Meeting Blair Treu

Speaker 2 0:34

okay, blair, true, welcome to the podcast. Thank you so much for joining us today oh, I'm thrilled to be part of it yeah, we're super excited.

Speaker 3 0:43

so, um. So, background for the audience um blair true, um is a storied filmmaker who's been working in the industry for a few decades. He, uh, he started off in the studio system working a lot of films, I believe, through Disney Channel, and then now today has transitioned into more indie, especially documentary, recently feature films, and we'll probably let Blair fill in lots of details from A to B, but we got to meet Blair recently at Designs Indie Film Festival a little over a week ago, and Anna met Blair a little over a decade ago in sort of funny circumstances.

Speaker 1 1:27

Your film killed it, by the way.

Speaker 2 1:29

You guys did great. Yours did too, yeah, so we both connected over that, having won some awards for our documentary features and didn't get to see each other's films yet, but hopefully we can soon.

Speaker 1 1:43

Yeah.

Speaker 2 1:49

But we're going to right yes, we are. We're going to Anything we missed in your introduction, as well as what your path has looked like in short form and kind of ending up where you are now, where you just released or are in the process of releasing a feature documentary.

Breaking Into Film Through Footloose

Speaker 1 2:07

But I know you have a varied past, with lots of projects you've worked on. Well, it's kind of an eclectic mix, because I've worked both, both in feature film that is, you know, theatrically released features that were intended to be theatrically released Also TV movies Disney Channel, nickelodeon, episodic television which is a completely different animal from a director standpoint and the way you treat that as well as documentary. And so I've had a. I've been very lucky, I've been fortunate to stay pretty busy and it's been. It's been almost four decades, so I've been at this a long time and now I'm kind of going in reverse mode. I'm just this is more for fun. I'm going back to documentary because I feel like I just feel like that's a fun place to be.

Speaker 1 2:52

So but for me initially it was all about it was the economics of it. I needed to make a living and so I went the more traditional route I went through. I knew early on, when I was in high school, that I wanted to be a filmmaker and so I looked at film schools and I really couldn't afford USC and NYU and and those, and so I and I did have an interest, uh, in. I think the thing that brought me to Provo to go to BYU was the skiing initially. So so I, I did uh, that was one of the things that caught my attention, and they had a film school here. So when I say here I'm talking to you from Utah right now.

Speaker 1 3:31

So I, the short version is I went to BYU, I made some student shorts that got me into the industry, started at Disney, then went back out as an independent, worked when I say independent, worked as an independent director, got into the director's guild and then started working on both features and television side and, uh, to where we are today. So we can talk about that journey to whatever extent of detail you'd like to, but that that's. And I have four kids. They're all married, three of the four married and I've got grandkids. So I've been at this for a while and and I've been very fortunate to stay busy enough to you know, make a living at it. So it's been good.

Speaker 3 4:07

Yeah, and take care of your family.

Speaker 2 4:08

That's, that's amazing.

Speaker 3 4:10

And that's kind of the goal, but I, you know. So I want to maybe poke at this a little bit, because you said I went to school, made some shorts, got into the industry that way and that, just like I mean, for most of us who have graduated within the last 10 or give or take, you know, 10 years, that sounds like frustratingly simple, and so I want to know like it is like a somewhat straightforward path, like I went and I got some entry jobs and just worked up the ladder, or was it more complicated?

Speaker 3 4:38

Were there trials that you had to?

Speaker 1 4:41

weave? Oh, there were absolutely. I think that it always frustrated me when I first started off, because I think people on my end tend to oversimplify things, and so I guess my intent was just to give you an overview. But I think, yeah, it was very it was. It was tough, there's no question about it.

Speaker 1 4:55

Um, I, I, uh, when I was a film student my, uh, I think it was my freshman year at BYU a movie came to Utah. It was the original Footloose with Kevin Bacon. So, uh, when it came to town they said, hey, we need some interns on that. And I knew I'd never been on a movie set. I've always wanted to be on a movie set and to see how the process worked.

Speaker 1 5:21

And I did a little research and I and they had openings in the camera department, the sound department, um, production locations said about five or six openings and they also had an opening for stand-ins and I did some research and stand-ins. If you're a stand-in for an actor, that's like like the lowliest, lowly places of all on the set, but in my opinion it's the best place to be because you're there to watch the rehearsals. You're there to see how the director communicates with cast and how he communicates with crew and his first AD and down the line, and so I put myself in to be a stand in, not knowing that my height matched pretty closely to Kevin Bacon, so I was a stand for Kevin Bacon, who was number one on the call sheet.

