The Vision Maker Podcast
The Vision Maker Podcast
Navigating Emotional Art and Filmmaking: A Conversation with Destyn, Creator of 'A Part of You'
Prepare yourself for a heartwarming journey through the emotions of personal storytelling and artistic filmmaking. We sit down with Destyn, a director, writer, and storyteller, whose recent short film, 'A Part of You / Made Me Whole,' has been stealing hearts at film festivals. Inspired by his experience of receiving a kidney transplant from his mother, Destyn delves into the depth of emotions, the boundless transcendence of unconditional love, and the power of personal storytelling, to craft a narrative that is as captivating as it is poignant.
We explore the creative process, the filmmaker's tools, and the unique techniques that bring this tale to life. Co-director Andrew Wonder lends his expertise, experimenting with unusual filming techniques to create distinctive shots and scenes. From the influence of Godard to capturing the raw emotions through the lens, this episode offers a fascinating insight into the nuances of filmmaking. We also delve into the love, selflessness, and connection that forms the core of Destyn's story, a testament to his mother's unconditional love and the profound bond they share.
In the final part of our conversation, Destyn draws parallels between his sports background and filmmaking, shedding light on how discipline, determination, and resilience can fuel creativity. We also examine Destyn's eclectic influences, ranging from the sensitivity of Wong Kar-Wai to the distinctive style of Quentin Tarantino. This episode is more than just an exploration of filmmaking - it's a celebration of emotional art, a testament to the power of personal storytelling, and a discourse on unconditional love, emotions, acceptance, and self-reflection. Get ready to be inspired, moved, and captivated by Destyn's extraordinary journey and his heartfelt masterpiece, 'A Part of You / Made Me Whole.
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Hey everyone, welcome to the Vision Maker podcast. Today we have a great guest with us. We have a director, writer and just all around storyteller by heart, destin. Hey, destin, would you like to introduce yourself? Give a little bit of your background to our audience.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. First, I want to say thank you for having me on. It's such an honor to be on this podcast with you. My name is Destin Fuller Hope. I'm a director writer. I am initially from Brooklyn, New York, Ground Heights, so in New York or by heart, I'm a storyteller by heart as well. The medium I just happened to choose is filmmaking.
Speaker 1:Amazing. Of course we all relate here, as we've done very similar. You have a very exciting festival run going on right now for a very personal film of yours called A Part of you, correct? Yes, I've already seen that you guys got accepted to four festivals, am I correct? Five, five now I know of Lower East Side, tallgrass, new Face and Brand Film. What's the fifth one?
Speaker 2:We were in the Walla Walla Crush Festival in Washington about a month and a half ago. Two months ago we didn't end up going to that one, but it did screen there.
Speaker 1:Amazing, amazing. I remember in the beginning of my career we also had one of the first things we did was a festival run for a film that we did for a good friend, director of mine. I got to say, for those of who haven't seen the short film yet, it's unique, it's heartfelt, it has a very deep narrative but it's very artistic. I love the stuff you're doing with the RQ. Can you tell me a little bit in our audience about how this came to fruition? I know a little bit, but I think it would be best to hear from you about how this came to fruition and really what the driving motivation behind this was.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. I'm happy to answer that. I actually love that question, the whole point of making this film. A little backstory I got a kidney transplant from my mother almost four years ago. This November 14th will make four years.
Speaker 2:After I got that transplant from her, I felt incredibly guilty. I felt as if I had taken something from her versus her giving it to me. It just didn't really sit right with me that she had literally taken a piece of her flesh and given it to me. I just felt like this act that could never really be repaid and you really can't put a price on an act of love. It's priceless. I said I want to make this film about it. I just think to get it off of my chest.
Speaker 2:I was speaking with this to my good friend, Andrew Wonder, who co-directed the film with me. He also shot it and we edited it together. He said you should hurry up and make that. That's very powerful. I've been talking to him about it for a while. I was going to do something very different with it. He suggested we just take it a different path. He goes I'll shoot it. We'll shoot it in your family home. We'll do it in two weeks.
Speaker 2:He started asking me these penetrating questions, which were all the questions I did not want to answer. I was avoiding all my feelings, all these feelings of guilt that I thought were guilt, because they're just hard to look in the eye. Sometimes, when you make art, the thing you want to talk about comes from a place of fear. Naturally, we're avoided when it comes to that sort of feeling. As I learned through Andrew, sometimes you have to sit in that fear. You just have to really just stay there and look your feelings in the eye and write. I wrote it and I free wrote for I think maybe 30 minutes, I don't even think maybe a full hour. The whole film just spilled out. I've been feeling the last four years just spill onto the paper. He goes that's it, that's our film, Don't change a thing.
Speaker 2:We shot it here in my family home two weeks afterward. We shot it in one day with his fiancee Colleen Dodge, who was our producer, also an up-and-coming director, and our good friend Calvin, who was our B-cam. It was just a four-person crew. We shot with four people and my family's in it. I'm in it. Actually, In post we had our friend Max Phillips do the sound design. That was the whole thing. The whole point was just as a thank you to my mother. That was how that film came about.
Speaker 1:I think that's so beautiful because I think that is like you said the biggest struggle is to process these deep emotions for most people. You're not only, like you said, faced it in the eye. You went through the process of processing it, but you created into a beautiful art. Sometimes, the most beautiful pieces of art come from processing emotion, processing raw emotion onto a medium. I think that really shines through. Especially, you put yourself like, yes, you said you're in the film, but you are the main character in the film. You're not only the voice, but you are the character that we follow throughout this film. How was that process Because that must have been another layer of that putting yourself through those emotions, acting out the words that you're saying. Can you talk a little bit about that? Because, as the story is already personal to you, writing it, then you did the voiceover and now you're acting these scenes out.
Speaker 2:It was terrifying, definitely terrifying. Here I am in my family home with two good friends who I feel very safe in front of Andrew Colleen and, of course, calvin. Now I have to go back to these places where I was incredibly ill and just having the worst thoughts and then going let's act it out one more time. I was afraid to do it. Fortunately, andrew Andrew Wunder, my co-director he was the one that would just reassure me you're doing great. Because he knows how scared I was.
Speaker 2:I've spoken to him about this without the context of a film, just life talks and how it's affected me. He already knew. He was already familiar with the story and the struggle of having a kidney transplant and being on dialysis and what I was feeling at the time. I just trusted him to shoot and capture what it is I was supposed to be feeling. As a director, you want to go check the monitor and make sure everything's right, but you can't be here and there. You just have to trust the people you're doing it with. He would tell me we would show my surgical scars, which I was just deathly afraid of doing because it's like first I have to write all this, then I have to go show it on camera in two weeks and it's just very emotionally taxing. It took a lot of energy, emotionally energy. By the end of the day I was exhausted, not physically, just from going through the motions. Andrew made me feel incredibly safe on camera and speaking and acting about the things that I had avoided for so long.
Speaker 1:Sounds like you had a really powerful support system there with your team. Oh yeah, yep, absolutely, which is necessary. I think we need that in all aspects of life. I 100% understand. When you're directing, when you're leading a project, your brain is fragmenting into every position, every job, everything that's possible could be happening around you, acting for sure. It's one of those things where you got to like, you know, come back, yes, just to insulate yourself from everything else.
