Latest / Bulletproof Screenwriting™ Podcast / BPS 457: The Untold Stories of Women in Action Cinema with Melanie Wise

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BPS 457: The Untold Stories of Women in Action Cinema with Melanie Wise · Bulletproof Screenwriting™ Podcast

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  Speaker 2: Welcome to the Bulletproof Screenwriting Podcast, Episode number four fifty seven.
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  Speaker 2: Enjoy today's episode with guest host Dave Bullis.
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  Speaker 4: Hi, Meloanie, Thanks off for coming on the show.
• 1:41
  Speaker 3: Thanks so much for having me. It was a pleasure.
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  Speaker 4: Oh, it's great having you on, Melanie. And I just
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  Speaker 4: wanted to ask and the question I ask everybody, and
• 1:49
  Speaker 4: that is, you know, how did you start in the
• 1:52
  Speaker 4: film industry? Oh?
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  Speaker 3: God, you know it's I'm six feet tall and you know,
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  Speaker 3: so you know, I started out modeling, I moved to acting,
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  Speaker 3: and I do think that my height was absolutely a detriment,
• 2:11
  Speaker 3: so you know, basically yeah that yeah, you know, I
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  Speaker 3: think I knew from when I was ADYBD that I
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  Speaker 3: wanted to you know, the arts horror where uh what
• 2:24
  Speaker 3: blew my skirt up? You know, but it just it
• 2:26
  Speaker 3: took me a while to get around to it. I
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  Speaker 3: think I started modeling. I think when I was like twenty,
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  Speaker 3: which is actually kind of old in model terms, you know,
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  Speaker 3: finally turned my attention to acting. And you know, it
• 2:40
  Speaker 3: was like I'd come in to read for producers you know,
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  Speaker 3: quite a lot, and they'd never hire me. And I
• 2:46
  Speaker 3: think a lot of it had to do with being
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  Speaker 3: taller than the leading men. So so that's when I, you know,
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  Speaker 3: I started producing my own content. And you know, and
• 2:58
  Speaker 3: and that even is a struggle, there is, I do
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  Speaker 3: think there is this it's I think it's tougher for
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  Speaker 3: taller women. And on the other tall women that I've
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  Speaker 3: spoken to that are in the industry, I it has
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  Speaker 3: been a common theme that they struggle as well, you know.
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  Speaker 3: And then and then add to that that you know,
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  Speaker 3: I don't well, actually, let me be really bald about it.
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  Speaker 3: I completely suck at selling the victim, which is usually
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  Speaker 3: the roles that are available to women. So and you know,
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  Speaker 3: it was one of those where you know, for a
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  Speaker 3: long time, uh, our our interest, you know, the me
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  Speaker 3: and my teammates, we just we liked strong female leads
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  Speaker 3: and we liked women in action. And after running into
• 3:50
  Speaker 3: so many obstacles with it, we were like screw it,
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  Speaker 3: Let's start a festival. And you know, it's like, if
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  Speaker 3: we want to see more of this stuff in the world,
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  Speaker 3: then we'll create a place for it to play. And
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  Speaker 3: that brings us all the way to the festival. And
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  Speaker 3: I didn't mean to like jump that far ahead.
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  Speaker 4: No, no, it's no problem. Yeah, but uh you know it.
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  Speaker 4: But uh but you know, you know you were talking about,
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  Speaker 4: you know, auditioning, and you know I did read your
• 4:18
  Speaker 4: bio and you were a former basketball standout.
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  Speaker 3: Correct, Yeah, I used to play about well I I
• 4:25
  Speaker 3: grew up playing sports and you know I still play sports.
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  Speaker 3: So but yeah, no, I I don't. I guess you
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  Speaker 3: could say I have a lot of Mars energy. No,
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  Speaker 3: I think that's the best way, you know, and that
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  Speaker 3: that that warlike nature. Yeah, that's me.
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  Speaker 4: So when you were modeling, any answered the age round twenty,
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  Speaker 4: you know, what were some of the experiences there and
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  Speaker 4: was it was it anything similar to when you started
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  Speaker 4: doing acting. Did you find any parallels between the two.
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  Speaker 3: Actually it was just stellar irony because I started modeling
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  Speaker 3: here in California and at the time, the majority of
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  Speaker 3: the industry here was the swimsuit industry. Because everyone goes oh,
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  Speaker 3: well models need to be tall well for the since
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  Speaker 3: swimsuit industry. They hire these itty bitty chicks. And I
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  Speaker 3: didn't fit that either. So I think my timing has
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  Speaker 3: just been kind of sucky. Yeah, and then I went
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  Speaker 3: to Europe and I did okay there. I wound up
• 5:33
  Speaker 3: coming home and I hung up my modeling shoes for
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  Speaker 3: reasons I don't even think I remember clearly, And I
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  Speaker 3: think it was about three years later that I started
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  Speaker 3: banging on the door, you know, in terms of acting.
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  Speaker 4: So when you went to your first audition, you know,
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  Speaker 4: what were some of your memories in the Actually I
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  Speaker 4: mean you were just saying, you know, you were saying,
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  Speaker 4: you're six foot tall, you're taller, taller than than some
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  Speaker 4: of the leading men. So when when you were going
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  Speaker 4: with some of these auditions or maybe some of these
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  Speaker 4: casting calls, you know, you know, what were some of
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  Speaker 4: your experiences there? Did you did you know they didn't
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  Speaker 4: want say anything about your height or uh what did
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  Speaker 4: you know? What was there the experience there? That's what
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  Speaker 4: I'm trying to say.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, I know, well they can't say anything about
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  Speaker 3: your height.
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  Speaker 4: No, I don't. I was just wondering if I maybe
• 6:26
  Speaker 4: said like, oh, wow, Melanie, you know you're tall or
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  Speaker 4: anything like that.
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  Speaker 3: No, no, well it's you know, typically on your resume,
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  Speaker 3: your your height is there. So I mean, if they
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  Speaker 3: were surprised when I showed up, that was for their
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  Speaker 3: lack of reading, because it was right out in front.
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  Speaker 3: But you know, I would get a lot of calls
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  Speaker 3: for the dumb athlete or you know, I actually got
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  Speaker 3: cast in a sun Kiss commercial because I was big
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  Speaker 3: enough to tackle a guy. You know, stuff like that.
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  Speaker 3: You know, so it while you know, I don't canider
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  Speaker 3: height a specialty. I think the film industry might.
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  Speaker 5: You know that that's just like you know, uh anyway, yeah, no,
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  Speaker 5: I mean I got odd stuff and you know, and
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  Speaker 5: and I did get the auditions for Victims and such,
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  Speaker 5: and you know, honestly, I suck at it.
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  Speaker 3: I can, I can try. I can spend you know,
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  Speaker 3: weeks in preparation. I don't think I will ever sell
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  Speaker 3: the victim.
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  Speaker 4: Well, well, I want to. I wanted to, you know,
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  Speaker 4: as we talked about you know, auditions and stuff, you know,
• 7:33
  Speaker 4: I wanted to ask about Hannah's gift and you know,
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  Speaker 4: you know, you were the lead actress in the horror
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  Speaker 4: action film Hannah's Gift and you also won Best Actress
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  Speaker 4: at the indie Fest Film Festival. So you know when
• 7:44
  Speaker 4: you all didn't now when you auditioned for that, you know,
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  Speaker 4: was was there? You know, I'm gonna tell you, I don't.
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  Speaker 4: I haven't seen the film obviously, but were you know,
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  Speaker 4: were you taller than the leading man? Was there? You know?
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  Speaker 4: I want to I actually want to hear about about
• 7:59
  Speaker 4: that film.
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  Speaker 3: Uh. Well, I didn't have to audition for that because
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  Speaker 3: I produced.
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  Speaker 4: It, So yeah, no, that's but.
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  Speaker 3: Was I Yes, I was taller than the than the
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  Speaker 3: than the men that were cast in it. But that's
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  Speaker 3: usually you know, I wasn't. It wasn't like they were
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  Speaker 3: adybd in which does happen in a lot of cases.