From Student Films to Disney Executive

Speaker 1 6:02

He was there every day, and so I was there all 58 days of production, and that is where I got my education. That's where I learned how to make a movie. I didn't even know, when I stepped on a set of Footloose, that movies were shot at a sequence right, I mean, that's how little I knew. I had done some experimental stuff as a kid, but I just didn't. I didn't understand it, but boy was the learning. I just felt like I was drinking from a fire hose. Yeah, and so awesome.

Speaker 2 6:29

I was his stand in. Yeah.

Speaker 1 6:32

And then that was. It was a great opportunity. And then I, as soon as we wrapped on that, while we were on that, I was writing my very first short film. It was about a 20 minute dramatic short and I sold my car, sold my motorcycle, borrowed 1500 bucks from my dad and I raised about $3,800 to make this short, 20 minute film, realizing, okay, this is just going to be a showpiece for my work and I hired the best actors I could meaning you know for free kids that were programmed and I promised him.

Speaker 1 7:06

I said, hey, if I sell this film, you're going to participate. You know, on the back end and everybody's going, yeah, like you're going to sell this film. And even I was like skeptical. But, um, so I made the film and I got lucky with it and I sold it and it paid for my college education. And this is back in the day when we didn't have VHS or DVD or any of that. Films were distributed mostly through libraries, um, public libraries. You could go to the library and you could rent a projector and a 16 millimeter print and you could take home. You know, we used to watch surf movies, you know, and ski movies and we rent those. And so that was the. That was the world back then. That was the only avenue for revenue and and so I got lucky and then made two or three others and sold those and that's how I got my.

Speaker 1 7:53

I mean, I'm oversimplifying again because I know, just to be brief, what happened was there was a special, there was a religious fireside, it was happening in Los Angeles, and they said, hey, can we show your film? And I said, absolutely, cause I'm looking for a job. And there happened to be a guy in the audience there who worked with Disney and he said, hey, I know some guys over there, um. And he said, hey, I know some guys over there, um, I'd love to make an introduction and so I got on. I'm oversimplified. The way I got into Disney that's a whole nother story. It's almost like an e-Hollywood kind of story, but that's probably off track from what you want to hear. But but it's, it's um, I I got in at Disney on the executive track, so I was going to be, I was assistant to a studio executive and he was in charge of features and and, uh, all the TV product that was going on at Disney in 1985.

Speaker 1 8:42

So I was his assistant for a while and uh, but I could see quickly that I was on a track to become a studio executive, which I did not want to be. I wanted to be a filmmaker and so I left Disney after about a year and, uh, and he gave me the best advice ever. He says look, just go out and start directing anything you can get your hands on. Do promos, do commercials, do training films, just to show that you can tell a story in some form or another and get paid for it, and stay on a budget and and you can make a little money while you're doing, at least be self-sustaining, and then all those opportunities will open up for you to do long form. And that's exactly what happened.

Speaker 1 9:24

So I, I worked with uh, you know, I don't know a lot about your audience, I assume they're they're probably from all different walks of life, different faith, uh faith, uh based situation. So in my situation, I had an opportunity to come back here in Utah and work for my church, helping them promote some of the things that they were doing, usually things relative to family and faith, and so I was starting to tell these short little stories and I was able to work my way, and it took about 10 years until I finally had a enough, a large enough body of work that people who were making feature films reached out to me and said, hey, we, we think you're ready to do a feature. And I said I think I'm ready to. And that was the channel movie, even though it wasn't, it was non-religious, but it was still very family oriented at the time.

Speaker 3 10:11

Yeah, disney channel. And then you went on to make how much. How much work did you do for Disney Channel? And some of those Disney Channel movies were like you said, they weren't just straight to TV, some of them were a theatrical it as a.

The Hollywood Route vs. Indie Filmmaking

Speaker 1 10:36

It was going to be a disney channel movie and then it went over to uh, columbia tri-star and sony, and then it was supposed to be a like a kind of like an after-school special type thing tv movie to be sold directly in the television marketplace, and they always have the option that if they're good enough they can go theatrical with them. And so that's what happened on uh I think it was wish upon a star. No, no, it was a little secrets with with uh, sorry, these all run together it was little. We should want to start with Catherine Heigl. That was Disney channel and that was kind of her breakout movie, wow, and that that did not go to the theaters, that was just on the Disney channel.