Speaker 2:There are moments where I just had to ignore the monitor, ignore the camera. Go, andrew's got this. I know he's got this. I know Calvin, our B cam has got this. I just need to be in the moment and Andrew allowed me to be in the moment and bring my best self to that role, this very real life role, while he took care of everything else for all the moments that I was on camera and there are certain moments that weren't as emotionally taxing, or I could be in front of the camera and then watch the take and then go back, and we'll do it again. We collaborate, but mostly it was really just trusting Andrew to capture what we had chatted about before even shooting it.
Speaker 1:And what was I heard you just say before that you had to show it in two weeks. What was the timeline of filming?
Speaker 2:Oh man, it happened so fast. The whole thing took a month. The whole thing. I wrote it in an hour. We shot it two weeks later, in one day. We Andrew went on vacation, he went somewhere. I think I remember his vacation. He was gone. I was doing some editing while he was gone. He came back. We decided to collaborate on the edit together and we finished it that night. That's the way to do it. It really felt like just a total of three days, like three working days.
Speaker 1:That's the way to do it. I wish every project ran like that.
Speaker 2:I completely agree. I don't ever want to like do a project where there's like 50 people involved. We had four people and we all. It was done with no money we spent. Like the most amount of money spent was probably Andrew Colleen and Calvin driving from Brooklyn and paying the tolls to get here and the gas money. That was it.
Speaker 1:Oh, I love it. I love it. Was this your first endeavor really working with like a co-director, where you're not like because this can be a very independent job in a lot of cases no, or or you already kind of used to working in a small team.
Speaker 2:This is my first time with a co-director. Anything I've ever made, I've always directed myself, and Andrew was the one who suggested. He initially suggested I'll shoot it for you, right, it will go shoot in two weeks, and then, after talking about for a bit we were walking somewhere and he goes. You know, I hope this isn't like intrusive at all, but if you let me, I'd love to co-direct it with you. And I immediately was like yes, because I trust Andrew as a person to handle, you know, this kind of subject. If anybody else asked me that, it would have been absolutely not. I need to like do this on my own, and I was going to do it on my own even before Andrew pushed me to have it done, but I trust him completely.
Speaker 2:Yeah, like to be vulnerable. There's not many people most people have in their lives that they can be vulnerable in front of, and Andrew, colleen and Calvin are absolutely people that could feel comfortable as comfortable as they could be being vulnerable in front of. So, yeah, first time collaborating with another director, I loved it and it's like so much easier when you guys already have a rapport. You understand each other's tastes. When we were talking about the film, we're at his house just as he was asking these questions and he starts explaining a certain shot, like maybe we could do it like this. And as he's saying it I'm filling the blank, like that's exactly how I saw it, and then I'd say something and he'd go, and then we could do it like that, and I go, that's exactly what I was thinking. So we were on the same train of thought the entire time. So that made me feel even better, trusting him with whatever's on the camera, because I know it come out exactly how I would try to do it.
Speaker 1:I love it because it's like you almost know that you speak the same language or like slightly different languages, but you fully understand you speak each other's languages in the sense. I feel a lot like that sometimes with with Duralis, who's my partner, and we co-direct a lot of things or we work, we partner up on different things, different, and we definitely don't speak the same language, but we fully understand each other's languages in that sense and we bounce off of each other.
Speaker 1:You know you kind of can watch each other's weak points and it sounds like it's a very similar collaboration with you and Andrew.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely. It's like I'm in his head and he's in mind when we would share references back and forth. He goes okay, I see exactly now that we've come put an image to it, he goes all right, you're thinking the same thing, I think we can. This is confirmed, and so I could just trust him.
Speaker 1:We may be saying it different ways, but we're thinking the same thing. Yeah, exactly, exactly. No, that's amazing. I want to dive in a little bit into the unique style you guys chose to go with this. It's you guys really did go with art house for sure. Like it has a very cinematic, artistic vibe. It's not your typical documentary or narrative by any means. Was this style? Well, why? Why this style? Specifically for this story?
Speaker 2:So I actually learned this a lot through Andrew. Andrew was the cinematographer. I trusted him with everything. When we talked about what a shot could look like or could feel like and I knew that he was seeing what I was seeing, I let him have it Like take it, take the cinematography away from me. I know that you're going to kill it. He's been a DP, I think, for like 10 years before he came a director for like another 10 years. So he's been both a director and a DP very incredibly experienced in both.
Speaker 1:And so you guys strive for really emotions behind the shots, more so strictly that it was strictly about.
Speaker 2:We didn't even shot listed, we just had our locations and we knew what it was supposed to feel like and we would pick real location. The locations were the very places I was in at the time that I was ill. So we knew this is going to happen in this room and that's going to happen at that room. No shot listing, but we know what we're going for. So it was strictly emotion. And then in the edit we just picked the best stuff. We didn't even try to shoot it with the intention for it to be linear. It was just go in there, grab the best stuff like the most interesting shots. You can that express what you're trying to express, and then let's get to the next location I got you.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, I love it. It definitely. I see that a lot because it really is everything kind of works towards the emotion of the location of the scene. What you're saying and you're seeing that, because you guys use a wide variety of different shot styles you know focal length and some really cool what I would say looks like a lot of practical effects that you guys were diving into and the overall like look to it gave it such a retro, like vintage style look, you know, almost, almost filmic.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we were hoping it would be filmic looking. He just likes that has a lot of texture, and so do I, not just in our shot choice but all the way down to the edit, all the way down to the color, all the way down to the film green. So we just kind of really just played with it. We experimented a lot in post, a lot in the editing.
Speaker 1:That was my next question. Like what did you shoot this on and like how much would you say these effects were really imposed, versus in camera?
Speaker 2:They were 100% in camera. We shot it on an Alexa mini with B speeds. Okay, great camera, great set of lenses, great location, great story. Just going there to improvise the most experimental stuff in the edit was just how we edit it. So Andrew's a massive fan of Godard and if you watch his films, it's really just the most beautiful things that he likes in a row, like, yes, the story is linear, but there's no like A shot and then a B shot. It's just like it's that shot looks great and then that shot looks great and it pushes the story forward and then that shot looks great. So it just. If you look at Godard films, it does look like we're clearly inspired by it. You can see the editing.
Speaker 2:I went and watched Breathless, which is one of Andrew's favorite movies, and just to get a sense of the editing, cause I've never edited like that, not that at far. If you look at a lot of the other work I've done, you can tell it's just like oh, these are my favorite shots, but this was the first time where I had edited something with him, of course. And we go through the footage and go look at all these takes of this, what's the best shot? And then take everything else out. And then what's the best takes in this location and pick our favorite ones and take everything else out.
Speaker 2:So we go from like, maybe, let's say, we had 50 gigs of footage and then, after a pass, we had 20 gigs and then we did it again and it got down to 10. It was getting like so we only had the strongest choices and it didn't have to be leaner in any fashion. So it's like, yeah, if you just go watch a Godard film and you go, okay, yeah, that's a pretty shot, that's a great shot. I like that shot. It's put together.
Speaker 1:You got the top 5 to 10% of everything you shot and just use absolutely the best and for some of just a quick, like a technical thing, if you want to dive in for some of more inexperienced people, you know with the Lexamine what's like the advantage of using B speed lenses B speeds- are just beautiful.
