Latest / Next Act with Jeff Ornstein / Stephen Butchko – Co-Founder, Ferryman Collective

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Stephen Butchko – Co-Founder, Ferryman Collective · Next Act with Jeff Ornstein

• 0:01
  Jeff Ornstein: Hi everyone, and welcome to Next Act with Jeff Orenstein.
• 0:05
  Jeff Ornstein: I am Jeff, and on this show we celebrate people on the cusp of greatness.
• 0:10
  Jeff Ornstein: Those building on past successes in some of the curious and inventive and sometimes unexpected ways they have achieved those, and stepping into moments that could define their legacy.
• 0:21
  Jeff Ornstein: We'll talk about current projects, lessons learned, and the extraordinary opportunities ahead.
• 0:27
  Jeff Ornstein: So the best is yet to come.
• 0:29
  Jeff Ornstein: Today's guest is Steven Buchko, award-winning producer, director, actor, and founding member of Ferryman Collective, who is pushing the boundaries of storytelling to immersive virtual reality theater.
• 0:41
  Jeff Ornstein: As the co-creator of Uncanny Alley, A New Day, he is helping shape a new era performance that blends technology, live interaction, and global connection.
• 0:51
  Jeff Ornstein: Steven, that is really timely.
• 0:53
  Jeff Ornstein: So we are psyched to hear from you.
• 0:55
  Jeff Ornstein: Thanks for having me, Jeff.
• 0:56
  Jeff Ornstein: You're welcome.
• 0:57
  Jeff Ornstein: You've been in the art industry for 16 years.
• 1:01
  Jeff Ornstein: I know you've gotten a lot of credits underneath your belt here.
• 1:04
  Jeff Ornstein: Can you share a little bit about like what brought you to where you are today in terms of those different kinds of endeavors?
• 1:10
  Stephen Butchko: Yeah, sure.
• 1:11
  Stephen Butchko: I'm currently living in Los Angeles, California.
• 1:15
  Stephen Butchko: And with my now wife, she was my girlfriend when we moved here together.
• 1:21
  Stephen Butchko: And we both come from a theater background from the Northwest.
• 1:26
  Stephen Butchko: And we moved to LA because we appreciate the arts, we specifically motion pictures and all of that type of stuff.
• 1:34
  Stephen Butchko: And we discovered once we moved down here that pretty quickly, that unless one is born into it or has access to a trust fund or a fair amount of money, that we needed to create opportunities for ourselves if we wanted to act and perform.
• 1:55
  Stephen Butchko: And so in order to become better actors, we had to learn how to produce things.
• 2:01
  Stephen Butchko: So we learned how to pull movie projects together, theatrical projects together, and now we've ventured into the world of XR and specifically virtual reality.
• 2:14
  Jeff Ornstein: So virtual reality is pretty technical.
• 2:17
  Jeff Ornstein: I mean, did you also have like some technical education or previous experience before?
• 2:22
  Stephen Butchko: Not so much beyond learning photography and things like that, editing demo reels and things like that.
• 2:30
  Stephen Butchko: So you know, minimum.
• 2:32
  Stephen Butchko: But as far as anything related to virtual reality, we had to learn that along the way.
• 2:38
  Jeff Ornstein: Oh, that's impressive.
• 2:39
  Jeff Ornstein: Considering we're 10 minutes late starting this podcast because I couldn't share a screen.
• 2:42
  Jeff Ornstein: Ferryman Collective.
• 2:44
  Jeff Ornstein: In a nutshell, this is yours and your wife's founded this.
• 2:48
  Stephen Butchko: We are co-founders with two other artists.
• 2:51
  Stephen Butchko: We're we're a small, we're a small team.
• 2:53
  Jeff Ornstein: And their focus is VR?
• 2:54
  Stephen Butchko: They do many things as well.
• 2:56
  Stephen Butchko: They come from creative backgrounds as well, but together as Ferryman Collective, we co-founded this.
• 3:02
  Stephen Butchko: Specifically, it's a VR theater company.
• 3:05
  Jeff Ornstein: So at Ferryman, are you wearing all the different hats?