Speaker 1 11:19

And then I and then I did some Disney channel originals where it's these weren't acquisitions, these were actually movies that they were producing and they were hiring me as a director, but little secrets was went theatrical. That was when I, right after I, got into the director's guild and I lucked out, because when you get paid on a on a television contract, if it then gets bumped up to a theatrical contract, you get a 150% bump. So you get paid again and a half to just to just buy it going theatrical. So that was great opportunity for me financially.

Speaker 3 11:54

So yeah, I wish that's how it worked for us nowadays. I know it's so.

Speaker 1 11:59

So I guess I think it's the thing that I would say to folks who are trying to do this the independent route yeah, if it.

Speaker 1 12:06

If it's it's it's kind of like a photographer If you're trying to establish uh, if you're trying to reach your clients, you take your body of work in a portfolio, either electronically, or you lay it out on a table and you let them see what you can do. If you're a wedding photographer, you want to have a body of work that shows great wedding photography Right, and so it would make sense then to get clients any way you can to do wedding photography, and do it for free if you have to, just to show that you can do it. And then, once you get it, establish a relationship of trust. Then people start paying you to do wedding photography right. And if you want to branch off into glamour or cars or cars or product photography, do it for free, do it any way you can to show people that you can do the work, and then somebody eventually will come out of the woodwork to pay you to do it.

Speaker 1 12:55

And so, for me, I just had the philosophy that, hey, if I'm starting small, eventually somebody is going to come along. I mean, every, every time you do a project, the odds increase that you're going to get another project, and you guys have experienced this right. It's easier to raise money, it's easier to gain confidence, and the indie world is really tough. And so for me, I just decided that I would go the Hollywood route. I would try to impress the executives and show them that I could. I had a body of work and after I'd did enough shorts, after I did enough storytelling, that eventually I could handle something long form, that I could stay on a budget, could stay on a schedule, and then I finally got that shot, and once that was done, it was easier to get the next feature. So that's where our paths might diverge a little bit, because for those that are just staying the indie route and they're self-financing're, they're going to a rich uncle or whatever. Um, it's a little bit different.

Speaker 2 13:52

It's a little bit different game, but some of the principles are are the same you know, the idea of doing something for free to show what you can do is something we teach a lot, I mean. And first features ideally should be super low budget for people who are starting out because you're doing in your spare time, you're wearing lots of hats, you're pulling things together as a portfolio piece to show what you can do and then you get to the point where you can quit your day job and you can do it full time. But if you do that right off the bat, you're going to be in trouble. You know, we always say don't quit your day job yet like, like, do this first build up that portfolio and then the next time around or the next time around you might be in a position to and the nice thing that you have now is remember when I started this okay, we didn't have internet, cell phones, iphones.

Speaker 1 14:44

If I wanted to make a movie back then I had to find it. You know, I had to shoot it on 16 millimeter print and then have it processed. So the field is very crowded now with product, but it's also there's so many more opportunities now to self publish and to put your work out there. And how back then? How could I make a film and put it out on some platform that people could see? It just didn't exist, and now it does. And so, on one hand, while it's very crowded and you've got a lot of competition, at least it's there.

Speaker 1 15:14

So you start with you make whatever movies, do shorts, make them, get relatives to see them, let them give you feedback, listen to their content, listen to their thoughts. Don't be so married to your own material that you can't take criticism. That's that's one thing that really does stand in the way of a lot of filmmakers, whether they're independent or whether they're going the the traditional kind of Hollywood route. You have to be willing to be thick skin enough to hear, to take feedback and hear people say, hey, I don't like your work, or hey, you should have done this differently, or the pacing is too slow, um, or you really shouldn't act in your own movie because you're a better director than you are an actor. You know that kind of thing so, and I never did that, thank heavens. But um, but um. So, yeah, that's, that's just in a nutshell. You gotta be able to take feedback and then test your do.

Speaker 1 16:04

Some shorts mean a long form piece, um, if you really think about it, if you, if you were to take scenes from a, from a long piece and just don't go shoot a scene, take this, a pivotal scene, and then just shoot that scene and get and get comfortable with that and then expand from there, start small and and bigger things will come. That's, that's been my kind of my mentality.

Disney Channel and Theatrical Success

Speaker 3 16:28

You know it's interesting. One of the guys we've had on this podcast before is a really excellent. He did a lot of commercial work. He still works with brands but he's transitioned his career significantly. But his name is Jonathan Bregel and he said something. I think I read it in one of the articles that he wrote. Regal, and he said something I think he I think I read it from one of the articles that he wrote. He said whatever you make is going to create more of that in your career. So if you want to get paid to do such and such, whatever that kind of film is, um, if you work he's like that's why passion, work is so important like if you're creating things just for passion, you're going to start getting paid to do that.

