Welcome to Alumni Live: The Podcast.

These are conversations with Grand Valley State University film and video

graduates about the industry, the film, video, major and alumni profiles.

Welcome to the GVSU Film and Video Alumni Live Podcast.

I'm Michele Terpstra, class of 1995.

Today, we're honored to have with us Wendy Jo Carlton, a highly acclaimed filmmaker

and alum of Grand Valley State University.

Wendy Jo is a talented writer, producer, director, and community builder who

has produced an impressive body of work that has been screened internationally.

Her LGBTQ feature, "Good Kisser," was a Jury Award winner and

is available on Amazon Prime and other streaming platforms.

Wendy Jo also produced the award winning Netflix documentary, "Circus of Books."

As a public speaker and event producer, Wendy Jo founded Chicks Make Flicks, a

media literacy and film mentor program for teen girls, and she has been a panelist

at various film festivals and events.

Wendy Jo is also an experienced educator and has taught film

production, screenwriting, and media history at several universities.

With her extensive and impressive background in the film industry, we

are excited to hear more about her creative process and experiences.

Welcome, Wendy Jo!

Thank you,

So if you could give us a little background on your career and what

you've been doing since you graduated from GVSU, that would be great.

Since it's been quite a while, what could be my bullet point version

of what I've been up to since Grand Valley State University.

I think before Grand Valley.

I met folks who were already going to Grand Valley.

So just to tell this part of the story I was inspired to quit my job full time

working in a contact lens lab and go to college because of people I met who

were like minded weirdos and artists and progressives and queer folks and

a combination of all those things.

Like minded folks, we tend to find one another when we need to, and

especially, I was much younger.

So I was happy that Grand Valley State was providing the

environment and the education and the inspiration at that time.

Because this is pre internet, 1991.

Yeah, it existed, but it was definitely pre-Facebook and all

this other stuff that is ubiquitous and people take for granted now.

So it's a lot more hands on and meet-people-in-person kind of thing.

And so I did cross paths with some folks like Rose Rosely

and Heidi Mau and Mike Kuhn.

And then I met Deanna Morse at a fundraiser party that the

band I was in played at.

So I was in a band and doing music and I was on radio before I quit my job at the

contact lens lab and went to school full time at Grand Valley State University.

So what inspired you to enroll and to become a filmmaker?

I think what inspired me to want to make films is that I was

already doing still photography.

I was very drawn to image making, storytelling through

sequences of still images.

naturally I was drawn to that.

My boyfriend at the time, Robert gave me a 35 millimeter camera and

I shot just loved black and white.

I think I was inspired early on for whatever reasons.

I don't remember with black and white and dreamy storytelling, dreamy images.

Surreal, surrealism.

And so then when I met some folks who were making films already at

Grand Valley and I saw their work, I felt like, "Oh, okay, I can do this.

I'd like to do this."

I'd like to figure out how to do this in terms of equipment.

But also again, when you meet people who are doing something you're

relating to and in an artistic way.

So I was already a photographer and loved communications in

terms of radio and photography.

It just was right folks to cross paths with.

In fact, I met Deanna Morris at a fundraising party that the band

I was in and co-wrote songs in and I was the lead singer in at a

fundraiser at Ray Street Gallery.

When I go back and, having this conversation with you, Michelle,

I'm like, actually, there's a lot of things that are historically

significant in terms of the Grand Rapids art scene and filmmaking scene

and progressive folks who are helping build community and create community.

So I feel really lucky that that happened at that time in my life because I

really was ready for that and looking for something bigger than myself,

but also something to be a part of.

And so, as a musician, I became a part of that.

And then, that led to me seeing filmmakers work.

And, and you know, and animations.

Because I love animation.

And want to make more animation, even now.

And I'm like, "oh wow, this is great!

I love this.

This is what I want to do."

That's how that happened.

That's great.

I actually hear some parallels in what you're saying to how

I got into my career as well.

But you are an independent filmmaker, so what are some of the that you

face as an independent filmmaker?

Well, can I interrupt that train of thought and ask you a little

bit more about what you're meaning?

I want to hear about you, too.

