Latest / Indie Film Hustle® - A Filmmaking Podcast / IFH 798: From Pills to Pictures: Cynthia Hill's Unlikely Path to Documentary Filmmaking

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IFH 798: From Pills to Pictures: Cynthia Hill's Unlikely Path to Documentary Filmmaking · Indie Film Hustle® - A Filmmaking Podcast

• 0:03
  Speaker 1: You are listening to the ifh podcast Network. For more
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  Speaker 1: amazing filmmaking and screenwriting podcasts, just go to ifhpodcastnetwork dot com.
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  Speaker 2: Welcome to the Indie Film Muscle Podcast, Episode number seven
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  Speaker 2: ninety eight, Cinema Should Make You Forget You're sitting in
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  Speaker 2: a theater, Roman Polanski.
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  Speaker 1: Broadcasting from the back alley in Hollywood. It's the Indie
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  Speaker 1: Film Hustle Podcast, where we show you how to survive
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  Speaker 1: and thrive as an indie filmmaker in the jungles of
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  Speaker 1: the film biz.
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  Speaker 3: And here's your host, Alex Ferrari.
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  Speaker 2: Welcome, Welcome to another episode of the Indie Film Huscle Podcast.
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  Speaker 3: I am your humble host, Alex Ferrari.
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  Speaker 4: Today's show is sponsored by Rise of the Film Entrepreneur
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  Speaker 4: How to turn your independent film into a profitable business.
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• 1:50
  Speaker 4: today's episode with guest host Dave bullis So on.
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  Speaker 5: This week's episode of the podcast, My Next Guest is
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  Speaker 5: a filmmaker from North Carolina. Her TV series A Chef's
• 2:01
  Speaker 5: Life is now in its fifth season. The HPO documentary
• 2:05
  Speaker 5: Private Violence and PBS documentary Tobacco Money Feeds My Family.
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  Speaker 3: Are just two of the credits to under her belt.
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  Speaker 5: Her current project is an eight part docu series Road
• 2:18
  Speaker 5: to Race Day, which follows Hendrick's motorsports.
• 2:20
  Speaker 3: The most winning team in.
• 2:22
  Speaker 5: Professional stock car history, and it's all going to be
• 2:25
  Speaker 5: about this twenty seventeen NASCAR season.
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  Speaker 3: And she also teamed.
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  Speaker 5: Up with Peter Berg's film forty five to sell this
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  Speaker 5: thing to Complex Networks.
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  Speaker 3: Which is unbelievable.
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  Speaker 5: We're going to talk all about how she did all
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  Speaker 5: that good stuff with guests.
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  Speaker 3: Cynthia Hill.
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  Speaker 6: It's easy to access the equipment. There's not that hurdle
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  Speaker 6: of it just being too expensive for people to access.
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  Speaker 6: I mean, you can shoot a film on your iPhone now,
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  Speaker 6: so if you really have a story to tell, you
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  Speaker 6: can pretty much tell it no matter what your socioeconomic
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  Speaker 6: situation is, which means that there are a lot more
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  Speaker 6: people out there telling stories. And again it's still trying
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  Speaker 6: to get the stories out there that I think probably
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  Speaker 6: is the biggest hurdle. Not necessarily making it, but getting
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  Speaker 6: in out there take the masses still becomes a bit
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  Speaker 6: of a hurdle.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, very very true. And that's something also we
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  Speaker 3: touch upon the podcast.
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  Speaker 5: But you know, before you and I talk about, you know,
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  Speaker 5: distribution stuff like that, which I'm actually very interested in
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  Speaker 5: hearing your point of view with I wanted to ask,
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  Speaker 5: you know, Cynthia how you got involved in the film industry,
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  Speaker 5: you know, So the question I have to start with
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  Speaker 5: is did you go to film school, Cynthia.
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  Speaker 6: I did not go to the film school. I went
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  Speaker 6: to pharmacy school. So the natural logical transition or the
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  Speaker 6: next path from pharmacy school is filmmaking right now. It's
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  Speaker 6: you know, I grew up in a really remote area
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  Speaker 6: of eastern North Carolina, you know, agricultural based economy, and
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  Speaker 6: the thing that you would do if you went to
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  Speaker 6: college is you would for a woman in particular, as
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  Speaker 6: you would do nursing or teaching. So me, even going
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  Speaker 6: into pharmacy school was kind of risky.
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  Speaker 1: And.
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  Speaker 6: I really didn't know what I wanted to do, to
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  Speaker 6: be honest with you, I didn't have a particular calling.
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  Speaker 6: But I knew that the pharmacist in town made the
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  Speaker 6: most money, or seemed to make the most money, and
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  Speaker 6: so I thought that at least he had one of
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  Speaker 6: the biggest houses. So I thought, you know, if that's
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  Speaker 6: that was going to be my profession. And then when
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  Speaker 6: you look at the starting salaries of undergraduate degrees, especially
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  Speaker 6: when I was going in the late eighties, the pharmacist
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  Speaker 6: was number one, and so I just was ready to
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  Speaker 6: get out of a poor town and make some money.
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  Speaker 6: And so I was going to be a pharmacist. But
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  Speaker 6: that was not what was in store for me.
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  Speaker 5: You know, you mentioned about the link between pharmacists and filmmaker,
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  Speaker 5: and I was, and you know what, I can actually
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  Speaker 5: see it, you know, because you know, I've known some
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  Speaker 5: people who've gone in the in the midfield and they've
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  Speaker 5: gone right into filmmaking. I actually had a friend of
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  Speaker 5: mine who was a spinal surgeon, and he was in
• 5:13
  Speaker 5: the morning before surgery. He sat at his kitchen table
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  Speaker 5: and he was writing a TV pilot and.
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  Speaker 6: Basically, yeah, it's surprising that right brain left brain kind
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  Speaker 6: of thing. And the healthcare profession I think is more
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  Speaker 6: maybe artistic then we we know, or at least maybe
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  Speaker 6: some of the folks that are in it maybe so
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  Speaker 6: I don't know, but for me, it was definitely a
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  Speaker 6: strange kind of diversion when it happened. But I wasn't
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  Speaker 6: I wasn't necessarily the best pharmacy student. I wasn't necessarily engaged,
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  Speaker 6: but you know, I was, you know, out there I
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  Speaker 6: was looking for something and I met these folks working
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  Speaker 6: on this TV show. They were traveling to Chapel Hill.
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  Speaker 6: I went to UNC Chapel Hill and they were doing
• 6:05
  Speaker 6: this accident reconstruction show that was that type of show
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  Speaker 6: that was really popular in the early nineties, and it
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  Speaker 6: just seems so fascinating and way more fascinating than being
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  Speaker 6: in a pharmacy counting pills all day long. So I thought,
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  Speaker 6: you know, I'm gonna hang out with these people. And
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  Speaker 6: I ended up going out to LA because I made
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  Speaker 6: some good friends and spending some time in LA and
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  Speaker 6: I would just hang out with these people. And storytelling
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  Speaker 6: was not necessarily something that I thought that I was
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  Speaker 6: good at, because I was not a good writer. But
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  Speaker 6: if you're in the South, storytelling is just ingrained in
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  Speaker 6: you because you hear your grandmama, your granddaddy, everybody tells stories,
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  Speaker 6: and so you're just it's just a part of who
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  Speaker 6: you are. And so I had this knack for telling
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  Speaker 6: stories that I did not know was there because I
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  Speaker 6: was just driven into math and science because I was
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  Speaker 6: obviously good at those things. And I found this whole
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  Speaker 6: world that really was intriguing. And I came back to
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  Speaker 6: pharmacy school the next year and for every project I
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  Speaker 6: could possibly do, papers presentations. I would make videos for
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  Speaker 6: it instead of actually doing the thing I was supposed
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  Speaker 6: to do. And for my rotation when I was working
• 7:22
  Speaker 6: in different locations, like I had a retail rotation, and
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  Speaker 6: instead of doing a paper, which you were supposed to do,
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  Speaker 6: I made two commercials for the pharmacy for a local cable.
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  Speaker 6: So I found my niche in pharmacy school in this
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  Speaker 6: really strange sort of way. And the dean of the
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  Speaker 6: pharmacy school called me aside and was like, Cynthia, you're
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  Speaker 6: not exactly the best pharmacy student, but you got something,
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  Speaker 6: you got some talent here, and I want to try
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  Speaker 6: to help you. And so he encouraged me to go
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  Speaker 6: to graduate school at Auburn University in the pharmacy administration department,
• 8:01
  Speaker 6: which sounds like another kind of strange thing, but they
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  Speaker 6: had a production studio in the graduate school there, and
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  Speaker 6: any communications department would have salivated at the equipment that
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  Speaker 6: we had access to. But because we had access to
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  Speaker 6: pharmaceutical money, we had all this equipment and they were
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  Speaker 6: doing this health education media and they were one of
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  Speaker 6: the first schools, especially pharmacy school, that was getting into
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  Speaker 6: interactive healthcare. And so I found a surprising home there
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  Speaker 6: and another sort of entree into deeper into the television world.