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  Speaker 3: But you know I was probably an inch taller than
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  Speaker 3: the guy that was in it. You know, it doesn't show,
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  Speaker 3: but I knew that, and and honestly I wouldn't care,
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  Speaker 3: you know, I am. I I love coming across people
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  Speaker 3: that don't care because the bottom line of it is,
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  Speaker 3: as just as there are tall men out there, there
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  Speaker 3: are short men. They are tall women. There's short women.
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  Speaker 3: You know, it's like we're going to be all over
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  Speaker 3: the place and then this idea that the leading man
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  Speaker 3: is always supposed to be taller than the female is
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  Speaker 3: confusing to me because the only thing that I think
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  Speaker 3: that it offends is the male ego.
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  Speaker 4: Yeah, and I can, you know, I understand perfectly what
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  Speaker 4: you mean. And you know, I want to talk more,
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  Speaker 4: you know, about Hota's Gift. And you mentioned you were
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  Speaker 4: a producer on the film. And now now I'm interested
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  Speaker 4: in hearing you know, about the whole producing aspect of this, uh,
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  Speaker 4: you know, because I always like to hear about actors
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  Speaker 4: who get into you know, screenwriting and producing, because what
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  Speaker 4: you're doing is you're making your own opportunities, which I
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  Speaker 4: think is absolutely golden. I think that is so imperative,
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  Speaker 4: you know that, you know not you know, everybody should
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  Speaker 4: be out there, you know, trying to make their own opportunities,
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  Speaker 4: you know, and at the same time looking at other projects.
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  Speaker 4: So that way you always have, you know, almost like
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  Speaker 4: a fallback plan or having multiple irons in the fire,
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  Speaker 4: so to speak. So when you're producing you know, Hannah's Gift,
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  Speaker 4: where did you step you know, step in as as
• 9:51
  Speaker 4: the producer did. Did you meet with the director and
• 9:53
  Speaker 4: the writer and and and sort of you know, say hey,
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  Speaker 4: I I could actually help produce this.
• 9:59
  Speaker 2: We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor
• 10:05
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• 10:08
  Speaker 3: No, actually, well, yes, and no. The writer director is
• 10:15
  Speaker 3: we've been producing content together for a long time and
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  Speaker 3: he has he wrote strong female leads, you know, long
• 10:26
  Speaker 3: before it was popular, and you know, so I met
• 10:29
  Speaker 3: him and the reason why we got on so well
• 10:33
  Speaker 3: is because we had a similar taste. But I mean
• 10:37
  Speaker 3: he writes absolutely beautiful female characters, and so no, when
• 10:43
  Speaker 3: we went forward to produce it, I didn't step in
• 10:47
  Speaker 3: an offer. You know. It was something that he and
• 10:50
  Speaker 3: I actually steadfastly planned out, you know, of the the
• 10:55
  Speaker 3: for the resources that we had and the projects that
• 10:58
  Speaker 3: we had, it was the best one to produce because
• 11:02
  Speaker 3: you know, when you get into low budget production, you know,
• 11:06
  Speaker 3: you can't do an epic fantasy on a micro budget.
• 11:10
  Speaker 3: That's just the simple truth of it. So you have
• 11:13
  Speaker 3: to choose the project that you can pull off the
• 11:17
  Speaker 3: best with the resources that you have. And you know,
• 11:21
  Speaker 3: in terms of actual production, I mean I did everything
• 11:24
  Speaker 3: from you know, planning all of it to carrying the
• 11:28
  Speaker 3: trash out on set. You know, it's one of those
• 11:31
  Speaker 3: where if you are going to produce your own content.
• 11:34
  Speaker 3: Unless you're showing up to the table with a decent budget,
• 11:38
  Speaker 3: you are, you're gonna bust your ass.
• 11:42
  Speaker 4: Yeah, it's true. It's extreme melody you as as a
• 11:46
  Speaker 4: producer when you're producing stuff, you know, independent film and
• 11:50
  Speaker 4: stuff you know with with you know, small locations, a
• 11:52
  Speaker 4: smaller crew. You know, everyone does have to play multiple roles,
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  Speaker 4: you know, wear multiple hats. And that's you know, that's
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  Speaker 4: something I you know, I've been as I've been doing it.
• 12:00
  Speaker 4: You know, things that I learned up along the way
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  Speaker 4: is that you know, hey, you know, even if you're
• 12:04
  Speaker 4: a producer, you got to you know, figure out, you know,
• 12:08
  Speaker 4: how to get from point to a point B. And
• 12:10
  Speaker 4: mean what I mean by that is, you know, hey,
• 12:11
  Speaker 4: you gotta someone's got to go out there weigh the
• 12:14
  Speaker 4: pizza guy down. Someone's got to go out there and
• 12:16
  Speaker 4: make sure these guys are you know, coming on the
• 12:18
  Speaker 4: set at the right time.
• 12:20
  Speaker 6: Uh.
• 12:20
  Speaker 4: And and but you're also got to do something else
• 12:22
  Speaker 4: at the same time. So it's it's like juggling constantly
• 12:25
  Speaker 4: to make sure that that engine, so to speak of
• 12:27
  Speaker 4: the film is constantly moving.
• 12:29
  Speaker 3: Yes. Now, and for me, it's like I don't do.
• 12:32
  Speaker 3: Some people are are very comfortable sitting and and I'm
• 12:41
  Speaker 3: probably the most a type personality I've ever met. It's like,
• 12:45
  Speaker 3: you know, I do better when I'm actually in motion.
• 12:49
  Speaker 3: So for me acting and producing, I don't think is
• 12:54
  Speaker 3: wearing too many hats on set. It's a little bit
• 12:57
  Speaker 3: different cult, but you know, you know, you're production. There
• 13:02
  Speaker 3: are a few things that I can do on set
• 13:03
  Speaker 3: and then impost. That's post is where probably the bulk
• 13:09
  Speaker 3: of my experience actually lends the most to any anything,
• 13:13
  Speaker 3: because it's like I can. I have a lot of
• 13:16
  Speaker 3: post production skills. You know, I edit, I do sound effects,
• 13:21
  Speaker 3: you know, you know from I'm pretty much a one
• 13:24
  Speaker 3: stop post house. So yeah, I mean I can. There's
• 13:30
  Speaker 3: a lot that I can do with footage.
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  Speaker 4: So did you do any of the post product work
• 13:36
  Speaker 4: for Hand's Gifts?
• 13:38
  Speaker 3: I did? I did, I didn't do. I didn't do.
• 13:44
  Speaker 3: I didn't edit it. No, we we had we had
• 13:47
  Speaker 3: several editors and we actually went through a mountain of
• 13:50
  Speaker 3: editors for the film, because, uh, it was told from
• 13:56
  Speaker 3: the The conceit of the film is that it's in
• 14:00
  Speaker 3: real time and it's told from the point of view
• 14:02
  Speaker 3: of one of the characters, which is actually really difficult
• 14:05
  Speaker 3: to pull off in terms of a production. But the
• 14:08
  Speaker 3: second thing is is that when we started, you know,
• 14:13
  Speaker 3: interviewing editors, you know that we would explain ad nauseum,
• 14:18
  Speaker 3: you know, how we wanted the film to be edited,
• 14:21
  Speaker 3: and I'm not joking. I think five different editors tried
• 14:27
  Speaker 3: to cut it as a standard film, and you know,
• 14:32
  Speaker 3: it was just one of those where it wasn't landing.
• 14:33
  Speaker 3: So we went through a lot of editors. Ultimately, our
• 14:37
  Speaker 3: masters got destroyed. So we wound up shooting the film
• 14:41
  Speaker 3: a second time and that's when I was able to
• 14:45
  Speaker 3: bring the appropriate career to the table. I'll not finish it.
• 14:50
  Speaker 4: So so Melanie that that's that's really interesting and heartbreaking
• 14:54
  Speaker 4: to hear. So how did your masters get destroyed?
• 15:00
  Speaker 3: My guess is see, it was interesting. Everybody. Nobody wanted
• 15:05
  Speaker 3: to start with the ingested footage. Everybody wanted to start
• 15:09
  Speaker 3: from scratch. You know, I'll get the I'll add you know,
• 15:12
  Speaker 3: I'll ingust the footage, and literally the teaps just suffered.