Speaker 2:They're just beautiful. So many of the cool commercials we see and movies we see have been shot on B speeds Like it's just really. Andrew owns these. He owns a lot of his own equipment. He's very much like. A lot of his compulsion is in camera. It makes sense why he started off as a DP. Even though he's a director, he still owns a ton of his own equipment, which is advantage. When you want to go make something personally. You don't have to worry about renting this or renting that. He owns like a ton of stuff.
Speaker 1:Of course. And it makes you a better director too, because when you have the familiarity, I can say words right, the filiming, the know how of all these different areas of production. It just makes you such a better communicator and it gives you the right language and tools to make the whole production come together and talk to your crew, you know.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. I've always said you have to know just enough to communicate with the other departments. Because I'm not super technical. I used to be really obsessed with like camera gear and buying stuff and then just became such a hassle to go that new thing is out, and that new thing is out, and that new thing is out and I was so much happier just not buying stuff. But for Andrew that's his compulsion. He can't help it, which means he will always get better and better and better at using stuff and how to use it and how to, why that B speed works well with that camera, why it looks so good on that camera. He'll tell you all the technicalities of it. I just go, I like that shot, I like that shot or I like that texture with that lens and camera or that combo and I just go, let's roll with that one.
Speaker 1:And speaking of practical effects and getting like all these super unique shots that you guys were able to pull off, one of the shots that stood out to me like very prominently was this the scene in the bathroom mirror where it almost feels like a vortex At the same time. You know you're stable in the center and it looks like you're doing this prism effect with the mirrors, but the motion is so unique to me I couldn't really pinpoint how that was happening, but I loved it. I was like this is really cool. It stood out to me. I would love to hear how you guys captured that shot and if you know the real magic a little.
Speaker 2:That was Andrew's idea. Again, super interesting, always experimental with new stuff. So the bathroom in my home has you ever seen? Those bathrooms have three mirrors as well in the middle, and they all open because they're medicine cabinets. Yep, well, we opened the two on the side and we'd open and close them like this and we had a red light shining in and he would zoom in and zoom out while panning, moving the camera back and forth. So we've got a forward motion, zooming in and zooming out and then moving left to right at the same time.
Speaker 1:And you guys, are moving the mirrors, too, at the same time.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's right. Yeah, and there's a red light on it as well, so that you have the red light reflecting off of the mirrors as you're turning them, so you can't tell where anything is.
Speaker 1:Oh, wow that, oh, that's crazy. Yeah, so you had the mirrors going, the zoom going, the pan going Right and that's A lot of movement, vortex, and while all that's happening, he's managing to keep you like, in the focus and centered. Mm Unless, that was like realignment posts, but like that, that was like crazy.
Speaker 2:No, no, no, that was all in camera, yeah.
Speaker 1:That was the craziest part to me too, I suspect, because it's like all this, because you're talking about like the conflicts in your mind and everything, and really, and it just really kind of gives that swirling world effect.
Speaker 2:Right, yes, and when you watch a film, you know exactly why it's supposed to be that way.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, 100%. Okay, that's really cool. That's really cool. There was another shot, a shot shot. There was another shot that stood out to us too and it had like almost like a fan effect, Like you shot it.
Speaker 2:Mm-hmm, you know, was I laying down in a bed while that was happening. Yeah, yeah, yes, that was a problence. That was a problence, I know yeah.
Speaker 1:I'm familiar, was it a?
Speaker 2:problence.
Speaker 1:You're talking about the long ones that like have the super small lens.
Speaker 2:I think I'm getting it wrong. It's not a problence, or maybe it's a type of problence. I know it's long like that, but the camera, the lens, isn't at the end like this. It actually faces up and it rotates at the end. So if you kept it completely still, it would be like if you kept your phone camera straight up and just had it keep rotating like that. But it's at the end of the lens. I think I've seen it. Yes, so you can make it go clockwise or counterclockwise and then on top of it you can move the camera. So that's two movements, so that one is me lying down and where the camera's going over me as I'm lying down, but the lens is rotating this way. Yeah, I love it. It's the same lens we see on the tree shot. Yeah, where it looks. You see the camera kind of look up at the tree and go back around. It's just rotating at the end. Yeah, wow, that's cool.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I love all these combo moves that you guys are doing, really maximizing, so I'm assuming that's something that, like, andrew was really experimenting and like, how many movements can we combine to make this shot?
Speaker 2:as possible. So that's definitely Andrew's idea. Once again. He's got like he's really wanted to experiment on this film and I'm like I'm down to be experimenting. I'm down to be experimental Cause the way I initially planned it was like so much simpler and he goes let's really try and like make art here.
Speaker 2:We had like the space to experiment with this and I'm a huge fan of the movement. I've been saying for a while now, when the shot looks interesting, if you just look at the movement, but there's normally more than one thing. It's not always you can have something really simple and it looks amazing. But I like the idea that like something is like if you have the subject moving one way and the camera moving something different and then maybe you cut to something that's really jarring, like something really close to something really wide. You've got so much going on. It always has this visual interest and Andrew is very, very good at that, very, very good at figuring those things out, and he does them almost instinctively. Yeah, yeah, he just comes up with these really cool ideas and he just like let's go do this Honestly with it, and I rolled with it.
Speaker 1:I love it. I love it Honestly. With this art it's like museum worthy, like you're gonna do it, because there's a lot of museums that do art films. You know, like art house films, you know this and that, hence the genre right Art house Absolutely, but it's definitely, I would have to say you guys really outdid that, that artistic view, the style and then, of course, the impactful nature of it, the personal, I think. When it's like a personal story like that and you're able to get it out, how has been the impact for you now having on this run so far and having this movie out Like, how do you feel? Like of course you got to process a bit making the film, but now that it's out, what do you feel has been the impact?
Speaker 2:Okay, great question. There's more than one answer to this, true? The first thing is I got to show it to my mom Cause it was initially like I have to show this to her and it went premier to LES. I brought her there. She saw it for the very first time and they showed it in the Angelica and that was like huge for my mom to you know, I can finally reveal these things. I've never told her and then it's like it's I'm so avoided it's hard for me to even tell her that person to person. I had to go make a film about it and show it to her. I even sit next to her during the screening. I was on the other side of the theater because I just like it was just too emotionally impactful to have your mother right there as you show her this thing. That's about her so very happy that she got to see it.
Speaker 2:But the second answer to this is that now that it's out, I'm actually still very scared of it. I'm glad it's out, I'm just scared cause every time it shows somewhere, someone sees me. It's very rare that people desire to be seen at an incredibly intimate level. Even if people say that's what they desire, when someone actually sees you, you want to put your clothes back on and I'm just like naked on a screen, emotionally speaking, and letting people see it. And we screened at the new faces, new voices film festival this past Wednesday and there were parts where I still looked away Because even though when you have to sit in the fear of whatever scares you to make that piece that will ideally make you feel like the experience has been cathartic or you share it with everyone else, the fear doesn't go away. And that's the thing I'm learning.
Speaker 2:It's really cliche to say this, but people do say sometimes great art comes from great pain. I used to think I think most great art comes from leisure. If you have the space and time and resources to be an artist. When your mind's not worried about what am I gonna eat tonight, you're not in survival mode, you have the space that your mind wander into these different areas. But sometimes art does come from pain and I've learned when it does, it does not necessarily heal you. So far I am not completely healed. If that makes you know what I mean Like I'm getting better and hopefully maybe six from some. Now I'm like, oh, this was totally cathartic, it's exactly what I was hoping for it wasn't immediate, but it happened eventually. I still look away from the screen sometimes Because I just can't. You know, it's still heavy.