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  Speaker 6: And I did this study with Primetime Live in New
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  Speaker 6: York City, where we as the Pharmacy School, took the
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  Speaker 6: study component of medication dispensing errors and we helped Primetime
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  Speaker 6: Live do an undercover report on pharmacist making dispensing mistake.
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  Speaker 6: And so I flew up to New York and spent
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  Speaker 6: a lot of time up there, and I became the
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  Speaker 6: undercover shopper because I could control the medication and I
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  Speaker 6: became a part of that study. And then after that
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  Speaker 6: I was just really completely just spoiled. I was not
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  Speaker 6: going to end up in a pharmacy counting pills after that.
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  Speaker 6: So then I had to figure out how to become
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  Speaker 6: a filmmaker.
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  Speaker 5: I was going to ask you, when you were the
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  Speaker 5: mystery shopper if you had like a hidden camera somewhere
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  Speaker 5: or something.
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  Speaker 6: I had somebody that was behind me with a camera.
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  Speaker 6: I was mind. And then I had my companion had
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  Speaker 6: a camera in his wig or in his hat, depending
• 9:37
  Speaker 6: on what set up we were using that day. So
• 9:41
  Speaker 6: it was this little girl from this rural town in
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  Speaker 6: eastern North Carolina was not in eastern North Carolina anymore.
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  Speaker 6: It was rather funny.
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  Speaker 5: I imagine there's hard copy or there's twenty twenty things
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  Speaker 5: where they would have those hidden cameras.
• 9:59
  Speaker 4: Will be right back after a word from our sponsor
• 10:05
  Speaker 4: and now back to the show.
• 10:08
  Speaker 5: And uh, you know, and again that that's sort of
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  Speaker 5: like now how everything's changed. You know, cameras have become
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  Speaker 5: so miniaturized. You know, you can have your phone out
• 10:17
  Speaker 5: and that's a camera. You have these little spy cameras
• 10:20
  Speaker 5: that I see sometimes online. Uh you know, I imagine when
• 10:23
  Speaker 5: you when you shot that was it? When was it
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  Speaker 5: one of those big sort of like mini DV cameras
• 10:28
  Speaker 5: or or something or something different.
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  Speaker 6: Well, it had a big pack, so you had a backpack,
• 10:33
  Speaker 6: but the lens like he was able to bring it
• 10:36
  Speaker 6: up into his wig or his hat, so it was
• 10:39
  Speaker 6: easier to hide. But it was definitely a much larger
• 10:44
  Speaker 6: rig than what you would find today.
• 10:48
  Speaker 5: So and you know that that's where I imagine there
• 10:50
  Speaker 5: had to be a lot of like creativity, a lot
• 10:52
  Speaker 5: of ingenuity to hide that, you know what I mean?
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  Speaker 6: So, uh, yeah, for sure.
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  Speaker 5: So when you were talking about storytelling, just to sort
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  Speaker 5: of take a step back, I mean, you were talking
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  Speaker 5: about growing up and in the South, and and you
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  Speaker 5: uh and you were you heard stories from you know,
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  Speaker 5: your your grandmother. What were some of the things that
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  Speaker 5: you like really stuck out with you, like in terms
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  Speaker 5: of story I mean, was it was it maybe how
• 11:15
  Speaker 5: the person was telling it, or maybe what was it
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  Speaker 5: some of the characters involved. I mean, because I imagine
• 11:20
  Speaker 5: a lot of that is what really sort of molded
• 11:23
  Speaker 5: your uh, your way of storytelling, that that that you
• 11:27
  Speaker 5: for when you make your own projects.
• 11:29
  Speaker 6: Yeah, it's definitely. There are a lot of characters in
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  Speaker 6: the South, so I gravitate to eccentric personalities. I think too,
• 11:37
  Speaker 6: It's that's one thing that you know, being in the South,
• 11:40
  Speaker 6: you're never short of somebody who's really interesting. You know,
• 11:44
  Speaker 6: they're all around you. And I think too, like my
• 11:51
  Speaker 6: my grandma's brother, uncle James, he was always good for stories,
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  Speaker 6: and they're always long and elaborate, and I think I
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  Speaker 6: maybe in here a bit of that and it takes
• 12:02
  Speaker 6: you a while to get to the point, but they're
• 12:05
  Speaker 6: always really good stories. And I have sort of this
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  Speaker 6: this problem of ending stories. My first film that I made,
• 12:16
  Speaker 6: one of my favorite compliments, I guess you could say
• 12:22
  Speaker 6: is from Da Pennebaker. He said he was using it
• 12:24
  Speaker 6: in his classroom. But he's like, it's a really good
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  Speaker 6: film with all of its three endings. So it's like, yeah,
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  Speaker 6: I know what you're saying. So actually ending something is
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  Speaker 6: difficult for me, you know, wrapping it up and coming
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  Speaker 6: to a close, you know, because there's always something else
• 12:46
  Speaker 6: you can say that, you know, you helps make your point.
• 12:50
  Speaker 6: So trying to get it all in there has been
• 12:54
  Speaker 6: a challenge for me and something that has taken me
• 12:56
  Speaker 6: a while to perfect, which I still have. But you know,
• 13:00
  Speaker 6: being able to concisely tell a story without rambling on
• 13:05
  Speaker 6: is a bit difficult for Southerners.
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  Speaker 5: No, No, I think that's fine, Cynthia. I mean did
• 13:12
  Speaker 5: you see Lord of the Rings, Return of the King.
• 13:14
  Speaker 5: I mean that had a lot that had like seven
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  Speaker 5: different endings, you know that.
• 13:17
  Speaker 6: Just no. I remember being to the best of them
• 13:22
  Speaker 6: with my endings, my multiple endings.
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  Speaker 5: I remember being in the theater with that movie and
• 13:28
  Speaker 5: people were like, oh is that it? Oh no, there's more,
• 13:30
  Speaker 5: and then they kept getting up and down. I was
• 13:33
  Speaker 5: that was like, either either there was something that this
• 13:36
  Speaker 5: was a unique way of storytelling or Peter Jackson was
• 13:39
  Speaker 5: just trolling everybody, you know.
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  Speaker 3: But but you know.
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  Speaker 6: Where he is in his career. I mean, he can
• 13:45
  Speaker 6: keep going if he's got something else to say. So
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  Speaker 6: I think that that's kind of it too. You know,
• 13:50
  Speaker 6: you have the luxury at certain at a certain point
• 13:53
  Speaker 6: where you know you can keep telling the story you
• 13:55
  Speaker 6: want to tell. But I didn't that with my first film,
• 13:59
  Speaker 6: even though I thought I did, so yeah, yeah.
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  Speaker 5: And I want to, you know, get into into talking
• 14:07
  Speaker 5: about all your films too, And I just want to
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  Speaker 5: touch one more thing about storytelling, you know, because I
• 14:12
  Speaker 5: love hearing like all the different unique point of views
• 14:14
  Speaker 5: and everything about storytelling. And you know, there was a
• 14:17
  Speaker 5: movie that was out recently I didn't see. I think
• 14:20
  Speaker 5: it was maybe out a year or two ago, called
• 14:21
  Speaker 5: Blue Ruin, and the tagline really stuck out to me
• 14:25
  Speaker 5: because I think it was it was something along the
• 14:26
  Speaker 5: lines of a Southern revenge tale or the Southern Gothic
• 14:30
  Speaker 5: revenge tale. And I sort of kind of, you know,
• 14:32
  Speaker 5: stuck with me because I started to see a couple
• 14:35
  Speaker 5: of the articles you know about the the how the
• 14:37
  Speaker 5: the Southern revenge tale is kind of different and and basically,
• 14:41
  Speaker 5: you know, as we tell stories, you know, you know,
• 14:44
  Speaker 5: you tell me it's story, I tell you a story.
• 14:46
  Speaker 5: There there's all different components to them, and usually a
• 14:49
  Speaker 5: story is to reveal a transformation. You know, usually there's
• 14:53
  Speaker 5: you know something inside uh, you know, of the of
• 14:56
  Speaker 5: the society, of the culture that the the of ideals
• 14:59
  Speaker 5: that they true or ideals that they really value. So
• 15:03
  Speaker 5: you know, and it's different too because you know, for people,
• 15:07
  Speaker 5: you know, I have a lot of listeners who aren't
• 15:09
  Speaker 5: from America and they still don't understand. You know, America
• 15:12
  Speaker 5: is huge. I mean, this country is absolutely huge, and
• 15:14
  Speaker 5: we have so many different you know, different regions. You
• 15:18
  Speaker 5: have the East Coast, you have the West Coast, you
• 15:20
  Speaker 5: have the Midwest, you have you know, the Northeast, you
• 15:22
  Speaker 5: have this, you have the South, and I mean all
• 15:25
  Speaker 5: of these different ways of.
• 15:26
  Speaker 3: Telling stories and you know, all these unique points of view.
• 15:29
  Speaker 5: So you know, Cynthia, when when you take your movies out,
• 15:33
  Speaker 5: do you notice that, you know, you tell the you
• 15:35
  Speaker 5: know different, do you notice that maybe your stories have
• 15:38
  Speaker 5: that that sort of like unique vantage point.