• 3:09
  Jeff Ornstein: Actor, director, writer.
• 3:11
  Jeff Ornstein: That's a lot of work.
• 3:13
  Stephen Butchko: Yeah, we we all do, depending on what the project is.
• 3:17
  Jeff Ornstein: Do you have a preference like for the perfect project?
• 3:19
  Jeff Ornstein: Would you prefer to be the director or the writer or casting agent?
• 3:25
  Stephen Butchko: If it's if it's the right project that speaks to me, having a shot at writing and directing is lovely.
• 3:30
  Stephen Butchko: And then but then performing, it just all works together.
• 3:34
  Stephen Butchko: And I appreciate it doing all of it.
• 3:36
  Jeff Ornstein: This is a question we ask a lot of our guests that are like you, very entrepreneurial and taking it on your all on your own shoulders.
• 3:45
  Jeff Ornstein: The funding portion, how have you found funding?
• 3:48
  Jeff Ornstein: I mean, it's a tenuous time right now in our industry.
• 3:52
  Stephen Butchko: It's a tenuous time all the time if you're an artist, especially in this country.
• 3:57
  Stephen Butchko: We just step out back and pluck another bill off the money tree, Jeff.
• 4:00
  Stephen Butchko: That's actually what we do.
• 4:02
  Stephen Butchko: No, we everything has been up until really this year, self-funded, really.
• 4:09
  Stephen Butchko: That's one of the reasons why we've been able to continue making this type of theater, is because it allows us to do it cheaper than it we would if we were producing stuff in the physical realm.
• 4:21
  Stephen Butchko: Earlier, I think it was just toward the end of last year.
• 4:24
  Stephen Butchko: We officially became an official 501c3, and we just had our first fundraiser.
• 4:31
  Stephen Butchko: So we've been able to pay for actor performances and things like that and the infrastructure with money that we receive.
• 4:40
  Jeff Ornstein: I have a close friend I went to school with who's just in the process of trying to get his 501c all together.
• 4:45
  Jeff Ornstein: He runs the Bronx World Film Festival.
• 4:48
  Jeff Ornstein: And these are life rafts to small art entrepreneurial artists.
• 4:53
  Jeff Ornstein: So congratulations, because I know it's no small feat.
• 4:56
  Jeff Ornstein: So your background was in traditional theater, yet now you've edged into this XR storytelling.
• 5:02
  Jeff Ornstein: Do you feel that the content for XR storytelling is vastly different than the content for live theater?
• 5:10
  Jeff Ornstein: Or how are they similar or how are they different?
• 5:12
  Stephen Butchko: Well, what we do falls into the world of XR, which is extended reality, and that's comprised of like augmented reality, mixed reality, virtual reality.
• 5:22
  Stephen Butchko: So they're all tools with which to st tell stories, and those stories are told in different ways.
• 5:30
  Stephen Butchko: But if the work is done properly, they're all connective with an audience.
• 5:36
  Jeff Ornstein: And I imagine wearing so many hats that you must be a storyteller at heart.
• 5:41
  Stephen Butchko: Yeah.
• 5:41
  Stephen Butchko: Yeah, that's I'm genetically predisposed to do that.
• 5:44
  Stephen Butchko: I not nothing else I can do.
• 5:46
  Stephen Butchko: I'm useless at everything else at this point.
• 5:48
  Jeff Ornstein: Is there a particular story you like to tell?
• 5:50
  Jeff Ornstein: We had a guy in that with focused on horror not so long ago, another one on emotional distress.
• 5:56
  Jeff Ornstein: And what's your bag?
• 5:58
  Stephen Butchko: At Ferryman Collective, we our stories are human-centered and they remind us of our own humanity, and they speak of our experiences as human beings.
• 6:11
  Stephen Butchko: I've always been fascinated with stories where ordinary people find themselves in extraordinary situations and what they do, how they behave.
• 6:24
  Jeff Ornstein: Do they rise to the occasion?
• 6:26
  Jeff Ornstein: And you know what?
• 6:27
  Jeff Ornstein: I think audiences like those stories because they can see themselves in it.
• 6:32
  Jeff Ornstein: What would I do?