Speaker 3 17:05

And ann and I have found I mean I made a documentary that was three minutes long about my son learning to read the letter D, Took me an hour to shoot, took me a couple of days to edit and I submitted it toa competition. Nothing happened. Three months later, I have a client reach out, asks me to write a script for a commercial, and it was about a homeschooling curriculum that promised to teach your kids how to read. In four weeks they'll read their first word and they'll be able to read before kindergarten. And I said you know, I think you should go documentary with this and have a lot of real moms teaching their kids. And look, I have this thing that I made with my wife teaching our kid and he's just the right age. And they were like this is excellent. And then I got paid to do basically that exact same thing. The curriculum they sent was very similar to whatever Anna was using at the time.

Speaker 3 17:55

And and then same thing. Our first feature was we, we could we ate no bread because we made that feature. We did not eat, we didn't pay our mortgage with it, we didn't do anything productive financially with that movie. Um, yet that movie is yet to come to market. But the second feature we lived off of. We were able to survive off of the fee that we were able to charge through the packaging and the investing and the and just building out of that movie.

Speaker 3 18:22

And what's funny is that a little ways into production for that film. Because, because we'd made a proof of concept, we premiered it at Ziff the same time we premiered our first feature and our investors were there and that really bolstered their confidence to watch the short version with an audience and feel like, hey, this movie is starting to work. And then watch our other movie, our feature, and go, hey, look at these skills that these people have. And they were very, very invested not just financially but emotionally in us and in what we were doing at that point. So I think what you're saying it still tracks today. You know it's no different it does.

Speaker 1 18:59

And when you're spending your own money, it becomes very real that you have to be very conscious of time and resource, and it's the same if you're going to ask somebody else to invest in what you're doing. You have to treat that as though it's your own money. You have to respect it and know that they have the right to be nervous about it and watch it, and you know what. It's no different. Some people say well, I want to go the indie route because I don't want to deal with studio executives.

Speaker 1 19:25

The reality is is that no matter which route you go, you're going to have to deal with with people who are invested in your project and have a right to ask you tough questions. So when you make a studio film for a studio, you're dealing with all these executives that have notes and then you're going to get their feedback and sometimes they're going to be contradictory and you have to kind of work through that. That's no different than if you borrowed money from a group of people that are friends to your uncle and your parents and they all, in a nice way, want to understand how to make this more successful and there's just a responsibility to the people who have given you money and you have to look at it that way and it doesn't matter. Everybody has to pay the man. No, you know. They say I'm not going to work for the man. Well, everybody has to work for the man. It's like death and taxes.

Speaker 2 20:10

Well, and especially in film, it's a collaborative art form. So we have to learn to collaborate with people who are putting their money in, who are putting their time in. Whatever they're putting in, there's going to be some of that.

Speaker 2 20:23

But yeah, I guess I'm curious, blair, what your experience has been on this last film, because it's an indie film and, with the background that you've had with doing Hollywood and that process, what's been different? You know what experiences from your Hollywood background have been helpful in knowing how to approach investors or, you know, get all the things put together that you needed to to make that happen.

Documentary Filmmaking in Hawaii

Speaker 1 20:51

Well, the film that you're referring to is called Sharing Aloha. It's a it's a documentary film that really, at its core it's about. It's a kind of a backstage behind the scenes. Look at what happens at the Polynesian Cultural Center in Laie, Hawaii, but it's really told to the eyes of the students who work there, the students who come into this situation from Fiji and Samoa and Tonga and Tahiti and the islands themselves and Hawaii themselves, and the struggles that they go through to get there, to stay there and graduate from there, all with the goal of, by performing and working at the PCC Colonies and Cultural Center, they graduate debt-free, get their college degree that they otherwise would never have had the opportunity to receive without going into some significant debt.

Speaker 1 21:35

So there was a group of people who came together who felt like this is a story, there's so many wonderful stories to be told, it needed to be shared. And so they put together a little search group and fortunately, you know, on the tail end of my career, there's a few people out there, I guess, who know me. And so they reached out to me and said would you be willing to help us on this? And I said, well, sure, Initially I was thinking I'm going to help you find somebody who can make it. I probably would have called you guys. I didn't know you guys.

Speaker 1 22:04

I think you guys could have killed it with this. It would be interesting. I've mused about, I wonder, what the Thalmans would have done with this.

Speaker 2 22:12

I'll bet they could have done it. I'm sure you did something great.