• 15:42
  Speaker 3: But it's something that's sort of there's like a parallel.
• 15:44
  Speaker 5: That can be drawn through all all through all different
• 15:46
  Speaker 5: types of regions and stuff like that.
• 15:48
  Speaker 6: Yeah, I don't know. I mean, I've never really looked
• 15:51
  Speaker 6: at it that way. I do feel very much like
• 15:52
  Speaker 6: it is southern, But what does southern mean? You know?
• 15:55
  Speaker 6: I think for me, and when it comes to storytelling,
• 15:59
  Speaker 6: it's about character. It's about character, and it's also about
• 16:03
  Speaker 6: the small moments. And you know, I when I am
• 16:08
  Speaker 6: in the field, in working in the documentary medium, it's
• 16:13
  Speaker 6: you know, I don't necessarily have a set agenda. You know,
• 16:17
  Speaker 6: you go out to if you've got something that you know,
• 16:22
  Speaker 6: you're making a film about a certain topic or whatever,
• 16:25
  Speaker 6: You've got some agenda. You kind of know what world
• 16:29
  Speaker 6: you're entering. But I like to be fluid in wait
• 16:33
  Speaker 6: for things to happen and for characters to reveal themselves,
• 16:37
  Speaker 6: and moments that let the characters become human just happen
• 16:41
  Speaker 6: and unfold. And so I spend a lot of time
• 16:45
  Speaker 6: with nothing happening, waiting for those moments to happen. And
• 16:49
  Speaker 6: a lot of what I say, especially when I work
• 16:52
  Speaker 6: with new editors, is that what ends up on the
• 16:55
  Speaker 6: screen with me a lot of the time are things
• 16:58
  Speaker 6: that other I feel like other filmmakers or maybe other editors,
• 17:03
  Speaker 6: especially like in older kinds of TV Dot formats where
• 17:09
  Speaker 6: that stuff would end up on the editing room floor typically,
• 17:12
  Speaker 6: But I like those moments that are subtle, that take
• 17:15
  Speaker 6: the audience a little bit more time tay. You know,
• 17:18
  Speaker 6: you've got to pay closer attention to them and those
• 17:21
  Speaker 6: things that are going to build so that by the
• 17:23
  Speaker 6: time I make my point, I have teased it out
• 17:27
  Speaker 6: a long time, and so that it becomes even more
• 17:31
  Speaker 6: meaningful to the audience by the time you see that revealed.
• 17:35
  Speaker 6: And so that's what I'm doing when I'm in the
• 17:38
  Speaker 6: field a lot is just waiting for those moments. And
• 17:42
  Speaker 6: when you're you're with me and I work with new
• 17:44
  Speaker 6: folks in the field, they think I'm not doing anything
• 17:47
  Speaker 6: because I look like I'm not doing anything, But I'm
• 17:50
  Speaker 6: listening and I'm playing, paying close attention and waiting for
• 17:54
  Speaker 6: that moment. And usually that moment happens when everybody kind
• 17:58
  Speaker 6: of lets their guard down. Maybe you know, the moment
• 18:02
  Speaker 6: after another moment is usually the moment that I'm after.
• 18:06
  Speaker 6: So it's kind of it's hard to explain, but when
• 18:11
  Speaker 6: you add all those things together, it just really helps
• 18:15
  Speaker 6: with you know, it helps with the really building who
• 18:22
  Speaker 6: those characters are. That you're with and those narratives because
• 18:26
  Speaker 6: those small moments, I feel like are they're really the
• 18:28
  Speaker 6: important things that are happening.
• 18:31
  Speaker 5: Oh and I see exactly what you mean too. It's
• 18:33
  Speaker 5: like a slow burn, you know, and rather than sort
• 18:35
  Speaker 5: of like the fast paced sort of MTV style of
• 18:38
  Speaker 5: sort of editing or you know, and honestly I've seen
• 18:41
  Speaker 5: you know, that's good to have because I don't ever
• 18:45
  Speaker 5: want to see where filmmaking or anything becomes homogenized where
• 18:48
  Speaker 5: everybody shoots and edits and et cetera the same way.
• 18:51
  Speaker 5: And you know, just just as we get started talking
• 18:53
  Speaker 5: about your career, Cynthia, you know, you mentioned how do
• 18:55
  Speaker 5: you go from pharmacist to filmmaker? So you know what
• 18:59
  Speaker 5: was what was this step that you took so that
• 19:01
  Speaker 5: way you said, Look, I'm not going to do pharmacy
• 19:03
  Speaker 5: tech work anymore. I'm going to do filmmaking full time.
• 19:06
  Speaker 5: So you know what was that step that you took?
• 19:10
  Speaker 6: Well, until this year, I still was employed by Walmart
• 19:14
  Speaker 6: as a pharmacist, so I was canned unceremoniously as of late.
• 19:22
  Speaker 6: I'd only worked two days, so it was it was coming.
• 19:26
  Speaker 6: But it's I and just not that I have it.
• 19:31
  Speaker 6: I apologize up front. I have a tendency to answer
• 19:34
  Speaker 6: the question that I want to answer, So I'm going
• 19:38
  Speaker 6: going to backstep just a little bit. Pharmacy to me
• 19:41
  Speaker 6: gave me permission to experiment. It gave me that solid
• 19:46
  Speaker 6: foundation and that financial security that I needed to take risks.
• 19:55
  Speaker 4: We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor,
• 20:01
  Speaker 4: and now back to the show.
• 20:04
  Speaker 6: And so I knew I could always go and work
• 20:06
  Speaker 6: as a pharmacist. So it allowed me to not go
• 20:10
  Speaker 6: and have to work on other people's projects if I
• 20:12
  Speaker 6: didn't want to. You know, I wasn't out there using
• 20:15
  Speaker 6: that creative side of my brain to you know, do
• 20:19
  Speaker 6: ad work or you know, do something that I that
• 20:23
  Speaker 6: wasn't coming from inside of me in that medium, So
• 20:25
  Speaker 6: I could devote all of that energy to working on
• 20:29
  Speaker 6: what I wanted to work on. So that's what I've
• 20:31
  Speaker 6: always done. And it's also I mean, it's it's been
• 20:34
  Speaker 6: really great for me because I have a very distinctive
• 20:37
  Speaker 6: style and you would you know when you see something
• 20:41
  Speaker 6: that I work on. But the downfall is that I
• 20:46
  Speaker 6: do create my stuff kind of in a vacuum, and
• 20:50
  Speaker 6: I don't have a lot of mentors and stuff like that,
• 20:52
  Speaker 6: because I've never worked for anybody else. I've always just
• 20:55
  Speaker 6: done what I wanted to do. But when I first
• 20:58
  Speaker 6: started out, you know, I had this one story that
• 21:02
  Speaker 6: was burning inside of me that I knew I had
• 21:05
  Speaker 6: to tell, and that was the story of tobacco farming
• 21:08
  Speaker 6: and growing up in the South and in this region
• 21:11
  Speaker 6: of the country. Tobacco was the one crop that small
• 21:16
  Speaker 6: farmers and families could rely on. And yes, it kills people,
• 21:20
  Speaker 6: but it also sent a lot of us to college
• 21:23
  Speaker 6: and created opportunities that would not have otherwise existed, and
• 21:29
  Speaker 6: also kept small farms intact in the South when when
• 21:33
  Speaker 6: it was no longer possible or viable with other commodities.
• 21:38
  Speaker 6: So I had this this strange relationship with this crop
• 21:45
  Speaker 6: that kills people, but it also is something that I
• 21:51
  Speaker 6: had a lot of fondness for. You know, it was
• 21:56
  Speaker 6: a lot of memories with the family working and it
• 21:59
  Speaker 6: was very much a family kind of business and operation
• 22:03
  Speaker 6: where we would we would help each other, you know,
• 22:06
  Speaker 6: harvest the crop every summer. And that's what I did
• 22:08
  Speaker 6: up until I went to college. And so I knew
• 22:12
  Speaker 6: that that was a story I wanted to tell because
• 22:14
  Speaker 6: I could see the demise of that small family farm
• 22:18
  Speaker 6: happening in front of my eyes, and I had to
• 22:21
  Speaker 6: tell that story. And so when I first started out,
• 22:24
  Speaker 6: it was like, I'm just going to tell this story.
• 22:26
  Speaker 6: I didn't consider myself an artist or a filmmaker. I
• 22:30
  Speaker 6: just knew I was going to do that. So I
• 22:32
  Speaker 6: was going to raise ten thousand dollars and film for
• 22:35
  Speaker 6: one season and that was going to be my film.
• 22:40
  Speaker 6: But instead I filmed for over three years and raised
• 22:44
  Speaker 6: over one hundred thousand dollars, and it took me another
• 22:47
  Speaker 6: two years to edit the film to make my first film,
• 22:51
  Speaker 6: and I still couldn't call myself a filmmaker after that.
• 22:54
  Speaker 6: I didn't have enough confidence in myself. But that began
• 22:59
  Speaker 6: my path. And each time I start a film, I
• 23:01
  Speaker 6: swear I'm going to make it in less than five years.