Well, when I was younger, I always wanted to be a radio DJ that was my dream,

and then MTV came around and I just had dreams of being Martha Quinn, and then

I went to college, and I was going to school for broadcast and I was going

to go into radio, which I realize now I didn't have a lot of foresight into the

future of how the media would end up.

And I took some film classes because that was part of the program

and man, I loved it immediately.

And I met so many cool people who just gave me this whole new

perspective, these artsy people.

It was life changing.

I could feel that, what you were saying.

Yeah.

And it's no small thing.

It's actually, when you say life changing, it's life changing for sure.

It's so enriching.

It's like, you know, it's like you're now, you're now not just at the carnival and

you're having so much visceral engagement, but its also intellectual engagement.

And just watching how other people are telling stories and usually that's

reflective of also how they're living their life, even, you know, in, in

your twenties, it's like, honestly, I don't think I've fundamentally

changed that much since I started at Grand Valley State University in the

film program, communications degree.

I mean, thinking about it a lot lately, maybe because of the

pandemic to put kind of a damper on movie production or my moving about

safely or getting older, obviously.

Makes one see these things and make parallels like,

"Oh, what was I doing then?"

And I will just say for the sake of this interview with you is I've been thinking

about I'm kind of full circle feeling, I feel like the way independent filmmaking

in the United States has regressed.

In my opinion, I mean, the, the state of true independent

filmmaking is pretty dire.

It's so, so arduous to find the funding to get a project made.

And I mean, as I'm writing it, I'm writing it with a producer hat on,

it's not some genre film I'm writing that no one can afford to fund, right?

Or it's full of CGI or something.

So even with that mindset of making things to produce, I would say compared

to other countries like Canada, or Germany, or France, or the Netherlands,

the government actually sets aside money in the budget to support the arts and

filmmaking It just costs a lot more to do well even in a bare bones way than

something like, say painting or drawing or more 2D stuff that's not time based.

So I will just leave that right there to say, I think

I've come full circle in that.

And not that really by choice, I would so love to say, " well, now I'm with

the CAA in Los Angeles and I'm happy to say that I'm getting 2 million dollars

for my next feature that I've written."

I am not reporting that, but I can report that I'm excited about what

I'm working on, and I'm excited to kind of let go of that chasing of

the ideal that is like winning the lottery in terms of statistics.

And I will repeat this throughout this podcast.

If anyone's listening who is already a filmmaker and you're doing your thing,

and more power to you if you're getting 2 million dollars or a million dollars,

which is considered low budget for Hollywood, but not for folks like us.

It's like, go, go, go.

And I'm happy for you.

But for me I just want to keep making things before I die.

I want to make more things in different forms, whether it's animation, feature

rom com, musical, I want to write one act plays for theater because it's cheaper

to do and you can still tell stories.

And not feel like I'm waiting for permission from any organization,

or funding group, or investors.

I mean, project by project has been mix and match for me.

And I think a lot of independent filmmakers, it's case by case.

Making "Good Kisser," which is still on Apple TV right now, Apple TV and

Amazon, and it was on Netflix, and it was on Hulu for a year and a half, which

is fantastic, I'm very happy about that.

If you go watch Good Kisser now, it's like, that's still under

one hundred thousand dollars.

And that movie, I'm proud to say, made it . I think because of the overall

quality and that I also wrote it to appeal to not just a queer audience, but

a general audience that could relate to the theme of a love triangle and also

the main character suffering from self esteem and we watch her grow and stand

up for herself and her relationship where she's being taken for granted.

So that's a pretty universal love story to write.

I still, to this day, am motivated by trying to reach

as many people as possible.

My earlier films, for example, were a bit more experimental

narrative that I think there's total audience for and appreciation for.

But I just personally feel more motivated to try to reach more people.

Who maybe aren't like me, quote unquote, that's for whatever reason,

I've always been driven by that desire, even when I was younger, listening to

the radio and as like you, Michelle, I wanted to be on the radio and

then I went and got on the radio.

And now you're doing this podcast, but we could have our own radio show.

We could.

We could do anything.

You mentioned that budgets are small, and, two million dollars is nothing.

However, there's been major motion pictures shot on iPhone, and people have,

in their phones, you can edit a film.