• 6:32
  Jeff Ornstein: Would I have the courage or the tenacity or the audacity to do what that character did?
• 6:39
  Jeff Ornstein: So they can be very compelling.
• 6:41
  Jeff Ornstein: Uncanny Alley.
• 6:42
  Jeff Ornstein: So this is a globally rise rec globally recognized theater experience.
• 6:47
  Jeff Ornstein: Share us a little bit about what that is.
• 6:50
  Stephen Butchko: Yeah, a little bit of background about that.
• 6:53
  Stephen Butchko: My wife Deirdre and I, we were at the Venice Film Festival representing another project.
• 6:58
  Stephen Butchko: And the Venice Biennale, they've shown specific interest in XR storytelling and the type of work that we do.
• 7:06
  Stephen Butchko: And they also show they represent examples of world building in within VR.
• 7:13
  Stephen Butchko: So there's a very talented game maker and world builder named Rick Treeweek, who hails from Cape Town, South Africa.
• 7:23
  Stephen Butchko: And over the course of years, he built these standalone worlds that exist in the virtual reality social VR platform, VR Chat, called Uncanny Alley.
• 7:35
  Stephen Butchko: We became acquainted with each other's work through the at Venice.
• 7:39
  Stephen Butchko: And then later on that year in the Raindance Film Festival, we were taking a tour of his world, Uncanny Alley.
• 7:46
  Stephen Butchko: And we we fell in love with the themes of the world that he was representing in there.
• 7:53
  Stephen Butchko: And I told my wife, Deirdre, I said, that if I could ever have an opportunity to bring this particular world to life in a live theatrical experience, there would be so much potential storytelling that we could do.
• 8:10
  Stephen Butchko: And then Rick came through a performance of the show that we had been running through the film festival.
• 8:16
  Stephen Butchko: And at the end of it, he said, Do you ever see anybody else's worlds and want to do anything with it?
• 8:22
  Stephen Butchko: And I was like, Well, you beat me to it, yes.
• 8:24
  Stephen Butchko: So we entered into this collaboration where we were able to bring his IP to life.
• 8:30
  Jeff Ornstein: Is there a particular demographic for this?
• 8:32
  Jeff Ornstein: Or is it does it appeal to people of all ages and all ethnicities and cultures?
• 8:37
  Stephen Butchko: Yeah, it's not made for kids, that sort of thing.
• 8:41
  Stephen Butchko: But our audience base is we're still it's a unique genre of storytelling.
• 8:47
  Stephen Butchko: And so we're sort of we're still trying to figure out exactly who our audiences are, but it's a lot of storytellers of all ages, filmmakers, theater makers.
• 8:57
  Stephen Butchko: We like to tell people that our work it comes to life at the intersection of live theater, motion pictures, and interactive video games.
• 9:05
  Stephen Butchko: We pull from all three of those modalities.
• 9:08
  Stephen Butchko: So we get interest from people that play in all of those worlds.
• 9:13
  Jeff Ornstein: Right.
• 9:13
  Jeff Ornstein: Excellent.
• 9:14
  Jeff Ornstein: So while you're doing that, then I guess you're discovering who your audience is and what your audience wants from you.
• 9:22
  Jeff Ornstein: And as you just discussed, you like the every man who rises to the occasion, every person, I guess.
• 9:28
  Jeff Ornstein: Is that difficult on a global scale because of the various cultural nuances that shift from region to region?
• 9:36
  Jeff Ornstein: How do you navigate those waters?
• 9:39
  Stephen Butchko: We navigate those waters by trying to tell a human story through a compelling, grounded performance with professional actors.
• 9:51
  Stephen Butchko: There are cultural differences which are very interesting depending on who's participating in a performance, but we're all carbon-based life forms here and we're different, but we're mostly wired the same and we care about the same things really.
• 10:08
  Stephen Butchko: So it's pretty easy to connect on that level.
• 10:12
  Jeff Ornstein: Okay.
• 10:12
  Jeff Ornstein: Do you find that you're drawn to working with the same actors for your different projects?
• 10:19
  Jeff Ornstein: I know relationships are the industry's also a lot about relationships.