• 23:04
  Speaker 6: But I still have a hard time making a film
• 23:06
  Speaker 6: in less than five years.
• 23:08
  Speaker 7: So maybe one day, Well, so let me ask you
• 23:13
  Speaker 7: said that when you decided to raise that money, you
• 23:16
  Speaker 7: know that that's sort of like the million dollar question.
• 23:19
  Speaker 5: No plun intended for a lot of filmmakers, is they
• 23:22
  Speaker 5: always say, you know, what steps do you go to
• 23:24
  Speaker 5: raise funds? Some people say it's crowdfunding. Some people say
• 23:27
  Speaker 5: it's private equity. So you know, what what methods did
• 23:30
  Speaker 5: you use to to to sort of, you know, raise
• 23:33
  Speaker 5: these funds to help make your documentary.
• 23:36
  Speaker 6: Yeah, for this one, it was all foundation money. And
• 23:41
  Speaker 6: the first two grant proposals I sent out were funded,
• 23:46
  Speaker 6: which is completely unheard of. I had already shot some
• 23:51
  Speaker 6: so I had something to show, you know, So I
• 23:54
  Speaker 6: was I was able to show proof of concept and
• 23:57
  Speaker 6: what I was trying to do. But if I had
• 24:01
  Speaker 6: not have had that kind of success out of the gate,
• 24:04
  Speaker 6: I probably wouldn't have continued because it would have been
• 24:06
  Speaker 6: just too depressing. But then after those first two, I
• 24:10
  Speaker 6: probably probably the next twenty five were not funded. So
• 24:15
  Speaker 6: you know, it was really one of those things where
• 24:20
  Speaker 6: it's it's so difficult and there's no magic answer to it.
• 24:25
  Speaker 6: You know, there's one of those. If it's a social
• 24:27
  Speaker 6: issue film, you know, you can try the foundation route.
• 24:31
  Speaker 6: If it's you know, you can try the crowdfunding route.
• 24:35
  Speaker 6: And I've done that twice now and I never want
• 24:37
  Speaker 6: to do that again. It says it's a special kind
• 24:40
  Speaker 6: of torture crowdfunding, or at least the process of actually,
• 24:45
  Speaker 6: you know, during the campaign is torture, and then it's
• 24:49
  Speaker 6: even more torture when you have to fulfill all this
• 24:51
  Speaker 6: bullshit that you've promised people during your crowdfunding campaign. You
• 24:57
  Speaker 6: actually have to make good on all these promises. So
• 25:01
  Speaker 6: it's really, you know, there's no magic answer. The equity thing.
• 25:05
  Speaker 6: I still have a hard time with that. I've had
• 25:09
  Speaker 6: this one really amazing woman who's been trying to give
• 25:12
  Speaker 6: me money for this project that I'm currently working on,
• 25:15
  Speaker 6: and I don't don't. I don't know how I feel
• 25:18
  Speaker 6: about that, because you know, once you have somebody that's
• 25:21
  Speaker 6: invested in you, then it's like you feel like you
• 25:23
  Speaker 6: got to make money, and too you feel like you
• 25:26
  Speaker 6: got somebody looking over your shoulder. And so I'm contemplating
• 25:30
  Speaker 6: that now. You know, I'm to a point in my
• 25:32
  Speaker 6: career that I need to be able to do that.
• 25:35
  Speaker 6: You know, this last project that we're the I have
• 25:39
  Speaker 6: a development deal with HBO and some development money from
• 25:43
  Speaker 6: sun Dance for it, but I need to be able
• 25:46
  Speaker 6: to have some additional funds in place before I can
• 25:50
  Speaker 6: go back to try to show what the project really is.
• 25:54
  Speaker 6: And so what do I do in the meantime, because
• 25:56
  Speaker 6: it's not really a social issue film that I can
• 25:58
  Speaker 6: go out and do the foundation out again. So I'm
• 26:01
  Speaker 6: sitting here thinking I really need to call that lady
• 26:04
  Speaker 6: back and take her money. It's hard, Yeah, this whole
• 26:10
  Speaker 6: legal thing with you know, sale securities, bloody the blah
• 26:14
  Speaker 6: blah blah. But yeah, it's you know, I feel like
• 26:18
  Speaker 6: I've got to grow up and and you know, this
• 26:21
  Speaker 6: is this is my business now, this is this is
• 26:23
  Speaker 6: how I make a living. I am to that point
• 26:26
  Speaker 6: where I actually can say that. And I have a
• 26:30
  Speaker 6: lot of folks that now work with me or for me,
• 26:33
  Speaker 6: and you know, I've got to also be mindful of
• 26:37
  Speaker 6: their their well being too, not just my own.
• 26:40
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, it is tricky.
• 26:42
  Speaker 5: I mean, you know that's something we will talk a
• 26:43
  Speaker 5: lot about on this podcast, is you know, the whole
• 26:46
  Speaker 5: legal aspect of taking people's money. Uh, you know, private equity, crowdfunding,
• 26:50
  Speaker 5: all those different routes and uh you know, and I've
• 26:53
  Speaker 5: heard everything from hey, we did it for free, by uh.
• 26:56
  Speaker 3: I mean that's what I did too. You know, I
• 26:58
  Speaker 3: didn't go to film school.
• 26:59
  Speaker 5: My My first student film was me making a feature
• 27:02
  Speaker 5: film and we borrowed every set.
• 27:04
  Speaker 3: Everything, Everything was all borrowed.
• 27:06
  Speaker 5: Uh, you know, do you know a friend of mine
• 27:08
  Speaker 5: had a house we could shoot in, and we've had
• 27:10
  Speaker 5: that all the way to you know, very.
• 27:12
  Speaker 3: Expensive movies on here.
• 27:13
  Speaker 5: So you know, it's just always interesting to hear you
• 27:15
  Speaker 5: know everything, you know, all those two extremes and everything between.
• 27:19
  Speaker 5: And you know, as we talk more, you know about
• 27:21
  Speaker 5: you know, making documentaries and everything else. You know, making
• 27:25
  Speaker 5: it into a living is something special, Cynthia, because you
• 27:28
  Speaker 5: know that that takes a lot of hard work, It
• 27:30
  Speaker 5: takes a lot of talent, it takes a lot of patience, uh,
• 27:33
  Speaker 5: you know, and and a lot of times, you know,
• 27:35
  Speaker 5: you know, filmmakers maybe make one film or two and
• 27:38
  Speaker 5: they get kind of burned out from the whole process.
• 27:41
  Speaker 6: Well that's it's true. And I think I'm struggling with
• 27:43
  Speaker 6: that right now. You know, is it a business or
• 27:45
  Speaker 6: is it still a passion? You know, so trying to
• 27:50
  Speaker 6: straddle still wanting to do this work because it's something
• 27:54
  Speaker 6: that you know, burns inside of me versus like just
• 27:58
  Speaker 6: making content because I've got a lot of mouths to
• 28:01
  Speaker 6: feed and I don't want to be in that place,
• 28:04
  Speaker 6: you know, and it's new for me to manage people,
• 28:08
  Speaker 6: you know, because I have finally accepted that I'm an
• 28:12
  Speaker 6: artist that comes with artist tendencies, which means that I'm
• 28:16
  Speaker 6: not great at necessarily manage people. And so but you know,
• 28:20
  Speaker 6: when you have this kind of operation where we have
• 28:25
  Speaker 6: right now, where this past year we produced an eight
• 28:29
  Speaker 6: part series that were hour long. Each was an hour long,
• 28:34
  Speaker 6: so eight hours of that and then another ten part
• 28:37
  Speaker 6: half hour series. We're producing a lot of content and
• 28:41
  Speaker 6: it takes a lot of people to pull that off.
• 28:44
  Speaker 6: And you know, we're doing this in a part of
• 28:47
  Speaker 6: the country that doesn't have the infrastructure and you know,
• 28:51
  Speaker 6: the the depth of talent and stuff. So you know,
• 28:54
  Speaker 6: we're training our own where we're making it work even
• 29:01
  Speaker 6: when the odds are completely against us. And that in
• 29:04
  Speaker 6: and of itself, to me is something that I'm really
• 29:06
  Speaker 6: proud of and proud of the team that we have
• 29:09
  Speaker 6: in place for that. But then how do you keep
• 29:11
  Speaker 6: that going? You know, how much of inside of me
• 29:15
  Speaker 6: has to come out to keep that those creative juices going,
• 29:19
  Speaker 6: because so far that those stories are all coming from me,
• 29:24
  Speaker 6: you know, like just the creative part of it, you know,
• 29:27
  Speaker 6: putting it together, and that is really that's hard to
• 29:33
  Speaker 6: keep that going and to fill that burden of that
• 29:36
  Speaker 6: and then like, is that really what I want to
• 29:39
  Speaker 6: do moving forward? Or do I want to like quit
• 29:42
  Speaker 6: all that and go back and you know, make a
• 29:44
  Speaker 6: narrative film, which I've been contemplating for a long time.
• 29:48
  Speaker 6: So you know, it's I'm struggling a bit. I don't
• 29:51
  Speaker 6: know if it's midlife bullshit mess.