Speaker 1:It's still painful, it's deep, it's very deep, and I think a lot of people can relate to that, because I think those things it's you're reliving your trauma, you know, and it has a big tie to that and I think you're very right. Sometimes it's that it doesn't go away, but we learn to live with it, we learn to be at peace with it and we know it's kind of a part of us and it's true, a lot of great art does come from pain. Unfortunately, like I said, it's from the expression of emotion. I mean, one of the most famous artists in history is Van Gogh, and he's also arguably one of the most tortured artists you know in history in general, as far as if you know his story and but I think it's also, you know, like there is that hope that we can find peace with it, you know.
Speaker 1:And then I think it's one powerful thing, though, about what you've done. I think it's it gives a voice for people, because if this is something you're going through, that means that there's half and people, even though, yeah, like we don't want to be in the spotlight, like again, this is against my nature too, and I'm running a podcast as a host. I've always been a behind the scenes type person, you know. But the thing that I have also learned is that those things, now they have a life of their own and now they're impacting people, you know.
Speaker 1:You not only given a voice to your emotions and your trauma, but you're giving now a voice to others who also have the same thing, but they don't have a way to express it. You know, you're giving a tool, something that can impact lives, give people peace or help them also process some of the things. I mean, I think that's a beautiful thing when we're able to do that and create a resource, essentially create something, and I think art has such a potent power to do that, you know. Be that support for others, you know. So I think, overall, though, I'm inspired by it myself, you know, and I can't say that I relate to it, but I can only imagine what this might mean for other people, you know.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm very glad you just said that that's something I've always wondered Like, if I put it out there, does anyone even care about it? Because I only put it out there for myself and for my mom, and that's what's like the beginning, middle and end of the day. And that's what's like the beginning, middle and end, Yep, and of course I want to share it with people. I'm scared to do it, but for me the point of film really is like a private conversation on a very large scale. I don't want to make a movie just keeping it dark 100%, and I hope people feel inspired. I'm glad you said that. Thank you for telling me that. You know there are people who don't always necessarily relate, but I always hope someone does or maybe they just. Maybe they don't relate, but it does something to that. It's got that power to change someone's perspective or change something about them and force them to look inward, but it does something for somebody else. Great, Perfect.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean, if it's just one person, isn't that worth it, you know?
Speaker 2:Absolutely. It's just like okay, it's not just me, You're seeing it too.
Speaker 1:Exactly, exactly, no, 100%, I mean. I've always loved this. A mentor of mine a long time ago once said this, and I kind of took it to heart, that success is determined by how many people are better off because you lived.
Speaker 2:Very powerful.
Speaker 1:And wow, yeah, and I that's-.
Speaker 2:I have to sit on that now.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but the beautiful thing with art, though, and our medium and stuff, is, like we create things that become extensions of ourself. So thus, through something that is now out in the world, serving your message, your vision, and thus impacting others, even when we can't actually impact people, you know.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. I hope someone out there saw it and they, I don't know, wanted to go hug their mom when they were done.
Speaker 1:How was that conversation with your mom after the first screening, after she saw the final product? Because I know she kind of was aware of it. She was filmed in it, but Right.
Speaker 2:How was that? I refused to show her until it was in a theater. I thought it was the right place, of course, with my family there. She hugged me. She says good job, son, I'm really proud of you that you made this. She goes.
Speaker 2:I didn't know half of that about you, because I just don't share those things. It's like again the fear. I didn't want to sit in it very much. It's like I didn't want to look in the eye and let alone put it on the screen for people to see. She goes. I never knew you really felt that way. Our relationship afterward was.
Speaker 2:It's just been a bit softer. I think it's because we understand each other so much more, because our images of each other have changed from child to teenager, to adult. Then it's like you come to this crossroads or this moment where it's like your mother's already birthed you. Now she has to give you life again. That changes it so dramatically. None of us really said anything about it after the surgery because I didn't even know what to say. Thank you, that's it. That's all I can give you.
Speaker 2:In the film I do realize I mentioned how I realized my mother was never really looking for a thank you. She's your mom. She's supposed to be doing these things like this, without hesitation. Yeah, it's just like there wasn't much of a conversation, but there's understanding. She goes I see you more now. I've learned something more about you. To watch my mother receive it that way, I learned a lot more about her, and very few words ever had to be said. You were just kind of looking each other in the eye and just both knew where we were. It's been that way since.
Speaker 1:That's absolutely beautiful. It's just amazing that grace that comes from unconditional love, like true unconditional love, and that is something very special, I think. I completely agree, not everyone has that, but it really showcases this because when it's unconditional it's like you said you may have not been necessarily deserving of it but you got it Because it came from a graceful place, because someone just loves you without condition. There's no strings attached to nothing, no thank yous needed. It is just crazy with that we can have that with people and it really gives us that opportunity to continue on. Because I know I've had my fair share of moments where I definitely felt guilt or felt guilty, I felt undeserving of things that people bestowed upon me or opportunities that God has just willingly granted me. You kind of question yourself I don't understand why I have a list of people who should get this over me or something like that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it feels like no way, not me. Just no questions asked. I got to give you something.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and it's like oh, so I'm going to pay you my life savings for the next 50 years and maybe that'll get closer.
Speaker 2:Yeah that's exactly how I felt. I don't know what would happen is do I make a bunch of money and retire early? That's not enough. Do I give her every dollar I've ever made? That's still not enough. Because she's given me life twice now and that's priceless. And I learned.
Speaker 2:The conclusion I come to was unconditional love is not transactionary. Any love under condition is not love at all, which is why she never hesitated to give me a kidney when I needed one. The doctor said he needs a new kidney and she said okay, just like that. And they go. Well, don't you want to think about it? And she goes nope, let's get this ball in the room. And they were just like shocked, like how forward she was. Even there I'm sitting there, uncomfortable, like you're not going to think I'm on dialysis and I'm like you're not going to think about this. She's like come on, drop, drop. What do we have to do? We're going to like test my blood. What is it? And they're telling her take a day, and she goes. This is my son. I know what I want to do.
Speaker 1:That's beautiful and I guess she'll just think, just hearing that thing, that's powerful, because some ways I feel like or at least I hope like I feel like I'm that way with certain things, you know, when it comes to the people I love most. But you never know. You know, and that's a beautiful thing. It's interesting Now that you say that, like, you know, the differences between conditional, unconditional, like what is true love there's in other languages, you know, like English language, we have one word for love really, and it's love, you know other languages have multiple words for types of love.
Speaker 1:you know, tears of love like different things, like there's the love between families, love between friends is a love between your fellow human. And I know in the ancient Greek there's or maybe it's the hero, don't quote me on this, but there's an agape love this comes from, like this is what's used in the Bible to describe God's love, which is a truly unconditional, undeserving love. It's a wholehearted love, you know, and in a lot of ways it's known as the father's love. But, you know, not like your humanly file, but like the golly one. But that agape love is what I always think of when I'm thinking of like a true unconditional. There is no bylines type of love, yep, no conditions just be and that's enough.
Speaker 2:And it's hard for us to believe that we're enough for stuff like people. Just it's very rare that you see a person that just come from but, yeah, I'm deserving a lot of this. Everyone's got some hang up that makes me go. Nah, I shouldn't have this. This doesn't feel right, and it's because we're so used to like transaction in some way that when someone gives you something that's priceless and you go, well, I don't have an answer, there's no thing to give. And as you get older, as I get older, I just learn it's important to accept love when it's there. Don't find a reason to question somebody's love, just accept it 100%, 100%.