• 15:19
  Speaker 3: I I'll bet money somebody had a deck that was
• 15:24
  Speaker 3: out of calibration and it stretched the tape.
• 15:27
  Speaker 4: So when when you learned that that you had to
• 15:31
  Speaker 4: reshoot the movie again. What was the first thing it
• 15:34
  Speaker 4: came through your mind?
• 15:37
  Speaker 3: You know, it's funny, Uh, you know, I sweat the
• 15:41
  Speaker 3: small stuff in life. That one I didn't. I wasn't
• 15:44
  Speaker 3: like up in arms over it, but you know, pretty
• 15:47
  Speaker 3: much it was. I think it was like a month
• 15:48
  Speaker 3: after we uh learned that the masters had been destroyed,
• 15:53
  Speaker 3: we were actually producing the film for a second time
• 15:57
  Speaker 3: because the stuff just wasn't fixable. We would have had,
• 16:01
  Speaker 3: you know, all kinds of artifacts in the in the footage. Yeah,
• 16:08
  Speaker 3: it was just easier to reshoot it.
• 16:11
  Speaker 4: You know that. That's something similar, somewhat similar to what
• 16:15
  Speaker 4: happened to me. I had a editor who I gave
• 16:19
  Speaker 4: we had meant, we shot on actual SD cards, and
• 16:22
  Speaker 4: we gave him all the footage. And that was my
• 16:24
  Speaker 4: first mistake. I should have I should have kept a
• 16:26
  Speaker 4: copy for myself. And what happened was he took the footage,
• 16:30
  Speaker 4: he started to edit it, and then basically he had
• 16:33
  Speaker 4: a bunch of problems with his with his business partners,
• 16:36
  Speaker 4: and basically stopped working on everything. Well, his laptop started
• 16:41
  Speaker 4: to go all wonky and he was asking people for
• 16:44
  Speaker 4: money to fix it, and I said to him, well,
• 16:47
  Speaker 4: you know, if you still have the footage, and he
• 16:49
  Speaker 4: said yes, and I said, well, I need to get
• 16:51
  Speaker 4: that back, so I'll chip in some money. Well it
• 16:53
  Speaker 4: comes back to me finally about a couple weeks later,
• 16:55
  Speaker 4: and he says, well, I couldn't raise any money all
• 16:59
  Speaker 4: I had, you know, and this laptop is just about
• 17:01
  Speaker 4: to die, and this, that and the other thing. So
• 17:03
  Speaker 4: I kept hounding on him to get me back this footage,
• 17:05
  Speaker 4: and he never responded to calls. And then one day
• 17:08
  Speaker 4: he just deleted me off Facebook. And I actually sent
• 17:11
  Speaker 4: an email and I said, you know, I said, you're
• 17:14
  Speaker 4: you're lucky that I don't hold you accountable for that
• 17:17
  Speaker 4: lost footage. And he didn't respond back to that. And
• 17:21
  Speaker 4: about a month or so after that, some people also
• 17:24
  Speaker 4: said that he had gotten them into trouble because he
• 17:27
  Speaker 4: had taken on like wedding videos and he hadn't edited
• 17:30
  Speaker 4: any of it. He just sat on the footage and
• 17:32
  Speaker 4: people were like, you know, different brides were asking, Hey,
• 17:35
  Speaker 4: where's my footage at and he just let it all sit.
• 17:38
  Speaker 4: And I don't think that guy works in the film
• 17:40
  Speaker 4: industry anymore.
• 17:42
  Speaker 3: And yeah, no, it with a reputation like that you're
• 17:46
  Speaker 3: not going.
• 17:46
  Speaker 7: To go yeah, I see, yeah, No, it's well, you know,
• 17:52
  Speaker 7: it's funny because I tend to be a little bit
• 17:56
  Speaker 7: more old school about editing.
• 17:57
  Speaker 3: It's like, I don't do anything on the laptop. I'm
• 18:00
  Speaker 3: you know, strictly desktop based and uh. And one of
• 18:04
  Speaker 3: the reasons why is is just more stable.
• 18:06
  Speaker 4: Yeah. So so let me ask you this, Melanie. When
• 18:09
  Speaker 4: always shot it, did you did you use it? I mean,
• 18:14
  Speaker 4: like you said, you don't you you sweat the small stuff,
• 18:16
  Speaker 4: and and that you you were you took a lot better? Uh?
• 18:19
  Speaker 4: Did did you look at it as a sort of
• 18:21
  Speaker 4: like a way to say, Okay, now I can sort
• 18:23
  Speaker 4: of change any any problems I had before, or maybe
• 18:26
  Speaker 4: I could fix any issues that arise before.
• 18:29
  Speaker 3: Fuck yeah, any any anything you shoot, you are going
• 18:34
  Speaker 3: to have an extraordinary learning curve. And you know, you know,
• 18:38
  Speaker 3: and you get to cringe through post, you know, beating
• 18:42
  Speaker 3: yourself over the head with how come I didn't think
• 18:44
  Speaker 3: of this at that time? And so you know, by
• 18:48
  Speaker 3: by shooting the film a second time, yes, we absolutely
• 18:51
  Speaker 3: came up with a better finished product. There were I mean,
• 18:56
  Speaker 3: it was you know, I have to say, if you
• 18:58
  Speaker 3: don't learn, you know, if you have the opportunity to
• 19:00
  Speaker 3: learn from your mistakes and you don't well out anyway. No,
• 19:07
  Speaker 3: but we we learned a lot shooting it the first time,
• 19:10
  Speaker 3: someoneen we shot it the second time. It was literally
• 19:13
  Speaker 3: the same story, but we did it a little differently,
• 19:18
  Speaker 3: and you know we've but but it took a long time.
• 19:22
  Speaker 3: It was, like I said, you know, it's one of
• 19:25
  Speaker 3: those where you know, I can look at something and
• 19:28
  Speaker 3: if somebody explains it to me, you know, it's like
• 19:31
  Speaker 3: I try to ask enough questions to really get a
• 19:34
  Speaker 3: firm grip of what they are looking as for as
• 19:39
  Speaker 3: their end product. And you know, having gone through I
• 19:42
  Speaker 3: think we wound up going through a total of seven
• 19:44
  Speaker 3: editors on that project, and it was just mind numbing
• 19:48
  Speaker 3: to me, where you know, you just see them yes, yes, yes,
• 19:51
  Speaker 3: you when you explained it, but then when you started
• 19:54
  Speaker 3: getting your first cuts.
• 19:55
  Speaker 2: Back, we'll be right back after a word from our
• 19:59
  Speaker 2: sponsor and now back to the show.
• 20:05
  Speaker 3: You're like, wow, you didn't you know or it was
• 20:09
  Speaker 3: And it's one of those where I have a hard
• 20:11
  Speaker 3: time believing it was so far, you know, out of
• 20:14
  Speaker 3: the ordinary, that someone just couldn't digest it, you know,
• 20:18
  Speaker 3: but that's literally what happened to.
• 20:20
  Speaker 4: So yeah, it's you know, I've experienced that too, where
• 20:25
  Speaker 4: some some editors, and particularly when I was talking about
• 20:28
  Speaker 4: was saying things like, oh, yeah, I understand exactly what
• 20:30
  Speaker 4: you mean, and then you get it back and you say,
• 20:32
  Speaker 4: wait a minute, that's that's nothing what I wanted. This
• 20:35
  Speaker 4: is completely wrong. And I usually find that That's why.
• 20:40
  Speaker 4: That is one regard where I think emails like every
• 20:44
  Speaker 4: anytime I would, I would talk to him, whether it
• 20:46
  Speaker 4: be in person, because we actually had him in person
• 20:48
  Speaker 4: to come down, and we were talking to him about
• 20:51
  Speaker 4: edits right, and we're where we had a big whiteboard
• 20:54
  Speaker 4: in front of us and we're marking it up and
• 20:55
  Speaker 4: we're saying, okay, let's do this and this and this,
• 20:57
  Speaker 4: and we we marked it all down, and then I
• 21:00
  Speaker 4: sent him an email of everything we talked about, and
• 21:03
  Speaker 4: then when we saw the edit about a week or
• 21:05
  Speaker 4: two later, it was completely wrong. And I'm sitting there going,
• 21:08
  Speaker 4: was I not clear that. I look back at the
• 21:10
  Speaker 4: email and I'm sitting there and I say to myself, well, no,
• 21:12
  Speaker 4: I I can see that I was. I told him this.