Are those, more accessible technologies helping you to get a story produced

faster on a smaller budget as well?

I would say for me personally.

Yeah.

my short film, "Sister Jesus," I shot that on my iPhone and then I used, an

app that had a filter cause I wanted the aesthetic of it, to look like Super

8 because the narrator is telling a story about when she was growing up

and in first grade or second grade.

It's like a memory and it's kind of dreamy.

And so that's that 4:3 format.

Everything was not 16:9, right?

That didn't

exist.

4 by 3.

Everything was 4 4:3, right?

So there was something about that that just I wanted to do.

So that's why that short film, " Sister Jesus," was, purposely shot it in

that way, using an app via my iPhone.

So I shot all that and edited that myself.

I would like to make a lot more short films again.

Why?

Because it's fun.

It feeds the soul.

Helps my mental health.

I like that.

Also, it's accessible.

Like you said we didn't have smartphones that had 1080 let alone

now you can, what is it, 4 or 6K resolution you can get on an iPhone.

Which is like, wow.

Now, just because you have the technology doesn't equal that the

film's going to be super engaging or accessible to a lot of folks.

Depends on what your goal is, right?

Who your audience is and what your goal is.

For me, my current goal is just to make more stuff like I used to.

When I was at Grand Valley, I was so chomping at the bit.

And when I quit my job, see I started, I was in my 20s.

So I wasn't 18, 19 when I started.

So I had a perspective, I feel that was slightly more focused than some folks

in the same class as me at Grand Valley.

Because I'd already been working full time and I'd been in a band and

I was doing photography on my own.

But I was real ready.

I loved the structure.

I loved Barbara Roos.

cheers to Barbara Roos.

She really was a key figure in my, creative and intellectual development.

I'm gonna start crying now that we've lost her.

To change the subject just a little bit, you previously mentioned that

you had shows playing on Hulu and Netflix and those kind of things.

So, as a filmmaker, how do you navigate the distribution landscape of your

films and ensure that it reaches the audience that you intend it to?

For filmmakers listening to this I think the nutshell is again, it's project

by project case by case, You have more platforms now to have more control meaning

you could have your own YouTube channel.

So here's the short list of my suggestions for people who are

maybe not already navigating this.

You now have YouTube and you can create your own YouTube channel and publish

your work on there, control that.

The more views you get and the more subscribers you get to

your YouTube channel, you can actually start making ad revenue.

Some income.

You're not going to probably pay your rent on that though.

That's kind of reserved for the people not really making aesthetically original,

super original in my experience, short films and feature films.

The folks making a lot of bank on the YouTube route are those who are younger,

they want to be on the camera, so they're more like spokespeople or models or

they are comfortable being exhibition-y about their lives and their career.

Develop a persona.

So if you take the persona, personality, 20 somethings out on the YouTube and

just think about creative, original short films or feature films, you're

probably not going to make, your rent or your mortgage on that income.

I've done well with my lesbian web series, "Easy Abby," on not just my

YouTube channel, but it's also made a lot more income because I partnered

with OML TV and their YouTube channel.

And OML TV stands for One More Lesbian.

It's geared toward that audience, but they had a website first and got a lot

of traffic six, seven, eight years ago.

That audience followed them when they got their YouTube channel up and running.

They have almost a million subscribers on OML TV.

My own personal one, which I haven't been adding new content on recently,

which is, something I can still exploit that I want to go back to.

But I have 30, 000 subscribers on my YouTube channel, and that's mainly from

"Easy Abby" before I partnered with OML.

So they have a million.

And because they have a million and they have a lot of content, but

they're not creating their content, they are aggregating and distributing.

So I have my own separate contract with them that I negotiated myself

for getting most of that ad rev back.

So they pay me quarterly.

So mostly distributors will pay you quarterly, regardless if it's YouTube

or Hulu or another distributor.

So, "Good Kisser," my feature film that's on Apple TV right now, that's through

the distributor called Wolfe, and they've been doing LGBTQ content for 30 years.

So they have all of this Rolodex, all these contacts and relationships

over time before all the new, faster broadband and technologies and platforms.

Part of that was, I had to decide to try to go it alone without going through

a distributor with those contacts.

And you can do that now.