Speaker 1 22:14

I'm excited to see it. Yeah, we're excited to see it in Florida. So they came out and eventually it worked out that I had time in my schedule to help them and I kind of drank the Kool-Aid. I went to the PCC, I met these kids and I just fell in love with the place and I just felt, I guess, the same thing, same experience that you had had earlier.

Speaker 1 22:35

I felt like, hey, the best way to tell the story is through the eyes of the students who come here, because nobody's going to want to watch a promotional film Right now. I've done promotionals and I think that's a great way. You know I might, if I can, diverge for a second. A great way, I mean. When I was a student back at BYU, I loved I was going through pilot school as well and I loved helicopters and then there was a local helicopter company and I went into that helicopter company and took their tour and they had this hokey little film like 15 minutes long, and I and I just marched right into the office of the president. I said I have to see him and the lady said what she let me in.

Speaker 1 23:14

I said what if I promise you that I could make you a better promotional film than the one you have now? And I don't know what you spent on it, but I guarantee I can make it 10 times better. It'll be a lot more, it'll have a lot more energy in it and it'll, it'll cap, it'll hold the attention and I'll do it for whatever you spent on that first film and I didn't know what they spent, but I was a student and I have access to student gear, right. And so he was, I guess, impressed with my boldness and he said, sure. So I spent the summer going all over the country filming their helicopter heavy lift operations and their medical operations, and we cut together something that was really fun and I did a really nice promotional piece.

Speaker 1 23:53

A promotional is still a story. Okay, I'm still telling a story. In this case, I was paid a small amount to make it, but most of it went to making it itself, and then I was able to end up with a little bit of cash. It was my summer job. Now I had another showpiece, I had something to show. Now I could go to Novell, I could go to Word Perfect, I could show people that I could make these and that blossomed into documentary and longer form storytelling and then eventually features. So I digress for a minute Back to your question about this piece.

Speaker 2 24:21

That's a good point though. And I will say like we did a lot of commercial work and wedding videos before we got into our feature films.

Speaker 1 24:44

And so, like, a wedding video is a story, odds again that you're going to do another one because you're you're learning how to tell a story. You're going out and you're shooting something and you're going to shoot a lot of stuff that you don't use and you're making that hard choice to cut that out and to leave this in, and that's preparing you for the next project, and so it's just repetitive. You just keep going. And I'll bet for those that do wedding videos, if you wanted to say, hey, I'd like to tell a little extra story with your wedding video. Can we spend just an extra day or two to do some fun things? Who's going to say no to that? You're just going to make a cool little story for them and, who knows, it might go viral, as they say today. You do it as a separate little piece.

Speaker 1 25:27

Or you guys that did that cute little viral wedding video that that has no dialogue, it's just music and it tells a story about how she fell in love with him and and that's how it starts, and you're, you're learning just with the letter D. You're learning each time you turn on a camera and each time you're willing to make some mistakes how to make movies, and so you start small and you just keep expanding. It's never going to just happen where you somebody's gonna, oh here's a feature film, here's money to do a feature, it's not gonna right, it's not. I've never seen anybody that.

Speaker 3 25:57

I don't know anybody where that's happened yeah yeah, somehow, maybe, maybe orson welles, I don't know, but the uh um, it reminds me of our mantra is no one's ever going to pay you to do something you haven't already done, and so you have to, you do it, and then and that's part of your schooling rite of passage, whatever you want to call it so catch us up. So you made Sharing Aloha, so you got to shoot it. You kind of fell in love with these kids, kids. But it sounds like this group of people were they just like a group of people that were really passionate about producing a project for the Polynesian Cultural Center, or was this the Polynesian Cultural Center itself approaching you?

Speaker 1 26:37

or a mix. It was kind of a mix. The whole point was how can we get the story of the Polynesian Cultural Center out to the public, how can we share aloha with the world? And so they felt like, well, if we can make a compelling enough documentary and we felt like it should be a documentary We've talked about even shooting a feature there with the PCC as the backdrop, and that might even happen, who knows, but I'm not really pushing it. But if we can just tell that, if we can find a way to tell that story and get it up on the major streamers or maybe do a limited theatrical or something, that would be awesome.