• 21:15
  Speaker 4: It's just you know, either they didn't understand or they
• 21:18
  Speaker 4: didn't read it, or they you know, or we're just
• 21:20
  Speaker 4: trying to basically reinvent the wheel.
• 21:23
  Speaker 3: Well, yeah, and I have you know, I have come
• 21:26
  Speaker 3: across editors who think they know better. And it doesn't
• 21:29
  Speaker 3: matter if you know better than the person that is
• 21:31
  Speaker 3: standing there. If if someone is paying you to edit something,
• 21:35
  Speaker 3: give them what they're asking for, you know, And because
• 21:39
  Speaker 3: I've seen plenty of people who would like to kind
• 21:42
  Speaker 3: of you know, direct from the editing chair, which you
• 21:44
  Speaker 3: can do, and you know, but it's also one of
• 21:49
  Speaker 3: those where I I also take, uh, you know, what's
• 21:57
  Speaker 3: clear to me. If I was communicat eating to myself
• 22:01
  Speaker 3: and I consider something clear, it doesn't necessarily mean it's
• 22:03
  Speaker 3: clear to anyone else but me. So even if as
• 22:06
  Speaker 3: I express it, you know, I could be saying, well,
• 22:09
  Speaker 3: the sky is blue, and they can be hearing that
• 22:11
  Speaker 3: the sky is green. And you know, those kinds of
• 22:14
  Speaker 3: communication breakdowns occur all of the time, especially when you
• 22:19
  Speaker 3: are trying to breathe life into something that's not average
• 22:23
  Speaker 3: or typical.
• 22:26
  Speaker 4: So yeah, it's very true. And you know that That's
• 22:30
  Speaker 4: why there's an old saying Melanie by sun Sooth, the
• 22:34
  Speaker 4: the guy who with the uh art of war. It's basically,
• 22:39
  Speaker 4: you know, if the communication breaks down, it's the fault
• 22:42
  Speaker 4: of the commander to the generals and he's and basically
• 22:46
  Speaker 4: if if that, if he checks that out, but the
• 22:48
  Speaker 4: instructions have been clear, then it must be the general's fault.
• 22:51
  Speaker 4: It's something along the lines. I always butchered saying so
• 22:53
  Speaker 4: here by the way then when this podcast, but it
• 22:55
  Speaker 4: was something it was something like that, And basically, you know,
• 22:59
  Speaker 4: he was telling the story that you know, communication is
• 23:01
  Speaker 4: always the first person, who's who used the communication, who
• 23:05
  Speaker 4: is communications from. They should always assume that this is
• 23:10
  Speaker 4: not clear to anybody but me, or this is maybe
• 23:13
  Speaker 4: not clear to everybody else. So maybe so if there's
• 23:16
  Speaker 4: ever a miscommunication, I should go back to myself first.
• 23:18
  Speaker 4: But if I do, but if it is clear, then
• 23:20
  Speaker 4: it is the fall of that person. And you know,
• 23:22
  Speaker 4: obviously in warfare, you know that's he was talking about,
• 23:25
  Speaker 4: you know, making sure that troop movements were well okay, uh,
• 23:28
  Speaker 4: you know, in our in our world of filmmaking, we
• 23:30
  Speaker 4: have to make sure. You know, communication is key because
• 23:33
  Speaker 4: it's moving crews around, it's moving actors around, it's and
• 23:35
  Speaker 4: also it's instructions on editing final piece.
• 23:39
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it's it's it's a tough job. Producing is not
• 23:42
  Speaker 3: simple at all. And you know, unless like you know,
• 23:47
  Speaker 3: until you make it into you know, the area of
• 23:50
  Speaker 3: the industry where you know you've got a decent budget,
• 23:55
  Speaker 3: you're going to be understaffed, and you know that means
• 23:59
  Speaker 3: that you know, it's like the thing that you give
• 24:03
  Speaker 3: up without money, you're going to spend time m hm.
• 24:07
  Speaker 3: And but no, I mean it's a fun ride. It's
• 24:10
  Speaker 3: an absolutely fun run.
• 24:14
  Speaker 4: So when you finally got the the second you finally
• 24:16
  Speaker 4: shot the movie for a second time, and you know
• 24:19
  Speaker 4: you got the final edit down the way you wanted to.
• 24:22
  Speaker 4: So did did did you go about submitting to to
• 24:25
  Speaker 4: certain festivals or did you have certain festivals targeted for
• 24:28
  Speaker 4: the film?
• 24:31
  Speaker 3: Well? Yeah, no, no. Sometimes you know what, this sounds
• 24:38
  Speaker 3: like a harsh judgment of myself, but it really isn't.
• 24:40
  Speaker 3: It's it's more of a humorous one. It's like, sometimes
• 24:42
  Speaker 3: I feel like I have idiots sammed on my forehead
• 24:46
  Speaker 3: because the thing that you've got to realize with anything
• 24:50
  Speaker 3: that is not a dramedy, excuse me, a drama comedy
• 24:54
  Speaker 3: or a documentary, most film festivals are not geared to
• 24:57
  Speaker 3: ingest that content unless it's a specialty festival, and so
• 25:03
  Speaker 3: people make things that are a little unusual or a
• 25:06
  Speaker 3: little off the beaten track, and it's it is more
• 25:09
  Speaker 3: difficult to get those types of films placed in any festival.
• 25:15
  Speaker 4: Yeah, as you know, there's more submissions to various festivals.
• 25:20
  Speaker 4: I know it is, you know, the marketplace gets a
• 25:22
  Speaker 4: little more crowded and it's a little you know, harder
• 25:24
  Speaker 4: to stand out, so to speak. But but but you know,
• 25:28
  Speaker 4: you actually won for Best Actress at the indie Fest
• 25:32
  Speaker 4: film festival. So were you in attendance to collect that award?
• 25:36
  Speaker 3: Oh no, actually I wasn't. We actually with that we
• 25:40
  Speaker 3: got we won Audience Choice at Chakra Fest. I think
• 25:46
  Speaker 3: we collected a total of I think four or five
• 25:49
  Speaker 3: awards for that film. And it was it was funny
• 25:56
  Speaker 3: because you know, it was kind of a lark. I'm
• 26:00
  Speaker 3: not answering your question, and I don't mean to not
• 26:02
  Speaker 3: answer it, but I was going to distract with something else.
• 26:05
  Speaker 3: So I get, you know, when I submitted us to
• 26:08
  Speaker 3: chakra Fest, and then I get the rejection notice and
• 26:11
  Speaker 3: like a week later, they're saying, hey, you've been you know,
• 26:16
  Speaker 3: are you've been selected to screen at this and I
• 26:18
  Speaker 3: write them this kind of sniffy email back saying, you know, hey,
• 26:21
  Speaker 3: you just told me I didn't get in, So what's
• 26:23
  Speaker 3: the real story here? So I think what happened was
• 26:27
  Speaker 3: is they had something that they picked had fallen out
• 26:29
  Speaker 3: and so they were taking an alternate And it was
• 26:33
  Speaker 3: one of those where I don't think the people who
• 26:37
  Speaker 3: ran the festival were particularly fond of the film, but
• 26:41
  Speaker 3: they were absolutely shocked when we won audience Choice, so
• 26:45
  Speaker 3: that was kind of funny. Yet it's one of those
• 26:50
  Speaker 3: where even if it's one of the reasons that we
• 26:55
  Speaker 3: started the festival, it's like because a lot of the
• 26:57
  Speaker 3: content that we play is not going to show at
• 27:00
  Speaker 3: a lot of other festivals because those festivals, if you
• 27:04
  Speaker 3: just look at the whole festival world and and what
• 27:09
  Speaker 3: gets played, our films are not what they play.