At least you have that option now.

Filmmakers have that option now.

There are, I forget right now the name of the couple companies

that you pay them flat fee.

So if want to go the route of flat fee, it might be 2,000 dollars,

2,500 dollars, and they will pitch your movie, like "Good Kisser," to

Netflix, Hulu, Apple, Google Play.

And they'll package it.

Usually the distributors are packaging genre similar audience films together.

So, they'll be pitching like, here's "Good Kisser" and then here's three more

queer movies, LGBT-identified movies for example, or here's other rom coms.

And so they'll pitch for you and they have a relationship because those

places don't talk to you directly.

The short answer is they do not talk to you directly.

You can't call them up and say, "Hey, where can I send my .mpeg4."

You need that middleman.

So your choices are middleman, you pay a flat fee, and it doesn't mean you

get in, but you go through the process.

If you get in with that then you keep all your money that comes now that you're

on Apple TV or, let's say, Netflix.

Yay.

That's like winning the lottery for an indie filmmaker to

have that kind of exposure.

Now you've paid that fee, but now you're getting all of

the income from those deals.

And with "Good Kisser," I didn't go that route.

I went with Wolfe, and it's a little bit of a crapshoot,

because nothing's guaranteed.

there's pros and cons, but what's in that scenario, I didn't have

to pay the upfront fee, and I got some, what they call MG, money

guaranteed, guaranteed upfront money.

But that's really just a up front that they take some off.

So if you got 10,000 dollars, let's say, and six months later,

your film is on Hulu, Netflix.

The distributor that you had that deal with, they're going

to take whatever you agreed to.

They're going to take what they've spent in marketing.

You put a cap on that, what they've spent on marketing.

They're gonna deduct that, and then they're gonna go, "well, we already gave

you ten grand for the first six months.

This film has made ten grand, but we're gonna get half of that.

So we owe you nothing yet."

That's how that works in a nutshell.

It's a big, good argument is to not go that route.

Especially if you're a little person, little person meaning

independent filmmaker that's truly independent, and you've cobbled

together the funding all on your own.

No big production company has come in and helped you cover 200 grand

of this or 100 grand of that.

You've done it through Kickstarter and Indiegogo, which I've also

done those a few times in the past.

Does that make sense to you, the scenario I'm painting?

Yeah.

Currently, it's down to, you get someone to pitch for you,

you pay them the upfront fee.

It might be up, you know, three grand, it might a little less.

Nothing's guaranteed, but hey, that's the route I'd like to go next with

my next one, just to be transparent.

And then I'm very grateful and very proud that "Good Kisser" is on Apple TV and

Amazon, and was on Hulu, but again, you're waiting for those quarterly payments that

are going through the distributor, and they're taking a portion, not just minus

what they gave you up front at the time of signing of the contract, but what you

agreed to in the contract and often, it could be 30 to 50 percent of your revenue.

Wow.

I had no idea how that all worked.

That's interesting.

I know I hate to bore you with that.

No, no, it's good information to know.

We're taking a short break to tell you about the Dirk Koning

Memorial Film and Video scholarship.

Here's Gretchen Vinnedge remembering Dirk Koning.

The Koning Scholarship enables students to get that kind of an education, to be

a good filmmaker, to be able to express their voice and to continue Dirk's dream.

For more information, and to donate to the scholarship, visit

the link in the description.

Now, back to the show.

So what about film festivals?

How does that play into what you put into your filmmaking?

Typically, if you're a feature filmmaker, you can make income

and revenue from screening fees.

And so that's the route, at this stage.

I like making short films, but you're not going to make income or

screening fees from short films.

They don't pay for short films.

They also won't fly you there or put you in a hotel for free.

So the feature, that's the perks you get for that is that you can negotiate, five

to eight hundred dollars a screening.

Plus their sponsors usually have hotel and airfare sponsors.

So you get to fly to Italy or Amsterdam or New York and stay

somewhere that would be expensive and unaffordable for most folks to stay.

That's a big perk.

I love film festivals.

I like watching other people's work.

I like meeting other filmmakers.

it's a rich, relevant world to me that the last few years and

the pandemic, I've sorely missed.