Post-Production Challenges

Speaker 1 27:14

And so then it was time to go to work and just come up with different concepts. And my basic thought was I want to spend time with these students, to get to know a collection of students, and that in the aggregate, we tell the story of the PCC. So I'd have to have some freshmen, I have to have some juniors and some seniors and I'd like to, if we can, it'd be great to see freshmen coming in for their very first day of school and it ends with graduating seniors and through the process we tell each of these little teeny stories of a kid from Samoa, a kid from Tahiti, tonga and so on and so forth, and by so doing we tell the story of how the PCC works. So that's really it. So when people see the film and they laugh and they cry, what they're reacting to are these kids and the genuine stories that they tell. And then they learn about the PCC kind of in the background, and they learn about how it works and how it blesses the lives of these kids through this symbolic relationship that exists between BYU, hawaii and the Polynesian Cultural Center. And so that's kind of how it came to be.

Speaker 1 28:22

And I just had to come up with a concept and because I had done other documentaries that were similar in nature to your point um, they could see it I was able to present it in a way that they could see it. I went and I said, okay, here's our lead stories, here's who I think we should follow, this is what it's going to cost, this is how long it's going to take, and here's your budget. And we went back and forth on that a little bit and, boom, we started to make the film and it was about a six-month shooting process where we would shoot for a couple of weeks and off for a few weeks. Go back and shoot for a few weeks off Because we had to follow some stories as they naturally evolved. That was the process.

Speaker 3 29:02

So six months total shooting or six months spread out no-transcript about two months of actual shooting. Yeah, so so you didn't, you didn't do the whole like four year freshman to senior. No, because we didn't, we didn't want to.

Speaker 1 29:25

We didn't have time to spend four years in production and we wanted to. I also wanted to have them. I wanted to put them in a position where they could get a return on their investment, if you will. To get the story out it's still taken longer than anyone imagined that it would. Yeah, because we were waiting on a on a big hollywood name to be our narrator and and it kind of strung us along for a while and that didn't pan out, so we had to go with. So we were down for six months just waiting. The film was done, but oh wow.

Speaker 3 29:51

So so with the um, so with post, I'm curious because documentaries in our experience because our first film is a fiction film but we shot it almost docu coverage in our experience, because our first film is a fiction film but we shot it almost docu coverage it took three years to edit, yeah, and it was that financial as well, but our second film actually edited a lot faster but it was still a massive commitment to pull, to pull together in post. I'm curious to know what your experience was in post on sharing aloha well it was.

Speaker 1 30:17

It was I. I knew kind of what to expect. Uh, because I'd been through it before on a documentary that was larger than Sharing Aloha. The general rule of thumb is, in my experience, is that for every day in production you're going to spend depending on the size of the documentary and how big the scope is you're going to spend anywhere from 8 to 12, maybe 15 days of post-production. So that's a one to 15 ratio, and so you know you have to when you come back with it, because you don't know which. If I was doing a documentary on you guys, for example, I'd want to get to know you guys. I'd want to know which I think would be a great story, by the way.

Speaker 1 30:57

It might be kind of boring but I'd want to know each of your backstories and then what I would do is I would interview you together, I'd interview you separately. I might want to follow Anna a little bit in her backstory of high school and what led her to do this and how you guys met, and I might find something along in that route in that story that is really interesting, and I might follow a little tributary that would take me off somewhere. That would take me off somewhere and you never know if it's going to pay off. So you shoot all that stuff, only to discover that you leave it all in the editing room floor.

Speaker 1 31:24

You can't know all that stuff in advance Like you do. You know, in a scripted piece the ratio isn't the same. It's more like six, four, four days or six to one. So for every day in production you're going to spend, you know, four to six days in post. So because it's scripted and you kind of know before you go in how it's going to unfold, now you may omit some scenes down the road because you've discovered that that scene wasn't really needed and you can pull it out.

Speaker 1 31:54

So the mantra that I have on scripted is I look for every reason to shoot it, to give it a fighting chance. When I get to the edit, I look for every reason I can to pull it out. It's kind of like a devil's advocate thing because I want to. I want to look at it through the feeling I get in my butt when I'm sitting in my seat. Have I been sitting here too long? How can I cut this down? How can I just use the bare minimum to tell the story so that I can keep the pacing moving? Same thing in documentary or in feature. It's all about. For me, again, it's looking for every reason. Can I pull this out? Can I get into the scene later.

Speaker 2 32:33

Can.

Speaker 1 32:33

I get in out of the scene earlier. Can I tell it with less, because audiences demand that today. Yeah, so that's that.

Speaker 2 32:37

I probably went a little bit off the far field on that, but no, I love that. Those are good principles and I think that a lot of storytelling principles apply to documentary just as they do in fiction, and so, you know, sometimes it's interesting because we made a doc this time and now we have people approaching us with doc ideas all the time, and yet our next film is fiction.