• 27:14
  Speaker 4: So you know, as as we were going to talk
• 27:16
  Speaker 4: about now about the Armish Film Festival, you know what
• 27:19
  Speaker 4: was sort of the impetus to start that? Was it,
• 27:21
  Speaker 4: you know, just to show those films. If you just
• 27:23
  Speaker 4: said just to show films that wouldn't get shown anywhere else,
• 27:26
  Speaker 4: or so I shouldn't say certain gives a were getting
• 27:29
  Speaker 4: shown at certain festivals.
• 27:30
  Speaker 3: I should say, actually, more to the point is that
• 27:36
  Speaker 3: I have had a long standing belief that women in
• 27:40
  Speaker 3: action is a very lucrative thing, you know, and every
• 27:46
  Speaker 3: few years or so you'll see, you know, should come
• 27:50
  Speaker 3: out from the studios where they say that women in
• 27:52
  Speaker 3: action as box office poison. And I don't remember if
• 27:54
  Speaker 3: you do, you remember that film A on Flux that
• 27:56
  Speaker 3: starred Charlie's their own well, that did not do very well.
• 28:02
  Speaker 3: And I remember at the time, at that time, I was,
• 28:06
  Speaker 3: you know, very much into studying box office revenues and
• 28:11
  Speaker 3: and what stuff was earning, and hands down, for many years,
• 28:17
  Speaker 3: action is the best selling genre of films above ever anything,
• 28:23
  Speaker 3: and you know, and it's one of those where we
• 28:25
  Speaker 3: have probably almost five decades where we have a smattering
• 28:32
  Speaker 3: of films that feature women in action, and there's always
• 28:35
  Speaker 3: some excuse not to make more. And when A on Flux,
• 28:41
  Speaker 3: the last time I saw it in the trades, you know,
• 28:44
  Speaker 3: where they're saying, oh, women in action is box office poison,
• 28:47
  Speaker 3: was right around aon Flux, And you know, it was like,
• 28:50
  Speaker 3: you know, a few years prior to that, you know,
• 28:52
  Speaker 3: you'd see comments here and there. But now we're seeing,
• 28:56
  Speaker 3: you know, especially in the last like or four years,
• 29:00
  Speaker 3: we're seeing and we're seeing a tide change. And if
• 29:03
  Speaker 3: you look on TV, you've got an extraordinary number of
• 29:07
  Speaker 3: shows that feature you know, pretty empowered women and female characters,
• 29:13
  Speaker 3: a lot of women in action, and so that market
• 29:17
  Speaker 3: is there. But if you look at it's one of
• 29:25
  Speaker 3: those where I think the biggest impetus there was two
• 29:29
  Speaker 3: impetuses for the festival. One was to create a space
• 29:33
  Speaker 3: for the content to play, and two is to prove
• 29:37
  Speaker 3: that there's an extraordinary audience for it. Because you know,
• 29:40
  Speaker 3: it's like we get films from twenty five countries around
• 29:43
  Speaker 3: the globe almost every year. We have a worldwide audience.
• 29:49
  Speaker 3: You know, our social media fans are all over the world.
• 29:55
  Speaker 2: We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor
• 30:02
  Speaker 2: and now back to the show.
• 30:04
  Speaker 4: You know.
• 30:05
  Speaker 3: So it's like, this isn't something that is just interesting
• 30:11
  Speaker 3: to a certain group of the population on a certain
• 30:14
  Speaker 3: in a certain area of the world. It's all over.
• 30:18
  Speaker 3: I mean, our first year we had we actually had
• 30:20
  Speaker 3: a it was an animated film. It was you know,
• 30:26
  Speaker 3: claymation from Iran, and you know, so of all places
• 30:31
  Speaker 3: in the world where we're literally taking in content from
• 30:34
  Speaker 3: Iran where they are celebrating the strength of the female
• 30:39
  Speaker 3: of the species, which is really kind of ironic. And
• 30:43
  Speaker 3: you know, it's like, because of the festival, we get
• 30:46
  Speaker 3: extraordinary pieces of history for you know, women that a
• 30:51
  Speaker 3: lot of people don't know about. That's really cool too.
• 30:54
  Speaker 3: I mean, like, you know, odd fact, did you know
• 30:56
  Speaker 3: that the winningest basketball team in all of written history
• 31:01
  Speaker 3: is a women's basketball team out of Texas. I think
• 31:06
  Speaker 3: they were called the Flying Queens, and I think they
• 31:08
  Speaker 3: played from like like nineteen it was like the mid
• 31:13
  Speaker 3: fifties through like I can't remember the years stretch it is,
• 31:20
  Speaker 3: but it started in like nineteen fifty six, I think,
• 31:23
  Speaker 3: and they have the literally the winningest basketball record in
• 31:27
  Speaker 3: all of history. Nobody knows about this, you know, go.
• 31:32
  Speaker 4: Ahead, No, I was just like, yeah, I didn't. I
• 31:35
  Speaker 4: didn't know that.
• 31:36
  Speaker 3: Yeah. Well, when we showed it at the festival, nobody
• 31:39
  Speaker 3: knew it. It was. It was interesting last year we
• 31:42
  Speaker 3: had a couple of articles written by people's They were
• 31:48
  Speaker 3: published during the festival, but they were published by people
• 31:51
  Speaker 3: who were actually showed up to a few of the
• 31:53
  Speaker 3: screenings and events that we had and you know, it
• 31:57
  Speaker 3: was really awesome to to see them. Right, Wow, I
• 32:02
  Speaker 3: had no idea, you know, but this is I mean,
• 32:05
  Speaker 3: these are things that should be widely available. Then they're not.
• 32:09
  Speaker 3: And and and it should be widely available, not just
• 32:12
  Speaker 3: because we're sitting here going, oh, it's time to pay
• 32:14
  Speaker 3: attention to women, but because they're part of our history
• 32:18
  Speaker 3: and they're out there and nobody knows about it. So
• 32:26
  Speaker 3: you know, it's like when you talk about women in action,
• 32:28
  Speaker 3: you're going to be talking about you know, women in sports, military,
• 32:33
  Speaker 3: you know, narrative obviously of any genre, but it's like
• 32:38
  Speaker 3: you're in the you know, in the military stories we
• 32:41
  Speaker 3: get you know, their jaw dropping because you don't realize
• 32:46
  Speaker 3: how much women have actually contributed to, you know, military
• 32:51
  Speaker 3: efforts all the way back to World War Two. You know,
• 32:55
  Speaker 3: we've showed films about you know, the first ladies that
• 33:00
  Speaker 3: actually ever flew aircraft for the military, and they would
• 33:03
  Speaker 3: even test the ship for the guys to fly, and
• 33:06
  Speaker 3: you know, and so they had these you know amazing
• 33:09
  Speaker 3: few years of flying airplanes and having this incredibly adventurerousome life.
• 33:14
  Speaker 3: And then when the men came back to war, they
• 33:16
  Speaker 3: were you know, told to go back home and cook
• 33:18
  Speaker 3: for their kids.
• 33:21
  Speaker 4: Yeah, there's also a history of War two. There's a
• 33:24
  Speaker 4: history of you know, of female fighters, and you know,
• 33:27
  Speaker 4: when the when the Nazis invaded in nineteen forty one,
• 33:30
  Speaker 4: there was you know, like women were fighting alongside the
• 33:33
  Speaker 4: battlefield and they actually, you know, were pilots. I think
• 33:37
  Speaker 4: they were called the There was actually a pilot group
• 33:39
  Speaker 4: called the uh I think the Witches or something or
• 33:42
  Speaker 4: something like that. It was. They were basically, you know,
• 33:44
  Speaker 4: flying these old fashioned planes, but they was just but
• 33:48
  Speaker 4: you know, because they were taking on the invading Nazi force.
• 33:50
  Speaker 3: Yeah, one thing, the Witches out of Russia.
• 33:53
  Speaker 4: Yeah, but I think there was a name. I think
• 33:55
  Speaker 4: it was something Witches. I can't remember, but I'll look
• 33:57
  Speaker 4: to that and the show. Not everybody.
• 33:59
  Speaker 3: Yeah, no, I'm pretty I'm pretty sure you are correct.