"Good Kisser" premiered at Seattle International Film Festival, and then

it was in Toronto, and Los Angeles OutFest, and a few other places including

Chicago and the Cisco theater in Chicago.

And then the pandemic happened and I was supposed to go to Italy and Spain

and France and all of that got kiboshed.

That's my own personal disappointment.

But obviously, there are many more things that happened far sadder

during the pandemic than that.

Let's talk little bit about your film specifically.

You often feature mental health themes, and you have a lot of lesbian characters,

and what draws you to these type of stories, and also the representation of

these type of characters in the films?

Why is this important in film and media?

Well, I can just speak to why it's important to me.

It's like I just want to see more characters, people, and storylines

that appeal to me and speak to me.

and I still think there's a lot more content needed with queer

protagonists there just is especially not going through the gatekeeping of

Hollywood and multiple people having to sign off or giving permission.

Even if they're gay themselves, I just feel like there's a whole other realm

and I guess it's not my life mindset in general to wait for authority figures

or people with bigger pocketbooks to tell me what's okay to make.

I feel like, themes of queer identity, I typically don't write about coming out,

because I feel like there's plenty of great material out there about identity,

or the fear of coming out, or how to navigate feeling accepted or not within

a family, like it's all fascinating to me and I'm interested in it, but I'm

not as interested in writing about it.

I like the protagonist being queer because there's so many stories to

tell and I'm interested in telling the ones that are less available.

And some of those include what it's like to go to therapy for the first

time, and it's not necessarily about being queer, but the character is queer.

Or like in my web series, "Easy Abby," her mom is bipolar.

So I wrote in season two mainly, we finally get to meet her mom and we see

that Abby has a contentious relationship with her mom and she's struggling with it.

She feels guilty that she's not being a more forgiving daughter, but she's

still dealing with resentment toward her mom for things that happened that

she kind of had to absorb and grow up around that were not psychologically

safe for her and her mom knows that.

So it was important for me to show complexity between the mom and Abby.

And Abby happens to be queer.

But I like to write it in, at least with Easy Abby, there's a light hearted

tone that I'm threading throughout, because I feel like the closer I get

to writing about things that are hard for me to write about, it's easier

to write the hard if there's humor.

That make sense.

I think it's easier too for audiences to really enjoy something

if there's humor involved.

When you're writing something like this, are you thinking about stuff from your

own past or conversations with friends and things that have happened with friends?

Do you write a lot of that into your stories?

That's a good question because it's hard sometimes to cut the wheat from the chaff.

I'm sitting there writing and I tend to let myself free associate for a while.

I want to write this movie that's about being a recovering alcoholic, right?

So the current script I'm writing, the working title of

the movie is Lucy is a Loser.

And that's what I hope to shoot in Chicago this summer.

When I'm thinking of her, I'm being informed by people I knew in my childhood,

being a child of alcoholic, my dad.

And also, there's sibling issues as well within my own life, around

substance abuse and mental illness.

so it's very close to home for sure for me to want to put those stories out

there and it influences me in my heart.

But with a sense of I'm not interested in writing like Darren Aronofsky type

of "Get down into that and this is like totally relatable, like Black

Swan, but really difficult to watch."

I'm more interested in getting close to that tone and being honest and

visceral, but I need to have more hope.

And I don't want to write that.

I want to write that there is a place for this person to be able to go.

We're getting a light at the end of the tunnel, and it's not just

a reflection on how shitty it can feel sometimes to be hopeless.

It's like, I want to try to represent my version of that, but have a way out.

And I think that's my own therapy, I suppose.

What sort of advice would you give to other filmmakers who want to write stories

or tell stories about underrepresented communities or individuals?

Well, I don't know if I have advice.

I feel like if you identify from a marginalized community and,

like, I can only speak to being from the United States of America.

I feel like there's more forced marginalization that's even

happened over the past five years.

But advice I would give, if you're writing from your heart and you can

feel it in your body, you're leaning in while you're writing a scene.

What I'll say when I teach to screenwriting students, I just say,

I'm paying attention usually, to when I'm literally leaning in, and

I feel kind of energized, because I feel like I'm on to something.

I feel like I'm feeling something truthful to me.