Speaker 1:I've had to learn that throughout my life and now that I'm older because it's like you, you struck people. I think a lot of people struggle with that. You know. They have to learn that when people want to gift you something, it's a gift, it's not a trade, it's not a yes, you know it's a gift. You know, and people genuinely do that for people. You know, and we have to learn to like, accept it and not get on a go train or try to repay it or fly out, deny it sometimes, because we feel like we can't return to first place. You know.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's like you're trying to help me and it's like, why would you help me like this? You almost feel like what's wrong with you, you know, like because you're just so trained you've trained yourself or something, or some situation or society, whatever it is, has trained you to think I'm not deserving of this. So when they go, yeah, I know, just take it, you immediately deny it. I cannot have this. And if I take it, I must give you something. And I think life is much sweeter when you realize unconditional love does exist and you are deserving of it, and as is everybody else, and when someone can give you unconditional love, never deny it 100%.
Speaker 1:And the other thing is the irony in it all is that usually the people I feel like you included myself and many others, I'm sure listening is that we are big givers. You know, we do give a lot and we don't always expect. And it's like for some reason it's so funny how we were we deny the rest of the world could be like us and that sense somehow in a backward type of way. And I remember in this book not a red called the go giver and goes through these five laws of success. It's a great book, it's a short story, but the last one is the law of receiving and that me and it's it's basically speaks about like hey, when you breathe you can't live your whole life breathing only out. You eventually have to breathe in. You know you give in your life so much. Life is naturally going to reciprocate. It may not be a direct transaction, but if you give freely, sometimes life will give freely back to you. And for you to not accept those moments as you deny breath itself incredibly powerful to deny breath itself.
Speaker 2:That's such a great way to put that Because, yes, like the thing that, what I've learned is that the part of life that's worth living for is that unconditional love, 1000%. That's the thing that makes you go. Life is totally worth living. This exists. We all think like we're the ones doing the giving, but none of us are willing to receive. So it's just a billion one way streets walking around and it should be two way, and once you realize it's two ways, you go finally, and life feels a bit sweeter knowing that if you were lucky enough to have someone who loves you unconditionally in your life, in your circle, never deny it 100%, never, ever deny it, 100%, 100%.
Speaker 1:Of course, you know that comes in nuance and all those things of life between ourselves and the person involved, but I think it's just a powerful show of that and your story really conveys that and again, it's just another way that people can think, relate to it. Now that you are now moving forward, how do you feel this has potentially impacted your future in your career and your direction? You're trying to take things in and what you want to do with your future projects and just with career choices in life.
Speaker 2:And filmmaking the way this. I feel like this has changed me in that I have a whole different direction on how I create anything. The biggest lesson I came that came from, or one of the biggest lessons as a filmmaker, as an artist, from this project was sit in the fear, do not run away from it. A lot of the things that are worth watching, those pieces that are timeless, came from somebody crying over a keyboard, crying over a typewriter, trying to dig up these emotions while simultaneously trying to keep them down because they don't want to acknowledge it. It's incredibly emotionally taxing, but if you can get it up, you have something that people will acknowledge. And maybe I have no one relate to it, but people will acknowledge it. People notice honesty, people notice when you are being very, very earnest about your emotions, and I want to make every other piece of art I ever make with something very, very, very intentional which requires looking at some corridor in my mind, going around the corner, opening the door and trying not to shut it immediately. You got to walk in and just sit in the environment, so that's affecting me tremendously. The next thing I want to make is I'm writing a feature. Right now I'm actually writing two features, one alongside an entry, wonder my co-director. But there's one I'm writing. That's a personal story and I realized I was doing the same thing. I was avoiding it and I go, I don't want to talk about this, and it's like you want to make something worth making. Look it right in the eye. Except it's no longer, you know, a five minute piece, it'll be a 90 minute piece, so it's an even greater wave. I have to stare down and just allow it to bombard me.
Speaker 2:In my career as a filmmaker, I feel like that film is easily the most interesting piece and the most honest piece I've ever made and the last couple of years of filmmaking that piece has gotten me attention from commercial production companies. That piece has gotten me attention from other DP's. It's really like. It's really something that has elevated me into different circles and it all came from just sitting in that fear and going all right, fine here, and then showing it to the world and people going oh, I see you and I go. This is awesome, this is great.
Speaker 2:I didn't expect it to go this far. It's just hey, mom, here it is. I get my cathartic experience, or as I thought it would be. I showed it to some people at a film festival for funsies. Hey, I made this film. I'm not trying to make it alone and just let my mom see it, so why don't you guys pick it up too? And then other directors are going. I find your work interesting, let's chat. And I go. I find your work interesting, let's chat. I think you are friends and future collaborators through this film.
Speaker 1:That's amazing. I think that's that's the powerful thing about art. I think you said it best earlier. It's a private conversation on a large scale audience and I think that's where a lot of the best art comes from. Is that, like you know, that honesty, I think we as humans were intrinsically sensitive to real or sensitive to realness or sensitive to real life. And I think, because it's trans, that's the same, I think, in every art form music, dance, you know. Film, photography, visual art. You know we get home, you hear about all the time, with all the truer art pieces, it's like they, people feel it because I think when you put emotion, like true emotion, into it, it kind of sustains that and then we can instinctively pull it out. You know, through through all those human elements that we put into these pieces, you know, because that's what, that's what I, that's what you find people, when they talk about real art, they talk about emotions.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know absolutely. It's like the human experience is the thing we can all relate to. You and I can be from completely different countries, practice two different religions, speak two different languages, but the human experience is the one through line between all of us.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we can both see someone trip on a banana and we'll laugh. No words need to be spoken. No words need to be spoken, we'll be just okay. I sure, like that's great, speaking two completely different gibberish languages Right, right, right, but no, but like you said, it's the human experience. You know it's that, it's it's, it's those things it's like that's what makes us human. You know, those are the. The detail stuff is like the belief systems and the language and stuff like that. But foundationally and I really found that on my travels too you know it's like people are people, no matter where you go. Yeah, you know, yeah the people are people.
Speaker 2:It's like you met one. You met them all in a weird kind of way, because we're all experienced the same emotions. We've all experienced heartbreak, we've all had a good laugh, we've all lost somebody, we've all met somebody, we've all fell in love, we've all fallen out of love and it's like we can all art that has to do with any of those experiences. I was like, yeah, I'm there too, buddy.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and the funny thing is I feel like emotions and the internal world is humans biggest mystery, so it's also our biggest intrigue across all places. Because I feel like everyone can relate to a certain degree of not understanding themselves or their own emotions or their own thoughts or different things like that. And I'm varying levels of like emotional IQ and I, you know and you know I've they've gone to therapy for years but they'd never got like we all, to different degrees, have the same intrinsic interest in unveiling our own internal mysteries. You know and I think that's.
Speaker 1:I think that's also what attracts us so much to experiencing other people, like emotions in the world and human experiences, because they're little windows, the little windows that we can relate to and can give us even our own clarity. Is that like? Because that's what we do? Initially, we? We we catch onto an emotion created by you, for example, but then we immediately apply it to ourselves and our own experience.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and in everyone's world. They experience everything differently because they're experiencing it through their own lens and reflection of themselves. So one piece can affect a thousand people differently.