Speaker 2 32:56

And I think there's actually a ton of crossover. You know, and you talked about wanting to see this process over time and having the students be the protagonists. So you get a sense of, like someone who wants something badly. They're having a hard time getting it and seeing that kind of a story play out. It's just a different. You know, instead of all the work being in pre production, a lot of it's in post, as you kind of have an outline and then you get what you get and you have to put it back together and see how to tell a compelling story with that.

Speaker 3 33:27

It takes a lot of faith to make movies, but it takes a lot of faith to make documentaries. Specifically, I feel like you really have to. Just it's an exercise in acceptance no-transcript.

Speaker 1 34:06

different ways to skin a cat and when people say, well, how do you make a movie, how do you get a movie funded? It really is, Unfortunately. It's any way you can the way you can.

Balancing Family and Filmmaking

Speaker 1 34:16

So it there's. There's no set way, especially in the in the indie world. There's no set way. You know you partner up with a, with a company who sells a product, or you use product placement, or you you partner up with a clothing line, or you you know there's an actor that is willing to do it for free because he just wants to get his name out there, and usually those don't work out so well because they're they're're boy. Good actors are few and far between, but so or a writer, or I mean you, just any way you can. You just you just got to be creative in the way that you approach it, and I'm sure you've had to be very creative. You guys have had to do some things that none of us will probably ever appreciate, and the fact that you can do it as husband and wife, I just think that's the coolest thing ever. I you know.

Speaker 3 34:59

You know that's very sweet of you. I wouldn't mind getting into that topic actually because, like so for us, like our partnership, has come with major affordances and limitations. So, like, how the heck do we split our time? We don't have money to have like a live-in nanny. That would be so awesome. If we had someone we loved who just like helped all the time, that would be super awesome. If we had someone we loved who just like helped all the time, that would be super sweet.

Speaker 3 35:22

Right now we have um school, which is a new chapter of life, and I hear that once you have one old enough to babysit, that changes things. But I'm not necessarily looking forward to becoming the world's most neglectful parent when my oldest turns 12 or whatever. Um, but that prioritizing family. We've had long car rides where we've talked on road trips about like how do we put our career and filmmaking in its place, because it's all we talk about, and like we get mad at the kids for interrupting us because it's all we talk about. And it's like we've got to like make space in our lives, not to mention just the logistics of, like you know, having young kids.

Speaker 2 35:55

So when they aren't in school we have to switch off working, working days, but we still have to collaborate together. So we'll do like a movie once a week and that's our time to collaborate. And you know we have to find ways to kind of make it work, but but, but.

Speaker 3 36:09

but I'm sure that at the same time, like um in your life and in your family, you had to hurdle. You know filmmaking is not a family friendly industry generally and most industries aren't, to be honest, like it's easy to become a workaholic or whatever. So how did you navigate that from that side? Because that's something I think we like thinking about and then I guess we that might have to be our conclusion.

Speaker 2 36:33

That might be our way out.

Speaker 1 36:34

Yeah Well, for me, I tried to. Well, the thing that motivated me to begin with is I wanted to make films that my kids could watch. So that, would you know, bring us together and I used to watch them watching films. I would it was like a little free focus group test right and I would watch them very closely, watching scenes that I had made, to see if it holds, if it held their attention, if they were fidgety or if they were into it. So in the Disney Channel days, my kids were the consumers of that product. So that was one way that I wanted to fill out, like I was helping to contribute to. I was making films that they could watch with their friends.

Speaker 1 37:12

And when I was doing no television, like power Rangers or Ninja turtles, when I was doing those TV episodes, I would watch them, watch the shows, and that told me everything I needed to know about. So I was kind of using them in a sense. But I also took them on location with me. So when I, when I would make a film in Toronto or Los Angeles or Mexico or whatever, the family would come with and we, I, I would. That would be one of the factors in deciding whether or not to do this film over that film, because it doesn't is conducive with the summer school schedule.

Speaker 1 37:43

Now, I couldn't always take them. There were many times where I was on other projects and where I was just gone. But it's just a concerted effort. You just make a concerted effort and you do what you can. And there's no magic, there's no magic pill or anything. It's just. I think if you go into it with that mindset, you're going to, you're going to make time where you can and and try to make up for the time you know that you can't. That isn't a very good answer, but that's all I have. That's all.

Speaker 3 38:09

I can say it's good because it applies to everyone, you know, that's we've learned that you know, the quality of the time we spend with our family is sometimes more important than the quantity, because if I'm spending more time with them but I'm frustrated or resentful, then that's not healthy for any of us. So like, but if I'm, but if, when I have a chance to be around them, like they're feeling some parental love and attention and they actually enjoy me then there's, like this desire to be like you know, this is something I'm happy about in my life my parent.