• 29:54
  Speaker 4: But we'll be right back after a word from our
• 29:58
  Speaker 4: sponsor and now back to the show.
• 30:05
  Speaker 6: Yeah, you know you the success is great, but it's
• 30:08
  Speaker 6: also like is this really what I want? And you know,
• 30:13
  Speaker 6: are we? Are we happy? Lord? Am I therapy? Yeah?
• 30:18
  Speaker 5: This podcast is like therapy for a lot of people,
• 30:20
  Speaker 5: myself included. But uh no, I'm just joking, Synthy, but no,
• 30:24
  Speaker 5: it's this is what it is. It's a discussion, you know,
• 30:26
  Speaker 5: uh and that's you know, some of the things that
• 30:28
  Speaker 5: we discussed on this podcasts is stuff you don't hear
• 30:30
  Speaker 5: other you know, any other place.
• 30:32
  Speaker 3: And what I mean by that is, you.
• 30:34
  Speaker 5: Know, the things that affect filmmakers, things that they go through,
• 30:37
  Speaker 5: stuff like that. You know, too many podcasts, too many articles.
• 30:40
  Speaker 5: They they paint either a rosy picture or they paint
• 30:43
  Speaker 5: this very bleak picture and and it's really you know,
• 30:47
  Speaker 5: it's not really one or the other. It's usually in between,
• 30:50
  Speaker 5: you know, the ones that paint the rosy picture, like
• 30:52
  Speaker 5: oh yeah, I submitted to sun Dance and we wanted
• 30:55
  Speaker 5: ten billion dollars and then we're all rich now, and
• 30:57
  Speaker 5: the and the and the the bleak pictures like, oh
• 30:59
  Speaker 5: I I try to submit the Sun Dance.
• 31:01
  Speaker 3: That's all bullshit. I couldn't get any other film festival.
• 31:05
  Speaker 3: There was all bullshit. And I thowt up on YouTube
• 31:08
  Speaker 3: and nobody watched it. And now I'm you know, one
• 31:10
  Speaker 3: hundred grand in the whole.
• 31:11
  Speaker 5: And I hate my life, and you know, so it's
• 31:13
  Speaker 5: kind of like, you know, trying to find this happy
• 31:16
  Speaker 5: medium because I believe me. I you know, when I
• 31:19
  Speaker 5: started doing this, Even before I started doing this podcast,
• 31:21
  Speaker 5: I I met so many different people doing so many
• 31:25
  Speaker 5: different things on so many different film sets, and I
• 31:27
  Speaker 5: heard so many different stories about successes and failures, successes
• 31:31
  Speaker 5: and failures. And that's why I wanted to do this podcast,
• 31:33
  Speaker 5: you know, because it's it's I've noticed the common thread
• 31:36
  Speaker 5: among a lot of filmmakers.
• 31:37
  Speaker 3: That's why I started this podcast.
• 31:39
  Speaker 5: So, you know, when you made your tobacco documentary about
• 31:42
  Speaker 5: you know, obviously it's focused on the South, you know,
• 31:45
  Speaker 5: but you you kept going and you turned it into
• 31:47
  Speaker 5: other projects, you know. So if your the documentary aired,
• 31:52
  Speaker 5: you know and was completed, you know what. You know,
• 31:55
  Speaker 5: what what was your next step in continuing your filmography?
• 31:59
  Speaker 6: Well, I was helping work on another film at the
• 32:02
  Speaker 6: same time, some other film makers here in Durham, and
• 32:08
  Speaker 6: so it's I was that was February one, which was
• 32:12
  Speaker 6: about the Greensboro lunch counter sit in. So I was
• 32:14
  Speaker 6: able to see a little bit about, you know what
• 32:18
  Speaker 6: else could be opportunities. And then this story came along
• 32:23
  Speaker 6: as I was finishing up the tobacco film that was
• 32:27
  Speaker 6: about the farm workers that were coming from Mexico. And
• 32:33
  Speaker 6: can we start that over again, because I feel like
• 32:35
  Speaker 6: the February one thing is kind of like left field. Sure.
• 32:39
  Speaker 3: Absolutely, we were just yeah, I'll.
• 32:41
  Speaker 6: Just tell about the tobacco. I mean, I'll ask me
• 32:45
  Speaker 6: the question again.
• 32:46
  Speaker 3: Sure, sure, no problem. So so you know, you kept
• 32:50
  Speaker 3: on going.
• 32:51
  Speaker 5: So you know, after you made your tobacco documentary, you
• 32:54
  Speaker 5: know what was the next step, do you you you
• 32:57
  Speaker 5: made to continue your filmography.
• 33:00
  Speaker 6: Well, when I was finishing up tobacco, money fees my
• 33:03
  Speaker 6: family one of the farmers that I had been profiling
• 33:07
  Speaker 6: was getting farm workers from Mexico in this guest worker program.
• 33:13
  Speaker 6: And he got farm workers that were being bussed directly
• 33:19
  Speaker 6: from Mexico straight to his farm. They would open the
• 33:25
  Speaker 6: door from the bus and they would get out on
• 33:27
  Speaker 6: his farm in North Carolina, and I was like, WHOA,
• 33:31
  Speaker 6: what the hell is that. You know, when I was
• 33:35
  Speaker 6: growing up, I remember when we had the first Mexicans
• 33:39
  Speaker 6: that showed up in our community to harvest cucumbers, and
• 33:45
  Speaker 6: that was the first time we locked our doors because
• 33:51
  Speaker 6: the Mexicans were in town. And so there's this thing
• 33:55
  Speaker 6: with we don't want figners in our communities doing our work,
• 34:00
  Speaker 6: is taking our work, But then we are actively bussing
• 34:06
  Speaker 6: folks in to do the work that we don't want
• 34:09
  Speaker 6: to do. And I thought, oh my goodness, this is
• 34:12
  Speaker 6: so fascinating. And so then I spent the next two
• 34:17
  Speaker 6: years filming a story of these farm workers that were
• 34:22
  Speaker 6: coming from Mexico in this guestworker program. I was able
• 34:25
  Speaker 6: to find a farm in North Carolina that would let
• 34:28
  Speaker 6: me film, and that in and of itself was a
• 34:31
  Speaker 6: huge hurdle because there was so much suspicion about this
• 34:37
  Speaker 6: program and folks trying to do this gotcha kind of
• 34:40
  Speaker 6: filmmaking at the time and still to this day. And
• 34:44
  Speaker 6: so getting a farmer comfortable with us being there to
• 34:48
  Speaker 6: do a story about farm workers was really was not
• 34:54
  Speaker 6: an easy feed. But when we finally latched onto this
• 34:57
  Speaker 6: one guy who was willing to do to willing to
• 35:00
  Speaker 6: let us stay on his farm, it was so eye
• 35:05
  Speaker 6: opening to spend a whole season with this one farm worker. Well,
• 35:10
  Speaker 6: we had several, but we ended up going back home
• 35:13
  Speaker 6: with two of them, and we took that bus ride
• 35:16
  Speaker 6: back home to Mexico on bus after bus to the
• 35:21
  Speaker 6: back of a pickup truck to get to his home
• 35:24
  Speaker 6: back in his village in Durango, Mexico. And you know,
• 35:30
  Speaker 6: it's not that they know, especially for this guest worker program,
• 35:35
  Speaker 6: they're not trying to move to to the US. You know,
• 35:40
  Speaker 6: they were here to make money to bring back home.
• 35:42
  Speaker 6: And you know, I'd always hear these things about the
• 35:47
  Speaker 6: excuses for the horrible living conditions that the farm workers
• 35:50
  Speaker 6: had to live in, about how so much better than
• 35:53
  Speaker 6: what they got back in Mexico, and that how we're
• 35:55
  Speaker 6: you know, we're doing them such a favor. But then
• 35:58
  Speaker 6: when we got back to his home and Mexico. He
• 36:01
  Speaker 6: lived in this beautiful villa that it was very modest
• 36:06
  Speaker 6: but had a lot of outdoor space and it was
• 36:08
  Speaker 6: on the side you could see his cows often the horizon.
• 36:14
  Speaker 6: And I know, it's just like, these are people who
• 36:18
  Speaker 6: want to support their family, just like these farmers wanted
• 36:21
  Speaker 6: to support their families. And it was important for me
• 36:24
  Speaker 6: to after telling the farmer's story, to also tell that
• 36:27
  Speaker 6: farm worker story. And I couldn't not do that, you know,
• 36:33
  Speaker 6: I felt like it was a disservice just to tell
• 36:35
  Speaker 6: the farmer's story without completing that that story. So that
• 36:40
  Speaker 6: was my second film.
• 36:42
  Speaker 5: So when you released that, that film you sort of
• 36:45
  Speaker 5: back to back with you tell the farmers, you know,
• 36:48
  Speaker 5: the farmer's story, you tell the workers story. You know,
• 36:52
  Speaker 5: how was that Did that change any perceptions?