• 10:23
  Jeff Ornstein: So do you find that you coming back to the same actors or they can bring to it?
• 10:28
  Stephen Butchko: Yeah, we have to because it's a very unique way of working as an actor.
• 10:33
  Stephen Butchko: We work with professional actors, and these people are very talented storytellers either on stage in the physical world in front of a camera, or also with this strange apparatus on their head navigating these menus.
• 10:51
  Stephen Butchko: There's not a lot of people that can do that effectively at this point.
• 10:55
  Stephen Butchko: So there's a core group of actors that really that allow themselves to be put through the hardship of what it takes to do this kind of stuff.
• 11:05
  Stephen Butchko: And they're very effective at it.
• 11:07
  Stephen Butchko: So of course, yeah, we just work with them.
• 11:09
  Stephen Butchko: But now that we've been around for a while and we've had our work translated into three languages.
• 11:16
  Stephen Butchko: So now one of the things that we talk about is anybody new that we bring on board as far as actors go, it will be helpful to know what other languages they speak.
• 11:27
  Stephen Butchko: Because we are global now and it's very helpful.
• 11:32
  Jeff Ornstein: That's exciting.
• 11:33
  Jeff Ornstein: You said that your creative life felt like it was building towards a moment that finally clicked.
• 11:40
  Jeff Ornstein: So how did that happen?
• 11:42
  Jeff Ornstein: Because the people that are watching this and listening to this are perhaps considering making some legacy-defining jump into a newer emerged profession.
• 11:53
  Jeff Ornstein: And it's not easy.
• 11:55
  Jeff Ornstein: People have responsibilities to their family, their finances.
• 11:58
  Jeff Ornstein: What was it when you decided that you were going to kind of let's say go for broke and put all your eggs in the basket of the uh virtual technology, and you and your wife are gonna say, this is what we do now.
• 12:09
  Jeff Ornstein: This is it, this is what we're doing.
• 12:11
  Stephen Butchko: There's a couple of different things I think that you ask there.
• 12:14
  Stephen Butchko: Working backwards, it's really for us, it's not something that we I guess we make a choice as to whether or not we want to continue doing it, but it's the opportunity that appeared for us and we jumped on it.
• 12:27
  Stephen Butchko: And we very quickly, because of the way that the world was at the time, it was easy to get a lot of attention on what we were doing, which gave us this buoyancy or momentum that allowed us to continue doing it.
• 12:42
  Stephen Butchko: And the opportunities just have kept coming, so we haven't stopped the answer to that part of it.
• 12:47
  Stephen Butchko: But as far as the the clicking of, I was reminded of a quote that Jim Morrison of The Doors once said that his creative life was like a bowstring being pulled back slowly for 24 years and then suddenly let go.
• 13:02
  Stephen Butchko: And that really is kind of what happened for Deirdre and myself.
• 13:07
  Stephen Butchko: We've spent a lifetime creating things and we send it into the ether, and it's like, hello, is this thing on?
• 13:14
  Stephen Butchko: Or we get lots of no's.
• 13:16
  Stephen Butchko: And a door opened, and we went through it specifically with a project that we created, and it had its world premiere at Tribeca at the festival.
• 13:27
  Stephen Butchko: And that that was sort of we knew then that this was a big jump for us, a big leap, and then it carried so that was kind of the door that opened.
• 13:38
  Jeff Ornstein: So when the bow was released and you were catapulted, uh was it scary?
• 13:44
  Jeff Ornstein: Was it exciting?
• 13:45
  Jeff Ornstein: Was it anticipated?
• 13:46
  Jeff Ornstein: Like this is it.
• 13:47
  Jeff Ornstein: This is the this is the what we've been waiting for.
• 13:50
  Stephen Butchko: All of those things.
• 13:51
  Stephen Butchko: Well, I'm not sure so much for my perspective as scary, but exciting for sure.
• 14:00
  Stephen Butchko: That we finally there's the there was a there was I felt like there was this sense of getting over a wall that we had been trying to get over for so long.
• 14:10
  Stephen Butchko: And we kind of through some circuitous, strange alignment of the moon and the stars, it happened.