• 34:01
  Speaker 3: And then for the US you had the WASPS and
• 34:04
  Speaker 3: they were the Women Air Force Service pilots, I believe. Yeah,
• 34:10
  Speaker 3: we actually were lucky enough to have a ninety three
• 34:14
  Speaker 3: year old WASP at the festival for one of our
• 34:17
  Speaker 3: Warrior Women panels last year.
• 34:20
  Speaker 4: And I'm sorry, no, go ahead, I was gonna say.
• 34:23
  Speaker 4: They did a lot of people. You know, ask her
• 34:24
  Speaker 4: about the war.
• 34:25
  Speaker 3: Oh hell yeah, yeah, yeah, no. And it was literally,
• 34:30
  Speaker 3: I think it was late last year they actually finally
• 34:32
  Speaker 3: started getting death benefits for these ladies that died in service.
• 34:37
  Speaker 3: You know, because during that period of time when these
• 34:41
  Speaker 3: women were flying, because they were they were flying back
• 34:45
  Speaker 3: and forth or some of them were stationed in Europe,
• 34:48
  Speaker 3: but they basically just did a lot of supply flying
• 34:51
  Speaker 3: and other types of flying for the US. And you know,
• 34:56
  Speaker 3: if one of their if one of the lady pilots
• 35:03
  Speaker 3: died in service, the ladies literally collected money between themselves
• 35:07
  Speaker 3: to actually bring their bodies back because because because the
• 35:14
  Speaker 3: US government wouldn't pay for it, and they literally just
• 35:18
  Speaker 3: I think it was late last year where they they
• 35:21
  Speaker 3: actually got that. I think they got the law to
• 35:24
  Speaker 3: change so that their death benefits were covered. I mean
• 35:28
  Speaker 3: some of the stuff, I mean, you know, some of
• 35:31
  Speaker 3: this stuff is mind thembing and people need to know
• 35:34
  Speaker 3: about it.
• 35:36
  Speaker 4: Yeah. Absolutely, It's very fascinating and uh you know that.
• 35:39
  Speaker 4: And again, you know, I'm looking at you know, some
• 35:41
  Speaker 4: of the people that that you've had at the festival. Uh,
• 35:43
  Speaker 4: some of the honorees you've had, Zoe Bell, you've had
• 35:48
  Speaker 4: Yancy Butler, and you've even had Paul fag On some
• 35:53
  Speaker 4: of yourees, yes, yeah, and it's absolutely amazing.
• 35:57
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 35:57
  Speaker 4: No.
• 35:57
  Speaker 3: And this year, and there's more, there's more to announcement.
• 36:00
  Speaker 3: This year, we have Tom Curus Michelle Nichols, who was
• 36:06
  Speaker 3: Lieutenant of Heura in The First Star Trek. So I
• 36:09
  Speaker 3: mean and this, I mean, this lady literally broke so
• 36:12
  Speaker 3: many barriers by playing that role. It's you know, I
• 36:17
  Speaker 3: mean to recount that would take a moment, so I
• 36:19
  Speaker 3: won't bore you at the gory details. And then we
• 36:21
  Speaker 3: have some absolutely fantastic stunt ladies and one stunt guy
• 36:28
  Speaker 3: and they Armstrong, who is Andy Armstrong is probably one
• 36:32
  Speaker 3: of the top second unit action directors for you know,
• 36:36
  Speaker 3: big budget blockbuster films, and he happens to be an
• 36:40
  Speaker 3: extraordinary supporter of female stunt women. He actually hires a
• 36:45
  Speaker 3: lot of them, which is really cool. Jennifer Caputo, who's
• 36:49
  Speaker 3: been a stunt woman for more than two decades and
• 36:51
  Speaker 3: she does all kinds of wacky shit. And then Tammy Beard,
• 36:57
  Speaker 3: who's she does an amazing body of stuntwork as well,
• 37:02
  Speaker 3: but she does the best car hits you can imagine.
• 37:05
  Speaker 3: So I mean she literally, you know, steps out in
• 37:07
  Speaker 3: front of a car and high heels and aduily for
• 37:10
  Speaker 3: address and and lets the car hit her. And then there's, uh, gosh,
• 37:16
  Speaker 3: there's one more person. And I'm totally spacing off. I
• 37:18
  Speaker 3: feel like an idiot.
• 37:21
  Speaker 4: But don't feel bit. Don't feel bet Melanie. Every time
• 37:24
  Speaker 4: I do this podcast, my brain stops working. I swear
• 37:27
  Speaker 4: to God. Yeah.
• 37:29
  Speaker 3: But now, I mean, we have this year, we'll have
• 37:31
  Speaker 3: some amazing on ours and we have we actually have
• 37:35
  Speaker 3: a couple other announcements coming down the pipeline that are
• 37:37
  Speaker 3: going to be pretty juicy too.
• 37:40
  Speaker 4: That's fantastic. And I mean, and you know, you also
• 37:43
  Speaker 4: have some great media partners. You have Film Inquiry, you
• 37:46
  Speaker 4: have Ink Tip, and you have Action Movie Freak, you know,
• 37:49
  Speaker 4: and you know that that's actually a question I wanted
• 37:51
  Speaker 4: to ask, is are you at a position now or
• 37:55
  Speaker 4: where like different partners pitch you, you know, you know
• 37:59
  Speaker 4: what I mean. So are are they finding you out
• 38:02
  Speaker 4: and saying, hey, you know, Melanie's got you know, the
• 38:03
  Speaker 4: Artomist Film Festival. You know we should we should you know,
• 38:06
  Speaker 4: talk about you know, sponsoring something here.
• 38:09
  Speaker 3: Yeah, no, okay, Just so you know, so our first
• 38:12
  Speaker 3: two years of putting the festival on. We were we
• 38:14
  Speaker 3: crowdfunded and so I mean, so we are a fan
• 38:18
  Speaker 3: backed festival, you know, and our media partners to date
• 38:23
  Speaker 3: are you know, basically it's you know, we basically do
• 38:26
  Speaker 3: cross promotions because we benefit each other and and it's
• 38:31
  Speaker 3: it's you know, it's it's great to find and people
• 38:35
  Speaker 3: that you are proud to promote for the stuff that
• 38:38
  Speaker 3: they do. But yeah, I think we are We are
• 38:43
  Speaker 3: working on sponsorship, you know, the actual dollar kind, which
• 38:48
  Speaker 3: you know, so we are working on that. But we
• 38:50
  Speaker 3: will be you know, we will be crowdfunding again, probably
• 38:54
  Speaker 3: starting right at the beginning of February.
• 38:58
  Speaker 4: So are you going to be crowdfund through Indiegogo or kicks?
• 39:02
  Speaker 3: We'll probably run on indiego go, which is where we've
• 39:05
  Speaker 3: been the last two years, although I am considering I
• 39:11
  Speaker 3: am considering another crowdfunding platform for a few a few
• 39:15
  Speaker 3: different reasons. But but yeah, the last two years we've
• 39:18
  Speaker 3: run on indiegog and you know, we we we generally
• 39:22
  Speaker 3: call it the women kick Ass Project because that's our hashtag,
• 39:29
  Speaker 3: and uh, you know what we you know, it's it's
• 39:32
  Speaker 3: kind of cool to be able to say, hey, we
• 39:35
  Speaker 3: have a completely fan backed festival, which is what we have.
• 39:39
  Speaker 4: Yeah, it is amazing you have a fan back festival.
• 39:41
  Speaker 4: It really, it really truly is because that way, you know,
• 39:45
  Speaker 4: you know exactly, you know where it's you know where
• 39:48
  Speaker 4: the bread is buttered, so to speak. You know exactly
• 39:51
  Speaker 4: what you know, you you know what I mean, Like,
• 39:53
  Speaker 4: there's no some may pull the strings behind the scenes,
• 39:56
  Speaker 4: so to speak. Do you know what I mean?
• 39:58
  Speaker 2: We'll be right back at for a word from our
• 40:00
  Speaker 2: sponsor and now back to the show.