• 36:56
  Speaker 6: You hope that it does. I mean, I think that
• 36:58
  Speaker 6: the folks that that saw it, you know, that's really
• 37:01
  Speaker 6: the key is like getting folks to watch stuff. And
• 37:04
  Speaker 6: I think the one of the main accomplishments for me
• 37:08
  Speaker 6: and that with that film was that we had this
• 37:10
  Speaker 6: one screening where we had farm workers and farmers in
• 37:14
  Speaker 6: the room at the same time watching the film at
• 37:16
  Speaker 6: the same time, and it was it was kind of funny,
• 37:20
  Speaker 6: like there would be moments where they would laugh at
• 37:24
  Speaker 6: the same things and they could see the humanity in
• 37:27
  Speaker 6: each other. And to me, that's what it was about,
• 37:31
  Speaker 6: you know, trying to bridge that gap. And I feel
• 37:35
  Speaker 6: like I do that quite a bit as trying to
• 37:37
  Speaker 6: bridge that gap of understanding. And you know, I'm not
• 37:41
  Speaker 6: I don't consider myself an activist filmmaker per se, but
• 37:45
  Speaker 6: I do tend to tackle topics that are important and
• 37:50
  Speaker 6: or at least I like to, but I like to
• 37:53
  Speaker 6: do it with story and really about understanding the you know,
• 37:58
  Speaker 6: the human condition and you know, really getting into characters
• 38:04
  Speaker 6: and understanding the plight and trying to walk in their
• 38:08
  Speaker 6: shoes for a little bit.
• 38:10
  Speaker 5: Yeah, And I think that's something that you know, a
• 38:13
  Speaker 5: lot of filmmakers have sort of missed, not only filmmakers,
• 38:16
  Speaker 5: but you know, producers and TV show owners and you know,
• 38:19
  Speaker 5: you tune in because you want to see characters. You know,
• 38:22
  Speaker 5: you see these characters and these sort of you know,
• 38:23
  Speaker 5: predicaments and in you know, a couple episodes ago, I
• 38:27
  Speaker 5: interviewed Ranna Sheer, and Randa Shear was you know, on
• 38:30
  Speaker 5: you the host of usays up all night and you know,
• 38:33
  Speaker 5: something I spoke to her about was into in today's
• 38:37
  Speaker 5: sort of uh, you know, entertainment environment. A lot of
• 38:40
  Speaker 5: the people when they start putting money into things, whether
• 38:42
  Speaker 5: it be a TV show, you know, everything becomes very mechanical.
• 38:46
  Speaker 3: Now everything has an algorithm.
• 38:47
  Speaker 5: Oh well, hey, you know what you say, this script
• 38:49
  Speaker 5: and don't deviate from the script.
• 38:51
  Speaker 3: And I think it really takes away a lot.
• 38:52
  Speaker 5: Of character, and it's more about like situations, if you
• 38:56
  Speaker 5: know what I mean. So let's and I think with
• 38:58
  Speaker 5: documentaries especially, you have to have those characters. And I
• 39:02
  Speaker 5: just wanted to touch on that topic because it's so
• 39:05
  Speaker 5: important anymore, you know, just finding films that have characters
• 39:08
  Speaker 5: in them that you know, people can relate to.
• 39:11
  Speaker 6: Yeah, I think that's that's important. You know, you can
• 39:13
  Speaker 6: have somebody telling you all day long that about this
• 39:18
  Speaker 6: person's plight, or you can interview them about their their
• 39:21
  Speaker 6: own plight and they can tell you certain things. But
• 39:24
  Speaker 6: if you're with them and you experience it with them,
• 39:28
  Speaker 6: I think that's a whole other level of understanding. And that,
• 39:32
  Speaker 6: to me was was what was important about making The
• 39:35
  Speaker 6: Guestworker film, was that you know, I did not understand it.
• 39:38
  Speaker 6: You know, I drive by a field and I see
• 39:41
  Speaker 6: people picking my produce, but I go to the grocery
• 39:44
  Speaker 6: store and I buy it, you know, and I'm not
• 39:46
  Speaker 6: really thinking about them when I'm I'm going to Whole
• 39:49
  Speaker 6: Foods and buying my five dollars piece of lettuce.
• 39:54
  Speaker 4: We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor,
• 40:00
  Speaker 4: and now back to the show, you know.
• 40:03
  Speaker 6: So it's it was important for me to give them
• 40:10
  Speaker 6: not just the face, but to also tell part of
• 40:14
  Speaker 6: their story and let them tell their own story, not
• 40:18
  Speaker 6: you know, through interview, but to witness it with them,
• 40:22
  Speaker 6: to be a true witness of that that experience. And
• 40:29
  Speaker 6: that's that's the kind of filmmaking that I like. It's
• 40:32
  Speaker 6: what I like to watch heavily. Interview interview driven kinds
• 40:37
  Speaker 6: of films don't usually do it for me. Every now
• 40:41
  Speaker 6: and then I'll see what I'm like. Okay, I take
• 40:43
  Speaker 6: it back. I'm okay with interviews, but typically that's not
• 40:47
  Speaker 6: what I want. I have this thing where I say,
• 40:50
  Speaker 6: show me, don't tell me. You can tell me all
• 40:53
  Speaker 6: day long, but if I see it and I feel
• 40:57
  Speaker 6: it and I'm witnessing it, it's going to have so
• 41:00
  Speaker 6: much more impact on me. And I feel like that's
• 41:02
  Speaker 6: what it is for an audience too.
• 41:05
  Speaker 3: Yeah, you're experiencing with that.
• 41:07
  Speaker 5: I really like that because you know, again, you know,
• 41:10
  Speaker 5: when when people try to sort of force the sort
• 41:13
  Speaker 5: of force the issue or even make you know, uh,
• 41:15
  Speaker 5: you know these these sit down interview car you know, uh.
• 41:18
  Speaker 3: TV shows or movies, they're taking away the character.
• 41:21
  Speaker 5: They're sort of just trying to sort of make everything happen,
• 41:24
  Speaker 5: you know, along these sort of beats. And again, you
• 41:27
  Speaker 5: know that that's why, Yeah, you know, that's what it's.
• 41:29
  Speaker 6: Telling it down to, you know, just the that topic
• 41:33
  Speaker 6: or that issue and trying to hit that home. And
• 41:36
  Speaker 6: and I spend a lot more time kind of beating
• 41:38
  Speaker 6: around the bush hoping that people see my subtle hints
• 41:42
  Speaker 6: at what the issue is. You know. So I think
• 41:45
  Speaker 6: that there's room for both kinds of storytelling. It just
• 41:48
  Speaker 6: as I prefer the kind that doesn't beat you over
• 41:51
  Speaker 6: the head, you know, I prefer the kind that takes
• 41:55
  Speaker 6: me on a journey and lets me decide for myself.
• 41:58
  Speaker 6: And that's that's the kind of filming I want to do.
• 42:00
  Speaker 6: Is I want to take the viewer on a journey
• 42:03
  Speaker 6: and let them decide for themselves. Obviously I have a
• 42:06
  Speaker 6: point of view, and so as I am laying out
• 42:09
  Speaker 6: the scenes and showing the audience that the moments that
• 42:13
  Speaker 6: I choose, I am, you know, obviously have a certain
• 42:16
  Speaker 6: point of view that's that they're watching. But I do
• 42:19
  Speaker 6: try to be very subtle in it, you know, even
• 42:22
  Speaker 6: if it's issue oriented, and let the viewer decide for themselves,
• 42:28
  Speaker 6: because I don't know what the hell I'm talking about
• 42:30
  Speaker 6: half the time.
• 42:34
  Speaker 3: Uh it's the you know.
• 42:35
  Speaker 5: I noticed on the clock where we're we're starting to
• 42:38
  Speaker 5: get a little press for time. So I wanted to
• 42:40
  Speaker 5: make sure I asked you what about one project, which
• 42:42
  Speaker 5: is actually how we started talking, which is your your
• 42:45
  Speaker 5: actual your eight part series on NASCAR Motorsports. So I
• 42:49
  Speaker 5: wanted to ask you how how did you get involved,
• 42:52
  Speaker 5: you know, with the with the with the project.
• 42:55
  Speaker 6: Well, I have this short list of Southern things that
• 42:59
  Speaker 6: I I would love to one day be able to film.
• 43:03
  Speaker 6: You know, it's I try to stay in my region,
• 43:08
  Speaker 6: even if it's not necessarily Southern. Like my filmmaking, I
• 43:11
  Speaker 6: feel like my backyard is just as interesting as getting
• 43:14
  Speaker 6: on a plane and going somewhere else. So also I
• 43:16
  Speaker 6: feel like I have permission to film once here too.
• 43:19
  Speaker 6: You know, I don't feel like I'm an interloper and
• 43:21
  Speaker 6: going in and trying to tell somebody else's story. So,
• 43:25
  Speaker 6: you know, I try to stay based here in the South.
• 43:27
  Speaker 6: And so NASCAR has been on that list of things
• 43:31
  Speaker 6: that I would love to do, and for no other
• 43:34
  Speaker 6: reason that it's something that I grew up with. It
• 43:38
  Speaker 6: was very much a part of my family. My granddad
• 43:42
  Speaker 6: was a huge Richard Petty fan, and so every Sunday
• 43:45
  Speaker 6: we were watching a race whether we wanted to or not.