• 14:19
  Stephen Butchko: I always would just be irritated at watching these documentaries of these these actors that we know, and they talk about man, it just that just kind of happened.
• 14:27
  Stephen Butchko: I fell into it and I just want to kill them.
• 14:29
  Stephen Butchko: But but we can say that really about what we have done.
• 14:34
  Stephen Butchko: We literally just kind of it just happened.
• 14:37
  Stephen Butchko: Now, it's a little more complicated than that because we've spent our entire lives studying and working very hard trying to make something happen.
• 14:48
  Stephen Butchko: So when we were ready, when the opportunity right.
• 14:51
  Jeff Ornstein: So opportunity knocked, and you are welcome them in full throttle.
• 14:55
  Jeff Ornstein: What would you say then to a listener that's unsure and it maybe has like you the background and the intensity and the drive to do it, but is a little bit unsteady on the courageousness scale.
• 15:11
  Jeff Ornstein: I mean, is there was there any at any part in time did you say, oops, I'm not sure?
• 15:17
  Jeff Ornstein: It doesn't sound like it.
• 15:18
  Stephen Butchko: I'll speak for myself, but generally speaking, creative people that do this kind of work, we need to do it.
• 15:24
  Stephen Butchko: So despite any fear, we will find ways to do this work, and that's what we have, but it's the courage is that's that's aside from doing this kind of work.
• 15:36
  Stephen Butchko: That that requires a life, an examined life.
• 15:39
  Jeff Ornstein: One of the topics that come up, and you touched on it a little bit, is you can run into a lot of no's, a lot of brick walls, and it takes people, you know, don't be discouraged.
• 15:49
  Jeff Ornstein: And for whatever reason the tips didn't land in your favor, it may have nothing to do with what you were bringing to the project.
• 15:56
  Jeff Ornstein: It's a of the director's choice, he's he rules the roost, whatever he's looking for is in his brain, and for whatever reason, didn't land your way.
• 16:05
  Jeff Ornstein: But one guest said, and if there's anything else you think you could enjoy as much as the theater and make a living, do it.
• 16:16
  Jeff Ornstein: Because this isn't easy.
• 16:18
  Jeff Ornstein: So you have to like wake up wanting to just hit the ground running and go for it because every day will be a challenge.
• 16:25
  Jeff Ornstein: That being said, if this medium develops itself the way you anticipate it will, or foresee it will, or hope it will, is there a particular role you would want to play in uh undertaking a certain character that would really float your boat?
• 16:43
  Stephen Butchko: Just being able to continue what we are doing is kind of where we're at.
• 16:48
  Stephen Butchko: I think that there's stories that we look forward to telling as the technology advances and allows us to create larger stories and bigger stories that we can have bigger audiences in and do more things, create more awe-inspiring worlds, that would be very cool to do.
• 17:08
  Jeff Ornstein: Yeah, that led me to actually the next thing I was going to ask you.
• 17:11
  Jeff Ornstein: There seems to be a growing divide or chasm between smaller productions that reach out to people in a very personal way, and the big mega productions, the real blockbusters.
• 17:23
  Jeff Ornstein: And they're very different.
• 17:24
  Jeff Ornstein: I mean, they both are have tremendous merit, but they're very different in the how it impacts the audience and they're personalized.
• 17:31
  Jeff Ornstein: Do you have a preference for the grand spectacular or the small four-person production?
• 17:39
  Stephen Butchko: If we're talking about that with regard to live performance in VR, there's the grandness does not come from the amount of audience participants in the show, because we just can't have that that many.
• 17:55
  Stephen Butchko: But I personally I think a story well told is a story well told, whether it's an intimate my dinner with Andre kind of thing, where it's two characters talking the whole time, if it's compelling, or if it's Lawrence of Arabia or Star Wars on an epic level, these are all as long as we can connect with the characters in the story and it's of value that way, it's the same to me.
• 18:20
  Jeff Ornstein: So reflecting and responding to the world's concerns is also a passion for you and your wife in your filmmaking.
• 18:26
  Jeff Ornstein: Is there a particular social cause right now that you feel needs to be more in the forefront of the arts?