I don't usually use the word marginalized myself because I I'm not a person of

color but I am queer and I'm female.

I think underrepresented would probably be a word.

Underrepresented.

Yeah.

There's so much underrepresented because so much that's happening

is again, approved of by multi billion dollar conglomerates.

Right?

and it's so much about capital and profit and statistics.

So, we got to work against that as independent filmmakers

,and artists, and writers.

Because it's important that we do.

And to help inspire others of like mind because I just feel like I've been

around enough to observe that it's a lifeline, mass media and accessible media,

storytelling, and filmmaking, especially.

There's something about the moving image.

We're watching another human being in a scene, living their life, making

decisions, reacting to their circumstance.

And it's really powerful.

Yeah, I don't know if that's advice.

You might have to ask me again.

How do you survive as an independent filmmaker, I guess?

Well, there's financial and there's mental, right?

I would say, okay, here's the advice that has to do with making an income:

figure out what skill set to develop and that you want to develop, that is not

about being a Screenwriter or Director.

So, here's the things I've noticed that can give you steady income and

stability so you don't go crazy.

An Editor, anything in post.

Sound Design.

Producer, but it's harder to do that.

It's harder to do things that are less specifically.

technically understood, right?

Because there's so many different things a producer can do.

But that's a lot of what I've done as a freelancer is produce as opposed

to being like a full time editor.

When I was younger, I thought that that's what I should be doing, right?

Because I was editing all my own work.

And I liked it.

I liked the editing room.

But, there was something about feeling too stuck in front of the screen.

I don't know what it is.

But I know lovely editors who I've worked with, they are totally

into it, and they make good money.

So Editing, Sound Design, Color Correction, all that post stuff

that's very skill set driven and you're needed in more than one major

city so you could work in Chicago.

You could work in Grand Rapids be doing that for commercials or ad

agencies or, get yourself to a larger city to do stuff that's narrative.

So I would suggest that and then on the production side, that would be Director

of Photography, Gaffer, a Sound Mixer.

These are all steady income jobs within the film industry.

An old friend from Grand Valley State University, David Bush, he's

in LA for many years now, and he is just wonderful as a set designer.

And he's worked with David Lynch and David Fincher and, he was my first college

roommate and I adore him and he's just did that thing and kept doing that thing.

And he's making really good money.

I don't know what the figures are, but nice, steady, creative

income and works really hard.

So those are the things I would suggest and I would strongly suggest to pick

something and go pursue it, because that will be the steady income that

you can relax into and still make your films that you're writing and directing.

I kind of been more of a mix and match as my career and life has gone on.

I think because I'm attracted to a lot of different ideas and things.

I lived in LA five years ago, and that's when I got the opportunity to be an

associate producer on the documentary that's, I think, still on Netflix.

It's called "Circus of Books."

And I'm very proud of that.

I was in LA for a little more than a year and a friend of mine who was

the director of photography on my feature, "Jamie and Jessie Are Not

Together," which I shot in Chicago.

Gretchen knew this other woman who was looking for someone who

was a good storyteller and good with people and had the chops.

And so that's how I got my foot in the door there for that project.

That would be my other advice, depends on what you want to do.

Want more steady income?

Figure out what kind of role you could play that is needed in a consistent

way within production and post.

Otherwise, have a day job that isn't in production, and you're fine with that,

and you can pay your rent with that, and find your like-minded colleagues to help

you make awesome work that's original.

Yeah, you've actually inspired me.

I have so many ideas that I've written down that I'd like to make little

films, but I'm the type of person who will have to just do the whole thing.

And I'm a perfectionist.

And it's really hard.

Then we have my husband he's down in his studio and he'll just create

a song and a music video and he spits it out in a day and it's by no means

perfect, but he actually does something.

I don't know if you deal with any of that perfectionism on your own.

You seem to do a lot though, so I imagine that you've got a good grasp on that.

How do you deal with that type of thing?

Yeah.

That's why I was saying earlier on in this interview, that I'm excited to

get back to making more short form work because I just know that I'm happier.

I just feel happier when I'm making more things more often and it's so time

consuming to try to fund, and shoot, and edit, and everything, a feature length.