Speaker 2:That's right. Everybody gleams something different from a painting, a movie, a cartoon and experience, whatever it is. See what, all that your own lives. But there's some, there's something in that piece that is matching the through line and that creator's life and the viewer's life, and they'll see it through something different, but they still relate?
Speaker 1:Yeah, no 100%. One curious question as far as the future, you are you like in your work, work you know in your work life, are you? Are you really are you going to double down on keeping your filmmaking into these narratives, into now being a filmmaker as far as original work is concerned, or are you looking to expand into a more commercial world? Or are you kind of just testing the waters and trying to see which one, how both of them sprout? Because I've seen some commercial work you've done and different things on your page.
Speaker 2:To me, everything's a narrative, at least the way I approach it. Everything is a narrative If it's just a series of moments. Something human is happening. I've done commercial work and I'm still diving deeper into the commercial world, which is so much fun, I have a blast doing commercials but ultimately it's all a narrative. I want to do futures.
Speaker 2:My goal was, of course, to get to a point where I make a feature. I'm writing two of them right now Because it's just like the right medium for the kinds of stories I'm telling. Some stories don't do well in 10 minutes. Some need 90 minutes. I have done pieces that I haven't shown anyone or I've taken off my Instagram and off my website. That is 15 seconds and it's someone staring out a window and you just hear the wind crossing. That's just looking introspective. That's the whole thing. To me, that's a narrative as well.
Speaker 2:I always want to make narratives, no matter the format. Give me 30 seconds for a commercial. I will tell you a story. It'll be very human, because that's what I do. I humanize whoever crosses my lens. That's what I do. You give me 90 minutes to do it Even better, because now I can really make sure you know who this person is that you can empathize with them and relate to them.
Speaker 2:My goal is to make sure that people can relate to something they don't know at all At all. I want to take someone that you and I don't know from a can of pain and I want you to cry for them and go. I've never experienced this life, but through this lens and through this character, I have to, and I see someone else who I don't know. I have to sympathize with a little bit more. A little bit more, a little bit more. I feel like that's how you begin to understand people. My life goal is to understand and to be understood, and filmmaking allows me to do that, and every character has a little piece of you in there, and if people could just watch my films, then I feel a bit more understood.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, I'd like to go and.
Speaker 2:I'll humanize anybody in any format. Live is always at the top of my list.
Speaker 1:I love it. I love it, you really. It's a journey of humanistic storytelling, completely agreed. I love it. I love it. Give it 30 seconds or give it an hour and a half. The goal is to really create a story that humanizes the characters. That really is the human experience. I think that's such a. It really speaks to your style. I caught that from just your previous work, even something. So a lot of your work has this filmic vibe to it, this very nostalgic, I would even say style to it, which I love and I think you pull off very well. But even your more modern looking work the weightlifting team project gave it real personality. I gave it personality to the people on the team. I almost got a feel of what the energy was like in the room, the caramity, just like the hype. I wasn't so much like oh, these guys can lift heavy, these guys are achieving. It was more like wow, this is an intense room, they're really going for it.
Speaker 2:I love that piece. It's a powerlifting team that I actually used to be a part of. I'm friends with the owner of that team and they want to shoot something. It goes you're a filmmaker, you want to do it, and I'm like I'm going to take this opportunity to make a sports piece and because I know all of them individually and I know what the feeling of the team is like, I just knew it can't be something that's too harsh, too hard, because a lot of like you could anything related to weightlifting, powerlifting in particular, it's like super tough. We go to the gym at six in the morning and we squat a lot of weight and it's just, like you know, very intense. This was fun, though, incredibly. There's a video of a guy running up a mountain and something like that and that's cool. That's super cool.
Speaker 2:I have a background in sports. I've always loved to do sports professionally before I was a filmmaker. I know that feeling. But I know that team and they don't feel like that. They're just as strong as the guys in those cool. They're squatted, all the sweet, but they're young and they're fun and they have this energy to them and I hang out with them in the gym at that time, like three, four times a week, as we worked out together, and I thought I have to capture them.
Speaker 2:I have to capture what this team feels like. So when people see this ad it's going to, they'll know what they're getting themselves into. And it looked completely different from anything powerlifting related that's, as far as I know, ever been made. Not only that, but powerlifting is a very stiff looking sport. There's three movements your squat, your bench and your deadlift. It can be very boring to watch, exciting to do, but sometimes born to watch, and I wanted it to feel like something really upbeat, something incredibly dynamic, like the way you see those Nike soccer commercials, those Nike basketball commercials. They're cutting everywhere and one person's there and that person's there I want to feel like in the edit, like they were always passing the ball.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know, I just captured all them.
Speaker 2:Yeah, good, good, good. I'm glad it came off that way. I thought it was really fun.
Speaker 1:Yeah, like I said, it was like it was definitely like I said, it's just you felt this fun, really energy from it, really, and I felt like you really felt a lot of so much personality out of it. I love that. It really stood out to me.
Speaker 1:And thank you so much. So so, no, definitely. So I definitely see this humanistic narratives narrative that you got, you got going on across your pieces and it really ties it together. Now that you really put it in that framework, it's like I see that right. It's like it's like each of these pieces are about the people, the experience, and it's not even though it's a commercial for a thing, for a team, for this or that, but it's it's constantly like you're you get to know these people and you feel like it's like I almost kind of like just I felt like I hung out with them.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's exactly what I wanted to feel like. I wanted people to look at that and go that's a powerlifting team that I want to join. I know exactly the kinds of characters I'm going to run into. They're just as serious and hard, as hardworking as the other powerlifting teams. They're actually like number two team in the state of New Jersey, but they don't feel like so self serious. They're very serious about their training but they're having a good time and I wanted people to know that and feel that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I know, and I think that's a that's such a great way to to to tackle this, you know, and as a director and filmmaker Actually, now that you mentioned, you have a background in sports and I was curious because you said you did sports, at least a relatively higher level, and, with that being said, I know sports demands a very specific mindset, a very specific, you know, outlook and different things like that. Has any of that informed or translated into now the filmmaking world for you, like, and how you tackle things, how you think about things, mindset, wise, different things like that. What, what do you feel like you've taken from your, from your sports background into this world?
Speaker 2:A lot changed. I've definitely taken something from it, but more of it I actually had to dismiss. Before I was a filmmaker. I played tennis and I trained professionally to do that. I played in high school, I played in college and I played professional for a very short amount of time Before my illness, which is actually the thing that stopped me from playing tennis and got me into filmmaking. Oh, wow, okay.
Speaker 1:So big connection right there.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, it's a whole story between like tennis at 18, playing fresh at 18 and then getting sick at 18. Amazing and a big gap before becoming a filmmaker. But what tennis did teach me playing sports professionally and training professionally was the idea that anything's possible I'd like. Playing a sport at a very high level is, like, very, very difficult. Very, very few people can do it and I've learned. The reason most people can't do it isn't doing talent, it's just your ability to be consistent and work hard. That's it.
Speaker 2:I didn't start playing tennis until I was 14 years old. You need to be in order to play professionally. You have to start playing at like three years old. I was 10 years behind the ball, but I was just like I'm going to do this and I'm going to get up every day and I'm going to go train, train, train, train, train. Everybody said, stop it, you're not going to do it. But by mind I was thinking I think if you just keep doing it, you'll eventually have to reach that level. And I didn't go pro at 16, like a lot of pros, view, I went pro at 18. I was two years behind. But you just keep doing it. It compacts.