• 43:48
  Speaker 6: And so I, you know, I wasn't a NASCAR fan
• 43:52
  Speaker 6: growing when I got when I became an adult, but
• 43:54
  Speaker 6: it still fascinated me. And also how people from outside
• 43:59
  Speaker 6: of the South perceived it and perceived the fan base
• 44:02
  Speaker 6: and the sport itself, like it's not really a sport.
• 44:04
  Speaker 6: And there's lots of things people say about stock car racing,
• 44:08
  Speaker 6: and so if you're gonna you know, I like to
• 44:12
  Speaker 6: admire myself in stuff that has a bit of controversy,
• 44:17
  Speaker 6: I feel like sometimes and this was kind of one
• 44:19
  Speaker 6: of those things. But I wasn't in it for the controversy.
• 44:22
  Speaker 6: I just was wanting just to see that world from
• 44:25
  Speaker 6: the inside, and we just had the opportunity to approach
• 44:29
  Speaker 6: Hendrick Motorsports with the idea of coming in and doing
• 44:34
  Speaker 6: you an inside look at it. And they are really
• 44:39
  Speaker 6: the giants in the sport. You know, they have driving
• 44:43
  Speaker 6: for them, Dell and Hurt Junior, Jimmy Johnson who just
• 44:46
  Speaker 6: won the championship last year, Casey Kine, and also Chase
• 44:51
  Speaker 6: Elliott who's Bill Elliott's son, and he was getting into
• 44:56
  Speaker 6: Jeff Gordon's carcasse. Jeff Jordon had just retired, and so
• 45:01
  Speaker 6: we wanted to enter the world with Chase because he
• 45:05
  Speaker 6: was he was new to the team and he just
• 45:08
  Speaker 6: turned twenty, and we thought it would be a really
• 45:10
  Speaker 6: interesting perspective starting the series with a newbie, and especially
• 45:17
  Speaker 6: one with that kind of pedigree. And surprisingly Hendrick agreed.
• 45:22
  Speaker 6: And after the fact, I found out that they get
• 45:26
  Speaker 6: pitched a lot and never say yes, So I feel
• 45:28
  Speaker 6: really honored that they said yes. But I think it
• 45:31
  Speaker 6: was because I'm from the South. My ideas of what
• 45:35
  Speaker 6: I wanted to do and what I wanted to tell
• 45:37
  Speaker 6: were you not any kind of again gotcha thing. I
• 45:40
  Speaker 6: just wanted to just go in. I wanted to embed
• 45:44
  Speaker 6: my team into their team and really see what it
• 45:47
  Speaker 6: was like to be, you know, in NASCAR and you know,
• 45:51
  Speaker 6: race every weekend. So I mean that's what we did.
• 45:55
  Speaker 6: We filmed with them for six months, and we filmed
• 45:58
  Speaker 6: with all the drivers, not just Chase. They opened the
• 46:00
  Speaker 6: doors and said, hey, you want to film these other
• 46:03
  Speaker 6: drivers too, and we're like, oh yeah, So it was.
• 46:07
  Speaker 6: It was an amazing experience. You know. The unfortunate thing
• 46:12
  Speaker 6: is my ears are still ringing because it's so loud,
• 46:15
  Speaker 6: and but it's it was I hate this word and
• 46:22
  Speaker 6: I hate to even say it, but it was truly
• 46:24
  Speaker 6: unprecedented the access that they gave us. You know, they
• 46:28
  Speaker 6: they allowed us inside their facilities. NASCAR allowed us to
• 46:32
  Speaker 6: film at the race tracks with basically what we not
• 46:38
  Speaker 6: really telling us, you know, don't go there, don't go there,
• 46:41
  Speaker 6: and there are a few places we couldn't go. But
• 46:44
  Speaker 6: really we had the access that I didn't know that
• 46:48
  Speaker 6: we could have, and we had an amazing working relationship
• 46:51
  Speaker 6: with NASCAR and NASCAR Productions where we knew that we
• 46:54
  Speaker 6: would be able to get access to the race footage,
• 46:57
  Speaker 6: so we weren't always focused on trying to film the
• 47:00
  Speaker 6: race but we were you know, we were turning. We
• 47:02
  Speaker 6: would focus on the teams so that we could really
• 47:06
  Speaker 6: see what the inner workings are like and when something
• 47:09
  Speaker 6: happens on the track, what's the reaction of the team,
• 47:12
  Speaker 6: and what's the build up to the race, and so
• 47:16
  Speaker 6: it you know, the race races were important, but they
• 47:19
  Speaker 6: just became just more of a dramatic narrative tool for
• 47:22
  Speaker 6: me to be able to understand the pressure. So the
• 47:26
  Speaker 6: outcome of the race was less important because you know,
• 47:28
  Speaker 6: we're not doing race coverage, not sports coverage TV. We're
• 47:34
  Speaker 6: really telling stories about people, and you know, that's what
• 47:37
  Speaker 6: we do. And so you know, we focused on you
• 47:40
  Speaker 6: know again on the characters and those small moments, and
• 47:44
  Speaker 6: I think what we were able to accomplish is pretty unique,
• 47:47
  Speaker 6: especially for that sport. I don't think you ever see
• 47:49
  Speaker 6: it really presented that way. Yeah.
• 47:52
  Speaker 5: I was going to ask too if they actually got
• 47:55
  Speaker 5: pitched a lot, because I can I can imagine the
• 47:57
  Speaker 5: answer would have been yes, you know, just because you know,
• 48:00
  Speaker 5: whenever you're in that position, wheneverver you're like the leader
• 48:03
  Speaker 5: or you know, you're involved in the a level, you
• 48:06
  Speaker 5: know kind of like you know, how in the NFL
• 48:08
  Speaker 5: every team just gets pitched unbelievably amount. You know, Hey,
• 48:13
  Speaker 5: do you know could we do a documentary?
• 48:14
  Speaker 6: Hey?
• 48:15
  Speaker 3: Could we do this?
• 48:16
  Speaker 6: Uh?
• 48:16
  Speaker 3: You know, hey, could you help out this charity?
• 48:18
  Speaker 5: So that's why, you know, I think you did have
• 48:20
  Speaker 5: that unique sort of way to sort of get your
• 48:23
  Speaker 5: foot in the door by saying I'm from the South
• 48:25
  Speaker 5: and you know, and I'm sure they wanted to see
• 48:27
  Speaker 5: your other to your other documentaries before they said yes,
• 48:31
  Speaker 5: you know, yeah, and.
• 48:32
  Speaker 6: It was really nice. We got to the meeting and
• 48:35
  Speaker 6: the head of the marketing team, Uh, he had already
• 48:39
  Speaker 6: seen my last film that was on HBO and was
• 48:43
  Speaker 6: a huge fan of the television series that I direct
• 48:46
  Speaker 6: called A Chef's Life, and so he already knew my
• 48:50
  Speaker 6: style and he saw how our team operated and felt
• 48:55
  Speaker 6: really comfortable with what we were presenting and the ideas
• 49:00
  Speaker 6: that we came to the table, and he he knew
• 49:03
  Speaker 6: that what I said when I was in that meeting
• 49:05
  Speaker 6: was true. You know that I was not you know,
• 49:09
  Speaker 6: I wasn't trying to get in to do another kind
• 49:11
  Speaker 6: of story because the body of work that we came
• 49:13
  Speaker 6: in with showed what we were trying to do, and
• 49:18
  Speaker 6: you know, it did open those doors. And so it
• 49:21
  Speaker 6: does prove that eventually things do get a little easier.
• 49:26
  Speaker 6: Other things don't. But that door opening definitely was much
• 49:31
  Speaker 6: easier than I had anticipated. And that was nice, you
• 49:35
  Speaker 6: know that that came at a time in my career
• 49:38
  Speaker 6: where you know, I've been making films for twenty years now,
• 49:40
  Speaker 6: and so it's nice to finally say, hey, you know,
• 49:45
  Speaker 6: it does work out sometimes.
• 49:48
  Speaker 5: Yeah, and I think you know, you're it did get
• 49:50
  Speaker 5: easier because you know, people can you start to build
• 49:52
  Speaker 5: a portfolio, and you start to build a reputation, and
• 49:55
  Speaker 5: I think and that is key. You know, something I
• 49:57
  Speaker 5: always say here on the podcast is your net worth
• 49:59
  Speaker 5: is your network.
• 50:02
  Speaker 4: We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor,
• 50:08
  Speaker 4: and now back to the show.
• 50:10
  Speaker 3: Where your network is your net worth.
• 50:12
  Speaker 5: And basically, you know, you were able to open those
• 50:15
  Speaker 5: doors because of your network. And it's it's all about
• 50:17
  Speaker 5: you know, being professional, you know, doing good work, you know,
• 50:21
  Speaker 5: not being crazy, you know, not being you know, because
• 50:25
  Speaker 5: sometimes you know, people get their foot in the door
• 50:27
  Speaker 5: and they shoot themselves in the foot.
• 50:28
  Speaker 7: You know.
