because we're
• 2:17:28
  Speaker 2: trying to do it with all archival materials and.
• 2:17:33
  Speaker 3: Hopefully we'll be able to pull it off.
• 2:17:35
  Speaker 2: It's a little bit of a throwback to the GALOPICUS affair,
• 2:17:38
  Speaker 2: but we just fell in love with the Tinseltown Unsolved
• 2:17:42
  Speaker 2: murderer of William Desmond Taylor. And in fact, it was
• 2:17:47
  Speaker 2: kind of the same as Alan Light. Like we reached
• 2:17:49
  Speaker 2: out to him on Facebook and said, has anyone ever approached.
• 2:17:52
  Speaker 4: You William Mann?
• 2:17:53
  Speaker 3: The writer William Mann?
• 2:17:55
  Speaker 2: And this was back in twenty fourteen, right after our
• 2:17:57
  Speaker 2: GALOPICUS film came out. Someone told us about the story
• 2:18:01
  Speaker 2: and he said, yes, they have, and in fact, it's
• 2:18:03
  Speaker 2: already been optioned. It's going to be a fiction series
• 2:18:07
  Speaker 2: and we're just writing the script and shopping it now.
• 2:18:10
  Speaker 2: But Dan and I knew that often those things don't
• 2:18:13
  Speaker 2: actually come to fruition, So every year or two we
• 2:18:18
  Speaker 2: would just reach out to will Man and say, what's happening,
• 2:18:22
  Speaker 2: just kind of like with this project and Linda and Peter,
• 2:18:26
  Speaker 2: And finally it dropped out of out of option and
• 2:18:30
  Speaker 2: we kind of jumped on it and convinced him that
• 2:18:33
  Speaker 2: he should work with two documentary filmmakers.
• 2:18:36
  Speaker 1: Okay, we're talking with Dana Goldfind and Dan Geller about
• 2:18:40
  Speaker 1: their movie Peter Rasher Everywhere Man, and I know Peter
• 2:18:43
  Speaker 1: pretty well and I really followed this era. But there's
• 2:18:46
  Speaker 1: some great things in this film. Even if you're the
• 2:18:48
  Speaker 1: most hardcore fan, you make Kate Taylor come alive. You
• 2:18:53
  Speaker 1: do a great job of painting that era between Carol
• 2:18:59
  Speaker 1: King's first solo album writer, when she's on the road
• 2:19:03
  Speaker 1: with James and she flowers. Then of course the archivel footage.
• 2:19:09
  Speaker 1: It's really even for the most hardcore fan, you're going
• 2:19:13
  Speaker 1: to see and learn new things. So, Dana and Dan,
• 2:19:17
  Speaker 1: I want to thank you so much for taking this
• 2:19:18
  Speaker 1: time with my audience.
• 2:19:20
  Speaker 4: Bob, it's a pleasure. You are a great interviewer.
• 2:19:23
  Speaker 3: I really I've been.
• 2:19:24
  Speaker 4: I've been taking talking with you.
• 2:19:26
  Speaker 2: I'm using some of your tactics next time we sit
• 2:19:28
  Speaker 2: down with a subject.
• 2:19:29
  Speaker 1: Well, I will say one more thing. I was going
• 2:19:31
  Speaker 1: to say this off Mike. I'm going to say, it's
• 2:19:33
  Speaker 1: such a pleasure to speak with intelligent, articulate people that
• 2:19:40
  Speaker 1: is not you know, Derek, that may know that may
• 2:19:45
  Speaker 1: be even for you, that may be your friend group, etc.
• 2:19:49
  Speaker 1: I mean, it's palpable and take it as a compliment
• 2:19:53
  Speaker 1: because that's how I mean it.
• 2:19:55
  Speaker 3: Thank you, thanks much, and right back at you, Yes.
• 2:19:57
  Speaker 1: Thanks a lot. Till next time. Is Bob left set