Speaker 2:So when I lost that and they couldn't do it anymore, I wasn't afraid to touch filmmaking because I knew I had done something as competitive as a sport. There was no way I was going to be afraid of something as competitive as art. So it did teach me do anything. You just got to be consistent. Careers do take off. It might not be today or tomorrow, but it does take off. You just can't stop and that's what sports taught me. However, I tried to apply what the mindset that a lot of athletes have, this kind of like wake up and grind mindset. It does not translate to art in the same way. Art. Sometimes we had to sit down and smell the roses and that will influence your next piece, and it doesn't feel like you're working hard.
Speaker 2:I was like when I first started filmmaking, all I knew was sports and then I thought I'm sitting here doing nothing, so I'm not writing today or I'm not doing anything. I just isn't right. I feel like I'm putting in the work. It's like what are you going to do? Write for nine hours.
Speaker 2:I remember my schedule for tennis went from in college. It was from 12 to almost 10 at night, not 9 30. You can play sports all day, because there's a thing you got to do to train for it. In the morning we had Olympic weightlifting that we had lunch, then we had I had practice before the actual practice and then I'd stay through the women's practice and then I'd use the ball machine. Then I'd go back to the gym again, then I would do X amount of miles on the bike. It's like you can do this all day. You can't make art, you can't write for nine hours, you can't like you can shoot something on a set day for like 15 hours, but that's just the set day. You got to do all this work to get to that point. You have to sometimes stop and go for a walk and have a good meal and watch a TV show and relax.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Spend some time doing things you like, yeah, and it all counts towards your experience as an artist. So most of my sports mentality I actually have to toss out. What it did teach me was just be consistent. Be consistent, just acknowledge what it is that is actually worth doing and the things that feel like a waste of time. For sports is actually a massive plus for art. You have to just go live your life. You can't make. I think you have a tougher time making great art when you're not maturing as a person, and maturing as a person requires getting outside and living life, even if that means sitting down and doing nothing.
Speaker 1:I love that. Yeah, it makes a lot of sense. You know, obviously, the core discipline of what it is to achieve something, especially in a high level sport to be to become a pro at 18 is no small feat. That is an incredible testament to your own consistency in the discipline, especially starting as late as you did, so that is not something to win. That, even like a tennis, though, is like you don't know what pro tennis players do you know, as far as listening.
Speaker 1:It's crazy, and but to yeah, so that that is of course. It's like, yes, that is truly a foundation to anything. It's like you said nothing's impossible. If you work and stay steady on the course, then you will get there. It's like when you know the result of these actions is this. The timeline technically is kind of irrelevant, because you know if you're going to do it it's going to happen, so just don't stop. But the problem is people get in their head about stopping. But yes, it's definitely interesting to hear that perspective of how, like, yes, sports life is intense because it's physical, and physicality demands activity. It demands, you know, it demands this. There's no, there's no real need for emotional or mental stability. As long as you can just get your head in the game and bust it out for the game period and you see it across the professional sports world, all across the gambit. You know a lot of the absolute.
Speaker 2:You can go. I'm having a terrible day, still better than Jim. You still got to go lift the weights. You still got to go hit the ball a thousand times, you still got to be thinking of 10 terrible things that are going on in your life. You still got to practice it. Is this system as right as you to and intense?
Speaker 2:Yeah that's exactly it. It doesn't exist and filmmaking and art like it does, you'll have these mental and emotional blocks. That's not like. I didn't make this piece for like three and a half years, so there's just this emotional thing. If I had that going on in my head when I was playing tennis, it did not matter, Because you just turn it off.
Speaker 1:You just turn it off and you know what you got to do and that's exactly true.
Speaker 1:But and but. Like you said, in the art world not just filmmaking across the gambit you are in the business of translating emotional and mental thoughts into into life, into real world. It doesn't matter the medium that you're transferring, and to be able to do that effectively you need to have, first of all, knowledge to translate it from head to right and secondly, the ability to actually go through it, like you said before, like stare it in the eyes and cry over the keyboard if you have to, but get it out there, you know, and yeah, and just like, get your thoughts to paper, get your thoughts to whatever it needs to get to. But that requires you to be in it. You can't turn it off, you need it on.
Speaker 1:So and if you don't have that background to really work on it, it does, it doesn't work. You know you get right rock If you just do and do and do sure, maybe you can get technically good, like you can master every setting there is and get every copy, every look that has ever existed and but right, you'll never get that content like the actual meat and potatoes, the story out. If you're not able to let the, the true creativity will never work if you don't have to end a world in in line.
Speaker 2:I completely agree. Well, sometimes a lot of making out is just sitting still and looking inward as you sit in the edge of your bed and think about stuff, and it doesn't feel like work, but it's the most important part is you can feel guilty to sometimes just doing that, doing that stuff, just like I need to feel like I learned not to feel guilty about it.
Speaker 2:I go oh, I'm feeling terrible today, I'm not going to go do this or that, and then but I'll take the time to process the emotion Later I go oh, this is going to help writing about this character somewhere down the road, or right. Yeah, you know what I mean. It always regurgitates back up. Yeah, always.
Speaker 1:You're feeling overwhelmed is not a cue to be like well, I just got to rough it out and finish all the million tasks that I have to do. Correct, you're feeling overwhelmed is a your brain trying to tell you big stop, let's, let's, let's, get things back in order. Help, I'm drowning and you know so. It's like it's so. Counterintuitive though you're overwhelmed because maybe you're behind on a bunch of stuff and different things or like things are just not coming out of your brain because you are overwhelmed, so you need to do the counterintuitive thing Just stop all of it and let yourself come back, deal it yeah.
Speaker 1:Let yourself feel it and then acknowledge it later Exactly, and then you'll be able to surprisingly come back and get everything done almost seamlessly, because now your brain is yeah recovered, instead of you trying to scrape away slowly, taking three times as long to get half the product.
Speaker 2:By the time I looked all my stuff in the eye, I could write that film in under an hour. That's amazing, yeah it's like oh all the work I went through the last three years got done in 30 minutes because I wasn't afraid to just look it in the eye. I mean, I was afraid. I just did it anyway. At some point you kind of have to just build up the strength to go. It's going to be tough, but I'm going to try and face it Awesome.
Speaker 1:Well, what is, what can people expect from you next?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm always making something new, always. I've lately been into short form stuff because it's so much. It's just more self contained. The last two pieces I did were called Love Town and those were 32nd pieces and it's meant to be edited into something larger which I'm working on. But I shot that in six hours with a couple of friends and my DP, forest Erwin, and just shot it in the Karen Park and Green Point and I thought I could do this every weekend.
Speaker 2:Short form stuff is like the way to go in terms of practicing your filmmaking skills. It is hard to always get on a set as a director, but if you just gather just a couple of friends, the bare minimum if your DP is what much as you are a director perfect, shoot yourself, get a friend that could be a non-actor, go find a location and go figure out some sort of narrative. It can be 15 seconds long, it doesn't matter. So I'm always making something and I'm looking more. I'm looking forward to making more stuff like that which I currently am. Other than that, I'm writing a feature alongside Andrew Winder. That's a horror movie and I can't say much about it yet, but we're writing that as we speak. And then I'm writing my own feature, which is something I've been wanting to write for a while now, and Andrew will be producing it, which is awesome. And while I'm here, I want to speak for Andrew as well, since he couldn't make it. Andrew is shooting oh Canada by Paul Schrader, his very last film.