• 40:07
  Speaker 3: No, that well, there's that, But also to me, the
• 40:11
  Speaker 3: fact that it's fan based. We have we have a
• 40:14
  Speaker 3: base of fans that are willing to literally financially get
• 40:19
  Speaker 3: behind the production of the festival. It should speak loudly
• 40:22
  Speaker 3: to the fact that people like women in action, damn it. Period. Yeah,
• 40:30
  Speaker 3: so you know, and and we get we get backers
• 40:34
  Speaker 3: all from all over the place too. So it's it's
• 40:38
  Speaker 3: that that part is, you know, corporate sponsorship will make
• 40:43
  Speaker 3: would make our life a lot easier. But I don't
• 40:48
  Speaker 3: I I I I can't really express a my gratitude
• 40:54
  Speaker 3: but also the for lack of better words, pride that
• 40:59
  Speaker 3: our fans like us so much that they contribute to
• 41:03
  Speaker 3: the production of the film festival. I mean, you know,
• 41:06
  Speaker 3: I plaster their names all over our website and I
• 41:08
  Speaker 3: put them in our festival program because I want everyone
• 41:10
  Speaker 3: to know.
• 41:13
  Speaker 4: And what you know, it is twenty seventeen. When is
• 41:16
  Speaker 4: the festival for twenty seventeen. You have a set date
• 41:19
  Speaker 4: right now?
• 41:20
  Speaker 3: Yeah, now we're gonna be Our opening night is gonna
• 41:23
  Speaker 3: occur at the Area in Los Angeles. It's a theater
• 41:27
  Speaker 3: that's right near Wilshore on Los Angeles, Los Angle and
• 41:30
  Speaker 3: Beverly Hills. And that'll be April twentieth, and then the
• 41:35
  Speaker 3: last three days of the festival, the twenty first through
• 41:37
  Speaker 3: the twenty third, will occur in Santa Monica at Lenley's
• 41:41
  Speaker 3: on Second in Arizona.
• 41:44
  Speaker 4: And could people just go to to artistofeshole dot com
• 41:47
  Speaker 4: buy tickets.
• 41:49
  Speaker 3: They can, they're not available for sale. What will happen
• 41:53
  Speaker 3: is when we open up our crowdfunding that's the first
• 41:55
  Speaker 3: place screening passes will go up for sale. After that, obviously,
• 42:00
  Speaker 3: you know, they'll be available through Lemley as well as
• 42:02
  Speaker 3: our website. And you know, we have an extraordinary year coming.
• 42:08
  Speaker 3: We've got some we have really astounding content to share,
• 42:14
  Speaker 3: and you know we'll have an extraordinary array of panels.
• 42:18
  Speaker 3: You know, we'll have our stunt woman panel, We'll probably
• 42:21
  Speaker 3: have a Warrior women panel. We are also gonna put
• 42:26
  Speaker 3: together probably a VR panel, because virtual reality is an
• 42:32
  Speaker 3: extraordinary burgeoning field that is wide open if women want
• 42:36
  Speaker 3: to jump in.
• 42:39
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I've seen more filmmakers starting to, you know, sort
• 42:43
  Speaker 4: of dabble in VR, sort of putting their foot in
• 42:45
  Speaker 4: the water, so to speak, you know, testing the waters out,
• 42:47
  Speaker 4: just to see, you know, we see you know, what
• 42:49
  Speaker 4: it's all about. And I'm I'm actually interested, to be
• 42:54
  Speaker 4: honest with you, Melanie, about which way it's going to go.
• 42:56
  Speaker 4: I have a few I could see On one hand,
• 42:58
  Speaker 4: VR going the way of some like three D where
• 43:01
  Speaker 4: you know, it was it works well in some areas,
• 43:04
  Speaker 4: but most people sort of, you know, go back to,
• 43:07
  Speaker 4: you know, the way we do things, you know, normally,
• 43:09
  Speaker 4: or if it's going to be like sort of like
• 43:11
  Speaker 4: the future where you just put on a VR headset
• 43:15
  Speaker 4: and you can pretty much, you know, you can do
• 43:16
  Speaker 4: you know, go play video games and you switch it.
• 43:19
  Speaker 4: Now you're watching a movie and it's all that you know,
• 43:21
  Speaker 4: that VR immersive experience.
• 43:24
  Speaker 3: Yeah, one of the things that I get that is
• 43:27
  Speaker 3: very interesting to me. Is is as it comes to narrative,
• 43:30
  Speaker 3: it will be very curious to me to see how
• 43:33
  Speaker 3: that plays out, because we generally don't stand, you know,
• 43:38
  Speaker 3: and you know VR, if you're doing immersive VR, you've
• 43:42
  Speaker 3: got a headset on and you know, whichever direction you turn,
• 43:47
  Speaker 3: you have some view available to you, right, which requires
• 43:52
  Speaker 3: the ability to stand. I wonder if people will literally stand.
• 43:57
  Speaker 3: Let's say, if it was a narrative film. You're looking
• 44:00
  Speaker 3: that you know, somewhere between ninety to one hundred and
• 44:03
  Speaker 3: twenty minutes. I'm having a hard time seeing people stand
• 44:07
  Speaker 3: to watch a movie like that.
• 44:09
  Speaker 4: Yeah, you know, so I.
• 44:12
  Speaker 3: Do think I am one hundred percent certain we're VR
• 44:17
  Speaker 3: is gonna blow a lot of shit open. You know,
• 44:19
  Speaker 3: it's it's going to be. You know, we're always i mean,
• 44:22
  Speaker 3: come on, look, you know, every every few years we're
• 44:25
  Speaker 3: updating our technology. And so it's it's part of life,
• 44:28
  Speaker 3: and that's just the way it goes. Is things are
• 44:31
  Speaker 3: going to change. People are going to be looking for
• 44:33
  Speaker 3: the next best new you know, bigger, better, faster, more
• 44:38
  Speaker 3: kind of a thing. And you know, and and you know,
• 44:41
  Speaker 3: I do think that you know, people will still continue
• 44:44
  Speaker 3: to watch flatties, you know, so I don't think I
• 44:50
  Speaker 3: just think it's going to be in another area of
• 44:55
  Speaker 3: you know, the filmed moving image. And but the other
• 44:59
  Speaker 3: the other cool part about VR is some of the
• 45:01
  Speaker 3: stuff that they're doing to actually make a difference, you know,
• 45:05
  Speaker 3: in terms of learning. And there are people that I
• 45:08
  Speaker 3: know that are developing programs for you know, empathy. They're
• 45:13
  Speaker 3: doing all kinds of stuff. I mean, VR is a vast,
• 45:16
  Speaker 3: vast world, and I think that you know, it's how
• 45:22
  Speaker 3: it's getting used hasn't even been tapped. There's an and
• 45:26
  Speaker 3: there's it's it's just it's a brand new, wide open field.
• 45:31
  Speaker 4: Yeah, and you know, again, I am very interested to see,
• 45:34
  Speaker 4: you know, which way it actually goes. And I wonder too,
• 45:38
  Speaker 4: if you know, that will be just the new norm.
• 45:41
  Speaker 4: I also wonder if that would be like the new
• 45:42
  Speaker 4: way to go to work, will literally just be like,
• 45:44
  Speaker 4: you know, hey, I'm gonna put on my VR headset
• 45:47
  Speaker 4: and work remotely because we can have conferences remotely and
• 45:51
  Speaker 4: you know, I can just throw my headset or maybe
• 45:53
  Speaker 4: I can even work through like almost like actually in
• 45:56
  Speaker 4: the VR world and using holograms and moving holograms around
• 45:59
  Speaker 4: there or what have you were actually coming out? You know,
• 46:02
  Speaker 4: you know what I mean, because again, you know, now
• 46:04
  Speaker 4: everything is so accelerated with tech, you know, every like
• 46:07
  Speaker 4: you said, every few years or something new coming down
• 46:09
  Speaker 4: the pike that sort of disrupts what was just disrupted.
• 46:13
  Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah. One one of the things that I always
• 46:16
  Speaker 3: look at with our technology is, you know, the more
• 46:19
  Speaker 3: we immerse ourselves into technology, the less we are can be,
• 46:25
  Speaker 3: not always, but the less we are available to you know,
• 46:30
  Speaker 3: just basic human interaction. And so I mean there is
• 46:34
  Speaker 3: it's a blessing curse kind of a thing, you know,
• 46:37
  Speaker 3: because the more disconnected we become from actual real life,
• 46:42
  Speaker 3: you know, that can cause some some pretty big problems.