• 50:29
  Speaker 5: It's it's it's almost comical because a lot of filmmakers,
• 50:31
  Speaker 5: you know, they get themselves in the door and then
• 50:33
  Speaker 5: they just start, you know, immediately start making all these mistakes,
• 50:37
  Speaker 5: and you know, it just it really compounds, you know,
• 50:39
  Speaker 5: and that's why you really want to make sure because
• 50:41
  Speaker 5: I mean, now after you've done this, I mean it's like,
• 50:43
  Speaker 5: you know, hey, hey, Cynthia, what was your last project?
• 50:46
  Speaker 3: Oh?
• 50:46
  Speaker 5: Hey, I worked with Hendrick Motorsports and you know we
• 50:49
  Speaker 5: did this and this and this, and you know, I
• 50:51
  Speaker 5: mean that that's just that's huge.
• 50:53
  Speaker 3: You know, that's absolutely huge.
• 50:55
  Speaker 6: Filmed with with Dale Junior, who everybody told me that
• 50:57
  Speaker 6: he would never wear a wireless mic, and we you know,
• 51:00
  Speaker 6: sometimes you would agree, you know. So we spent really
• 51:04
  Speaker 6: nice time with them, and you know that to me,
• 51:07
  Speaker 6: is is meaningful to be able to develop those kinds
• 51:09
  Speaker 6: of relationships and it is important. You know. The downside
• 51:15
  Speaker 6: to being in North Carolina is that my network is
• 51:18
  Speaker 6: not extensive. I joke that I have a lot of
• 51:22
  Speaker 6: pig farmers in my network, which they're really important and
• 51:26
  Speaker 6: I appreciate them, but it's you know, it's it's difficult
• 51:31
  Speaker 6: because we are here. But you know, the benefits are
• 51:35
  Speaker 6: that I do have an extensive network here and the
• 51:39
  Speaker 6: folks here do trust, do trust me and and trust
• 51:44
  Speaker 6: the team that we have in place, and so when
• 51:46
  Speaker 6: we show up that does mean a lot.
• 51:49
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and you know, again you never know what door
• 51:53
  Speaker 3: is going to open, you know.
• 51:53
  Speaker 5: And again I like how you know you mentioned again
• 51:56
  Speaker 5: where you were because you know, every everything's different again,
• 51:59
  Speaker 5: everything has change, which sort of you know, brings us
• 52:01
  Speaker 5: back the full circle which I was, which was what
• 52:03
  Speaker 5: you know. We open up the podcast with you could
• 52:06
  Speaker 5: be a filmmaker now, you know, across the America and
• 52:09
  Speaker 5: it's it's opened a lot of doors, Cynthia. I know,
• 52:12
  Speaker 5: we've actually just run out of time. So where can
• 52:15
  Speaker 5: people find you out online?
• 52:16
  Speaker 3: Cynthia?
• 52:18
  Speaker 6: You made me or just My company name is Mark
• 52:23
  Speaker 6: Media m A r k A y Media dot com.
• 52:27
  Speaker 6: And The Road to Race Day, which is the NASCAR series,
• 52:31
  Speaker 6: was just released on the Complex Next Complex Networks platform
• 52:37
  Speaker 6: Go ninety and so it's currently streaming the next The
• 52:42
  Speaker 6: last episode is premiering tomorrow, so all all the episodes
• 52:46
  Speaker 6: will be up after tomorrow. And my other films are
• 52:52
  Speaker 6: Someone Harder Is Fine, Private Violence, which was the last
• 52:56
  Speaker 6: film with HBO. That one. I think you can find
• 53:00
  Speaker 6: mind on Amazon and Hulu, and A Chef's Life is
• 53:08
  Speaker 6: on PBS. Season five is premiering in October, so that
• 53:12
  Speaker 6: one's still going strong.
• 53:14
  Speaker 5: Yeah, so we got to talk in Cynthia, and we
• 53:16
  Speaker 5: ran out of time with uh because I was going
• 53:18
  Speaker 5: to talk.
• 53:18
  Speaker 3: I had notes to talk about, you.
• 53:20
  Speaker 5: Know, all of your all of your work, and you know,
• 53:22
  Speaker 5: we just you know, one of those things right out
• 53:25
  Speaker 5: of time. But but I'm going to link to everything
• 53:27
  Speaker 5: in the show notes everyone at Dave Bulls dot com. Twitter,
• 53:30
  Speaker 5: it's at dave Underscore Bullets, and I'm going to link
• 53:33
  Speaker 5: to all of Cynthia's social media as well, so you
• 53:35
  Speaker 5: could follow her and see all the really cool stuff
• 53:38
  Speaker 5: that she's up to.
• 53:40
  Speaker 6: Thanks day. I really appreciate it.
• 53:43
  Speaker 3: Oh my pleasure, Cynthia.
• 53:44
  Speaker 5: And if you ever want to come back sometime we talk,
• 53:47
  Speaker 5: you know, more about your next projects and you know,
• 53:49
  Speaker 5: and then the other projects we didn't get a chance
• 53:51
  Speaker 5: to talk about.
• 53:51
  Speaker 3: Let me know, you know, and you know, I love
• 53:53
  Speaker 3: to have you back on Happy too.
• 53:55
  Speaker 6: It's fun. It is kind of like therapy. And maybe
• 53:58
  Speaker 6: just listen to that because I I have a tendency
• 54:02
  Speaker 6: not to be PC, so maybe listen to the guest
• 54:05
  Speaker 6: worker stuff. Just to make sure I didn't say something
• 54:10
  Speaker 6: too offensive because sometimes I say things that I don't
• 54:13
  Speaker 6: know offensive and they become offensive without me knowing it.
• 54:16
  Speaker 5: So no, it's all good. So everything's offensive nowadays.
• 54:24
  Speaker 6: It's true, it can be, but you know, I think
• 54:27
  Speaker 6: it's like for me, it's it's you know, we work
• 54:31
  Speaker 6: really hard to be inclusive and the team I have
• 54:34
  Speaker 6: in place, you know, we've we've built a diverse team,
• 54:37
  Speaker 6: and we work with a lot of women too, and
• 54:41
  Speaker 6: so we we spend a lot of time trying to
• 54:45
  Speaker 6: tell stories that have meaning and beyond just you know,
• 54:49
  Speaker 6: the meaning of my demographic. So we try.
• 54:57
  Speaker 5: No and I and I think you do very well,
• 55:00
  Speaker 5: I honestly, And uh that's why I wanted to have
• 55:02
  Speaker 5: you on this podcast. And again I want to link
• 55:04
  Speaker 5: to everything of yours in the show notes, and you know,
• 55:07
  Speaker 5: people can check out your work and uh, you know,
• 55:09
  Speaker 5: I want to see and obviously I hope you continue
• 55:12
  Speaker 5: to move forward with this and and you continue, uh
• 55:15
  Speaker 5: to build that philmography.
• 55:17
  Speaker 6: Thank you. I appreciate. I hope so hopefully I won't
• 55:20
  Speaker 6: burn out.
• 55:21
  Speaker 3: Don't go back to pharmacy.
• 55:22
  Speaker 5: That's what I'm go That's the message of this whole
• 55:24
  Speaker 5: podcast is, don't go back to pharmacy.
• 55:26
  Speaker 6: I don't know if I can anymore. I lost my job.
• 55:31
  Speaker 6: That's all right. I needed it. I needed that kicking
• 55:33
  Speaker 6: the butt.
• 55:34
  Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly right.
• 55:35
  Speaker 5: It's it's like, uh, the old Roman Army when they
• 55:38
  Speaker 5: got to a new country, they'd burned their boats.
• 55:42
  Speaker 6: Yeah, this is it. You gotta yeah, there's no yeah. Yeah,
• 55:46
  Speaker 6: we're swimming.
• 55:50
  Speaker 3: Cynthia, Cynthia Hill.
• 55:51
  Speaker 5: I want to say thank you so much for coming
• 55:53
  Speaker 5: on and I do wish you the best of luck.
• 55:55
  Speaker 6: Thank you, thanks so much, Dave.
• 55:58
  Speaker 4: I want to thank Dave so much for doing that's
• 56:00
  Speaker 4: a great job on this episode. If you want to
• 56:01
  Speaker 4: get links to anything we spoke about in this episode,
• 56:03
  Speaker 4: head over to the show notes at Indie Film Huscle
• 56:06
  Speaker 4: dot com forward slash seven ninety eight, and if you
• 56:08
  Speaker 4: have it already, please head over to Filmmaking podcast dot com.
• 56:12
  Speaker 4: Subscribe and leave a good review for the show.
• 56:16
  Speaker 3: It really helps us out a lot, guys. Thank you
• 56:18
  Speaker 3: again so much for listening.
• 56:19
  Speaker 4: Guys, as always, keep that hustle going, keep that dream alive,
• 56:22
  Speaker 4: Stay safe out there, and I'll talk to you soon.
• 56:26
  Speaker 1: Thanks for listening to the Indie Film Hustle Podcast at
• 56:29
  Speaker 1: INDIEFILM hustle dot com. That's I N D I E
• 56:32
  Speaker 1: f I L M h U S T l E
• 56:35
  Speaker 1: dot com.