Speaker 1:That's insane, he starts shooting.
Speaker 2:Yeah, he's been in the work shooting in two days. He's known Paul for quite some time. He used to be his assistant and he's always just been in his life. Ever since, and after Andrew and I made this film, he showed it to Paul and Paul really liked it and he had all these questions about the cinematography. And he liked it so much because I want you to shoot my last film if you're into it, and he's now shooting the last Paul Schrader film. But I just want to throw that out there for anyone expecting it. Since he's not here. What could people expect from him? So look out for oh, canada, in theaters, whenever that is, and know that Andrew Wonder shot that film.
Speaker 1:Now, that's absolutely amazing, and hopefully we can also speak to him here. You can tell us a little more about that experience. Yeah, absolutely, but that is so cool, and then your film was part of that. I mean, I'm not surprised at all that that was the reaction from this film.
Speaker 2:Honestly, but that was cool to know. Paul Schrader saw a film I made for my mom. I didn't see that coming at all, and when he told me he asked him to shoot his movie based off of that, I was so excited for him Because to me it was just like Andrew doing me a favor. That's really what it was like. I really want to make this film. Don't worry, let's go do it together. Because he knew how scared I was to actually do it and he made me look in the eye and I got the writing done. He goes, we're shooting in two weeks. We will be there with Colleen and Calvin and we will shoot this film in your house. Send me the pictures of all the locations. We will get this done.
Speaker 2:He like it just kind of fell together Amazing, and it was really just a favor from him to me. As far as I saw it, it's just, you know, making little bits with your friends and it's taking his career to somewhere else and I'm like this is incredible, this is absolutely amazing. He is completely deserving of it. He is, you know, he gets to make a film that's definitely going to be putting him somewhere else in his career. That's just. I hope that I wish the best for him. I hope that movie goes great.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I can't wait to see where it takes you and also I just a great example of a good director and a good leader on how you prop your team up like that. You know, and how you really understand. You know the team aspect of what you got going on and I think that is also very admirable quality. It speaks highly of you.
Speaker 2:No, thank you very much. Yeah, I film is super collaborative and I just like to do with my friends forever, if I can.
Speaker 1:Say you and me both, you and me both, and you know we'll make friends. I mean, finally, like minded people. That's what it is to create art together, right, yeah, absolutely. And now, now it's like with young filmmakers who may be tuning in trying to learn about filmmaking and just get perspectives of people who are making moves like us, like us, you know, and like you making moves now make, bringing things into fruition. What would your best advice be if to tell them may. They may be starting out and just in the beginning of their journey, maybe something you wish you knew.
Speaker 2:Um, consume a lot of art and consume a lot of life, and I don't care what the medium is, it doesn't have to be filmic, and you can be into design, you can be into painting, you can be into fashion, you can be into video art versus like a traditional narrative structure, you need to photography. Whatever it is, you should consume a lot of it and just acknowledge what you like and what you don't like. The reason I say this is that if you can just acknowledge what it is that you like like maybe you like this movie, or maybe you didn't like the movie but you liked a certain scene and then try to understand why you liked it and it can be a very simple answer. You can go I just like the colors in that scene, that's all. Or you didn't like a painting and you go I don't like the way it made me feel, or maybe it didn't make me feel anything at all. Acknowledge that as well, because that's your taste. And if you acknowledge this across whatever it is you're consuming and you just write them down, you will learn what it is you like and don't like and take all the stuff you like and try and put it in your movie and you will feel like you and then you can just develop that over time It'll begin to like smooth out.
Speaker 2:I love Wong Kar-Wai films. I love Wong Kar-Wai films. Happy Together is my favorite movie. It is sensitive and a lot of the ways that my films are sensitive I take heavy inspiration from him. I also like Quentin Tarantino, which is severely different, and I like him for a completely different reason. And at some point, if you learn all my influences, if you knew them and you looked at my movies, you'd see they're all in there. That's my case and even though I haven't done anything like Quentin Tarantino just yet, I'm planning to If you watch a Wong Kar-Wai film and you look at my films, you go, I see the overlap. The colors I like to use in my film come from his DP, christopher Doyle. They love colors, I love colors, so I just put them in my films and have to be a particular reason. Well, he's that color for that reason and that color for that reason. It's just. I really love them and I like my films colorful and that's it and it's.
Speaker 2:Don't be afraid to like something even if you think it's silly, and don't be afraid to dislike something even if everybody else likes it. And if you like something today, don't be afraid to hate it tomorrow and vice versa. You will develop your taste so much quicker when you just acknowledge what it is you like, and it doesn't matter if everyone else is this director, it's so good, it's gonna be so amazing. How could you not love it? You can say if you say I hate Citizen Kane for X amount of reasons, it's fine. Acknowledge it. Even if everyone else puts you down, say I don't like that movie, or I don't like that painting, or I don't like that artist, or I don't like this musician, it's fine. Who you are is the thing that will shine through. It's the thing that people will always acknowledge you for. So acknowledge it.
Speaker 1:I love it. I think that's a. That is a perfect note to end on, because I can't even add anything to that. It's so true, it's so well said. Yeah, I mean, with that being, I've had a great conversation. I feel like we can just keep going for a while, but we really reached our time here. With that being said, would you, can you tell us where people can find you, keep up with you, maybe find the film and just see, just stay on track with the things you guys, you got coming up.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. First of all, I've had a great time too. Thank you for bringing me on here and chatting. This was a blast. I definitely could talk to you for hours and hours, and hours and I would if you let me, but I know we have a time limit. If you want to find me, my Instagram, where I'm really active, is at okaydestin that's just the letters, okay, and then Destin is spelled D-E-S-T-Y-N. Follow me, dm me. I'll chat to you. I'll chat to anybody. I'm a people person. I'm very extroverted. My website is DestinFullerHopecom and, yeah, just reach out. I love to talk to you guys, if you guys are listening at all. I talk to any filmmaker. I'll talk to anybody about anything.
Speaker 2:My film is currently on the festival circuit, so it's not out at the moment, but if you'd like to see it, please come to one of our festivals. The next one is in Tallgrass, which I believe is somewhere on the seventh. I believe we have to double check Tallgrass Film Festival in Wichita, kansas. If you're out there, please come see it. We'll put out the schedule soon and then right after that we go to Bend, oregon, for the Bend Film Festival running from the 12th to the 15th. We also have an Instagram for the film. It's called A Part of you At A Part of you, with a period between each word where we update everyone on everything. And if you'd like to see the film, if I'm in good mood I'll just send it to you.
Speaker 1:So DM me, if you wanna see it.
Speaker 2:We'll see what happens. Ha ha.
Speaker 1:Amazing, amazing, yeah, no, please check out the film. You'll love it. It has such a cool vibe and such a powerful message and, as always, you can always follow us at Vision Maker Podcast and see any of our other projects at Vision Maker Productions on Instagram and across social media, and just be sure to like, comment, subscribe. Please leave any extra questions that you may have or just send in the comments and any questions you'd like to hear from in the future, and thank you so much for joining us. It was a pleasure, dustin. Thank you so much for being on. Pleasure is all mine.
Speaker 2:Thank you, we're signing off.