Speaker 3 38:43

Hopefully, I can't control that entirely.

Speaker 2 38:46

I mean, we grew up in pretty traditional households. Ken's mom was a stay-at-home mom. Most of your growing up, right.

Speaker 2 38:53

My whole life, all of your life and my mom worked when I got older but would stay home before that, and so we were used to seeing that dynamic. But you know, once we had our own kids and we were trying to figure out our own life, we started looking at all these families we'd seen that were successful in our eyes, like that's a really good family. We'd like to have the results that they have and trying to break down what did they do and honestly, I don't think there was really one pattern. We saw families that were successful where the dad was working all week and he would just come home on weekends and they would just really prioritize that weekend time together, and we saw families doing all sorts of different things that worked. So I think it's a lot more, like you said, about the quality of the time that you have than quantity, although there's something to be said for quantity too, yeah, and within your, you know, within your your family and friends.

Speaker 1 39:46

your your the sphere of family and friends. I guarantee you that, no matter where you live or whatever your situation is, there are stories around you.

Speaker 2 39:54

Yeah.

Start Small: The World's Fastest Grandpa

Speaker 1 39:56

It could be your mailman, it could be your son's coach. If you've got your ears perked up to a story, grab your iPhone, take some courses on how to shoot and do some storytelling with some simple editing software. Take your iPhone out and shoot that story, Cover it, Edit it. And shoot that story, cover it, edit it. You have tools today that we didn't have when I started and you can. You can do it inexpensively and then you can play it for your friends. Now they're, they're going to be very kind, they're going to tell you nice things, but watch carefully as they as they watch it, and you'll learn some things, and that's how you do short stories. I'm just saying this mostly if you're on a start with short stories, learn how to tell the stories with the camera and you're going to learn about who the audio needed to be better. Oh, there's some music issues here. Buy some, you know. Use some really cheap free production, you know free. What do they call it Fee free? What do you call it Royalty free music?

Speaker 2 40:58

Yeah.

Speaker 1 40:59

And and and there's so many ways I I I'll. I'll finish with this because I know you guys gotta go. I had a friend who wanted to break the world land speed record on his little harley 125. For that category that speed record was, I think, 68 miles an hour at the salt flats. He's a grandpa. So I decided last year to tell that story.

Speaker 1 41:21

I decided to go out with my phone. I say I'm only going to use my iPhone Now. This is a guy who's already made feature films. I've had a crew, 140 people, and it's just me with my phone. And I had more fun with that.

Speaker 1 41:31

I'm in post on it right now. We're editing right now and just for fun, I'm probably going to take it out as a short. Just it won't be in competition because it's you know. I don't want to take anything away from anybody else, but I do want to show it in front of audiences. I want to see the look on his face when he sees his story told in front of an audience. And I did it all on my iPhone. You can do that now. So I'd encourage your audience to start small and just keep working. Tell small stories and just get engaged in that process. Make mistakes and be okay to make mistakes, and shoot too much and get in the edit and, and you know, don't be afraid to make mistakes. That's what I would tell the folks in the indie world who are trying to work their way into something that's larger. Start small, gradually, work your way up to something that's a little bit bigger.

Speaker 3 42:18

Well that was awesome you left me extremely excited to see this short film about the land speed record Grandpa.

Speaker 1 42:25

So yes, it's called World's Fastest Grandpa.

Speaker 2 42:28

That's awesome.

Speaker 1 42:30

I mean not coming to a theater soon.

Speaker 3 42:34

Well, I'm still excited. I hope it goes on Vimeo and maybe gets a staff pick or something.

Speaker 1 42:37

Yeah, we'll post it. We'll see what happens. That'll be awesome.

Speaker 3 42:41

Well, blair, thank you so much. We really appreciate the time that you were able to take and set aside for this and for everything you've shared. It's really helpful, and it's also just a pleasure to get to talk to you whenever we can. So thank you.

Speaker 2 42:53

Yeah Well.

Speaker 1 42:53

I look forward to seeing you guys in Orlando.

Speaker 2 42:56

Yeah, we'll post a link to Blair's latest film, sharing Aloha, in the show notes so you guys can check that out.

Speaker 1 43:03

Yeah, great, I guess the trailer right? Yeah, the trailer's available, so you can watch the trailer.

Speaker 2 43:07

Whatever you want me to share, I'll post it in there.

Speaker 1 43:09

Awesome hey thanks so much.

Speaker 3 43:11

Thanks.