• 46:46
  Speaker 6: You know.
• 46:47
  Speaker 3: But you know, tech is, it's an amazing tool, and
• 46:53
  Speaker 3: you know, I think that we need, we really need
• 46:56
  Speaker 3: to use it wisely. You know. Just it's no different
• 46:59
  Speaker 3: than the messages that we create with our with our
• 47:03
  Speaker 3: flat moving images. You know, I think content creators have
• 47:06
  Speaker 3: a responsibility and I think they really need to take
• 47:12
  Speaker 3: an extraordinary consideration of the messages that they're putting out
• 47:17
  Speaker 3: into the world.
• 47:18
  Speaker 4: Yeah, very true, very true, Melanie. So you know, Melanie,
• 47:23
  Speaker 4: you know, we we've been talking for about forty five
• 47:25
  Speaker 4: minutes now, and I want to ask you, you know,
• 47:28
  Speaker 4: in closing, is there anything that we weren't able to
• 47:29
  Speaker 4: discuss that you maybe wanted to talk about, or do
• 47:32
  Speaker 4: you have any sort of closing thoughts for this whole conversation.
• 47:36
  Speaker 3: Wow, that's a tough question.
• 47:38
  Speaker 4: No, it is. It's it's a very open ended question.
• 47:40
  Speaker 4: I usually ask that on purpose, just to because it
• 47:43
  Speaker 4: can be anything. Really.
• 47:44
  Speaker 6: Yeah, Now, honestly, wow, we I mean we we've we've
• 47:48
  Speaker 6: talked about so much, you know, but no, I obviously,
• 47:53
  Speaker 6: you know, for for people who who like seeing empowered
• 47:57
  Speaker 6: images on screen, or or just I mean literally badass
• 48:01
  Speaker 6: women in action.
• 48:02
  Speaker 3: You know, hey, check us out. It's Artemisfilmfestival dot com.
• 48:05
  Speaker 3: And you know, we love hearing from new people.
• 48:10
  Speaker 4: And I will link to that in the show notes everybody.
• 48:12
  Speaker 4: Dave Bullis dot com, where you can also follow me everywhere.
• 48:16
  Speaker 4: I'm on all the social media channels, just like Melanie is.
• 48:19
  Speaker 4: And uh, you know, I'm getting really big into YouTube now, Melanie,
• 48:23
  Speaker 4: I've realized, Yeah, that's where I've I've should have been. Well,
• 48:27
  Speaker 4: I don't want to. I don't want to bore you
• 48:29
  Speaker 4: with with.
• 48:29
  Speaker 3: My whole you don't mind telling me, I want to
• 48:32
  Speaker 3: hear this.
• 48:32
  Speaker 4: Okay. So about a few years ago, I had two
• 48:36
  Speaker 4: opportunities to do to do web series for on YouTube.
• 48:40
  Speaker 6: Uh.
• 48:40
  Speaker 4: Both both were comedies. Both were like you know, one
• 48:44
  Speaker 4: was like half hour, another one was like ten minutes.
• 48:46
  Speaker 4: I passed on both of them, and uh, for for
• 48:49
  Speaker 4: a number of reasons. Well you know, now I kind
• 48:52
  Speaker 4: of look back and I go, you know, it just
• 48:54
  Speaker 4: makes sense for me being in the film ministry, meaning
• 48:57
  Speaker 4: on this podcast. I upload the podcast to YouTube as well.
• 49:00
  Speaker 4: And what I'm trying to say out of all this
• 49:02
  Speaker 4: is I should have been YouTube first, beyond Twitter, beyond Facebook,
• 49:07
  Speaker 4: beyond Instagram, because it's just it's more, it's more correlates
• 49:14
  Speaker 4: more to what we do. And that's why I'm now
• 49:16
  Speaker 4: I'm getting back into doing you know, the YouTube stuff.
• 49:18
  Speaker 4: And I and I actually switched channels about two years ago.
• 49:22
  Speaker 4: I had one before where I would just but it
• 49:24
  Speaker 4: was like it wasn't really filmmaking stuff. It was like
• 49:25
  Speaker 4: random stuff I was throwing up there for different stuff.
• 49:28
  Speaker 4: I was doing a lot of freelance videography work. Just
• 49:31
  Speaker 4: there's a whole bunch of other stuff. So finally closed
• 49:33
  Speaker 4: on that channel, got this new channel. I upload pretty
• 49:36
  Speaker 4: much every podcast episode on there, and slowly just trying
• 49:40
  Speaker 4: to grow more of an audience on YouTube.
• 49:42
  Speaker 3: Wow yeh, the YouTube. YouTube is the number two search
• 49:46
  Speaker 3: engine behind Google. Yeah, and you know, it's like I've
• 49:51
  Speaker 3: known for a long time that YouTube is a very,
• 49:54
  Speaker 3: very very powerful platform, but it's also one of those
• 49:56
  Speaker 3: where I I have also been delinquent on YouTube.
• 50:03
  Speaker 2: We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor,
• 50:09
  Speaker 2: and now back to the show.
• 50:12
  Speaker 4: See we can both We can both now you know, uh,
• 50:16
  Speaker 4: not be sort of linquid anymore. We could both finally
• 50:18
  Speaker 4: get up on YouTube and start, you know, putting off
• 50:20
  Speaker 4: our stuff on there, because honestly, I've had a lot
• 50:23
  Speaker 4: of people find the podcast through YouTube. I've had people
• 50:25
  Speaker 4: find some of my short films. I basically try to
• 50:28
  Speaker 4: throw everything I could up there that I want people
• 50:30
  Speaker 4: to see, because you know, I've made a few few
• 50:33
  Speaker 4: student short films that I didn't really weren't really that
• 50:36
  Speaker 4: good at the end of the day, so I was like,
• 50:37
  Speaker 4: I won't show this to anybody else.
• 50:41
  Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, you gotta do it, You gotta do them.
• 50:45
  Speaker 4: Yeah, Yeah, And I just basically use them as a
• 50:48
  Speaker 4: learning experience and then basically was like, I'll never talk
• 50:50
  Speaker 4: about this ever again. I hear you, well we.
• 50:56
  Speaker 3: Have I will. I will make to check out your
• 51:00
  Speaker 3: your YouTube page. What is what's the name of it?
• 51:04
  Speaker 4: Real iron Fist Films.
• 51:06
  Speaker 3: I would not have found that. It's been a pleasure.
• 51:09
  Speaker 3: Thank you so much.
• 51:09
  Speaker 4: Oh no, my pleasure is all mine, you know. I
• 51:11
  Speaker 4: want to say thank you for coming on Melanie.
• 51:13
  Speaker 3: Oh yeah, no, it's fun. It is a blast.
• 51:17
  Speaker 4: Melanie. I want to wish you the best of luck
• 51:19
  Speaker 4: with the Artimist Film Festival and everything you do. Well.
• 51:22
  Speaker 3: Thank you and and dittoh oh.
• 51:24
  Speaker 4: Thank you very much.
• 51:25
  Speaker 3: Yeah. Well, I'll be on your YouTube page.
• 51:27
  Speaker 4: Okay, I'm gonna I'm gonna look for you there, alright, cool,
• 51:31
  Speaker 4: all right, take care of Melanie. Every great day YouTube.
• 51:34
  Speaker 4: Bye bye bye.
• 51:37
  Speaker 2: I want to thank Dave so much for doing such
• 51:38
  Speaker 2: a great job on this episode. If you want to
• 51:40
  Speaker 2: get links to anything we spoke about in this episode,
• 51:42
  Speaker 2: head over to the show notes at Bulletproof Screenwriting dot
• 51:45
  Speaker 2: tv for it slash for fifty seven.
• 51:48
  Speaker 4: Thank you so much for listening to guys.
• 51:49
  Speaker 2: As always, keep on writing no matter what. I'll talk
• 51:52
  Speaker 2: to you soon.
• 51:53
  Speaker 1: Thanks for listening to the Bulletproof Screenwriting podcast at Bulletproof
• 51:57
  Speaker 1: Screenwriting dot tv.