• 18:33
  Jeff Ornstein: Oh man.
• 18:34
  Jeff Ornstein: There's a lot.
• 18:36
  Stephen Butchko: Ah, Lordy.
• 18:36
  Stephen Butchko: Saving democracy is kind of top on the list, on my list.
• 18:41
  Jeff Ornstein: Uh I think that's a good point.
• 18:42
  Jeff Ornstein: It's uh reaching people.
• 18:43
  Stephen Butchko: Reaching people.
• 18:44
  Stephen Butchko: There's been, and I won't go too far off on this, but there has been a very deliberate and systemic devaluation of human labor and creativity in this in the US, at least since I would say the 70s, which has led us down a very dark path to where we are today.
• 19:07
  Stephen Butchko: And this is the time for artists and creators to reflect that mirror back to society with our work.
• 19:15
  Stephen Butchko: And that's how we fight.
• 19:17
  Jeff Ornstein: Right.
• 19:17
  Jeff Ornstein: We never needed artists as badly as we need them right now.
• 19:20
  Stephen Butchko: Right.
• 19:20
  Stephen Butchko: Historically, that's been the the trend.
• 19:24
  Jeff Ornstein: Many people would claim that's something that AI, there'll never be an AI artist.
• 19:28
  Jeff Ornstein: I mean, the creativity and the objectivity and compassion and empathy are not things that our people are attributing to the wonders of AI.
• 19:36
  Jeff Ornstein: So that's what we're here for.
• 19:38
  Jeff Ornstein: Naturally, we've gone over time, but I want to still get from you, because they did a great job of evaluating the producers and explaining to me or trying to just give me some insights into who you are and what you're all about and where you're trying to go.
• 19:54
  Jeff Ornstein: It says you stayed on a path without always knowing where it would lead.
• 19:58
  Jeff Ornstein: What kept you from walking away during uncertain terms, sorry, seasons?
• 20:02
  Jeff Ornstein: But I'm actually more interested in understanding what kept you from staying during uncertain seasons.
• 20:10
  Stephen Butchko: It's us creators and storytellers and artists, one we know who we are, and there really is nothing else.
• 20:17
  Stephen Butchko: Life has been for, like I said, I don't come from a uh a well-connected family with money, and there's always been uncertainty in the creative arts, and I think around the world in general, but especially in this in the United States.
• 20:33
  Stephen Butchko: And if you do it long enough and you don't run away, I think you're tenured, and there's nothing else that you can do.
• 20:42
  Stephen Butchko: I've had some very, very dark nights of the soul, and that the other guest that you re quoted about saying if there's anything else that you can do it, and I've searched, I've wanted to do that, but all the other things that I would do are creative.
• 20:58
  Stephen Butchko: So I was like, in my next life, I'll be a singer-songwriter, and then after that, I'll be a painter, and then something else.
• 21:06
  Jeff Ornstein: But right now, this is it'll always be an uphill battle, but that's that's the passion of the artist.
• 21:10
  Jeff Ornstein: That's what drives it.
• 21:11
  Jeff Ornstein: Steven, I've so enjoyed having you here.
• 21:14
  Jeff Ornstein: I'm going to tag and follow you and ferryman.
• 21:18
  Jeff Ornstein: And I wish you the best of luck in your new projects that you're taking on, and expect to see your mark on the world of VR.
• 21:25
  Stephen Butchko: Thanks so much for having me, Jeff, and allowing me to bring a little bit more visibility to this type of work.
• 21:31
  Stephen Butchko: We want people to join us, and it's a pleasure speaking with you and meeting you.
• 21:34
  Stephen Butchko: Thank you.
• 21:35
  Jeff Ornstein: You're very welcome.
• 21:36
  Jeff Ornstein: Thanks for tuning in to Next Act with Jeff Orenstein.
• 21:40
  Jeff Ornstein: Follow, subscribe, and stay connected to your favorite socials at www.nextpodcast.com.
• 21:47
  Jeff Ornstein: Keep chasing your next act.
• 21:49
  Jeff Ornstein: The best is yet to come.