Especially if it's under a 100,000 dollar budget, which typically just

means you have less money to throw at people to help you make things go faster.

Progress over perfection.

Definitely progress.

Make more, I'm happier.

And if you're happy, it sounds to me like Michelle, like you

would like to make more stuff.

So like do an animation and they have the AI stuff now.

You can do free animation with the program and do voiceover.

They only have like 20 characters So it's not from one

of your own original drawings.

But, I'm working on something right now just to have fun.

Make a little animation because I like doing character voices

and telling little stories.

Because I've just started a little children's book that I'm working

on that I will find an illustrator and hire an illustrator to do

because I'm not a good drawer.

but it's been a dream of mine to do some children's books.

just do it.

You can do it and sell it on Amazon and not have to go through a third

party other than Amazon platform.

And they're not taking much money from you.

You can get an illustrator from, do you know the website called Fiverr?

I've heard of it.

Yes.

There's a lot of freelancers on there.

We could be on there as freelancers and put your services out there.

I've done some voiceover work for money as well, but there's a lot of things you

can do that are multimedia combinations, and you could do an animation just for

yourself or to entertain your family.

Put it on YouTube.

The thing is, when we were at Grand Valley in the nineties, right, YouTube

was not up and running and broadband speeds were not up and running.

That's all in the past now, so we can do those things.

So it depends on if you're trying to make money doing creative work, or your goal is

not to make money with a certain project.

When it comes to making a feature, because there's so many moving parts involved,

and other people I need to rely upon and collaborate with, that I need to

feel a little bit more together about.

You were mentioning this AI and at my company, we're using an AI writing tool

called Jasper and it's pretty amazing.

You just put in the text and it will rewrite it for you.

But say about 75 percent of the time, it's really good and factual,

but then some of the time it's not.

But then there's these video programs that will match move that Steven

Spielberg's got his hand in some now.

And, there's all sorts of like writing, and video, and

photography, and illustration.

How do you see that changing the landscape of filmmaking in the next few years?

I'm a skeptic, I'm over on the side, I feel like in my career.

I've not solidly been within one realm or at one company for X amount of years.

I got my MFA in Chicago With the intention of teaching full time,

and I still would like to teach.

I've adjunct taught a lot, but for some reason I just keep

going in some other direction.

But my point that the AI, I really feel like it's all about context and who are

the makers and who's profiting from it.

So if it's corporate based and it's Hollywood based, there's

so much beauty and talent within that, that I appreciate.

But my heart's always with the sidebar people, the independent filmmakers

who aren't really interested in using AI to do a thing, I feel like it's

more like assembly line help and speed and it's all about speed and do more.

And it's a corporate mentality and a capitalistic, "let's go

faster and do more" mentality.

So, I'm like, "how can I personally use it as an artist?

I'm gonna mess around with this animation and have fun with it."

Will I make much money off that?

Me, personally, no.

But folks who are using it, it's a whole other realm.

It's a more of a corporate realm.

I'd heard that some writers are using it to help flesh out their

stories, and give their characters backstory, and that type of thing.

And I think well, that's actually a really Interesting use of it.

You're using it as a tool, not doing the work for you, but

helping you to craft the story.

Yeah, cause a lot of what's, the most time consuming and more difficult/painful

is blank page versus rewriting.

If the chat AI or AI program is going to get you to a rough draft sooner.

And filling in some of the story arc and background stuff,

like you say, I'm all for that.

In fact, what is it called?

Well chat GPT-4 can do that type of thing.

Really?

I guess the interface, I have to do some practice on how

you're giving them the script.

What you're asking it to do.

It really is impressive

So when are you going to make a thing that we can see?

I don't know.

I've got so many different things.

My problem is just getting started.

I have the ideas written down and that's usually as far as I get.

And then if I sit behind the computer and I start working on some animation,

I just end up getting caught up in like the littlest things and I just get stuck.

That's always been my problem.

Well, maybe think of your story first, is what I would just suggest to anybody.

That's how I remind myself of.

It's like, oh, how do I think this is going to end?

What do I think I'm writing about?

What's making me happy or enthused?

Or amused?

it's okay to just do something just to be amused.

I find for me, if I know how I want the ending to be, what I want to feel at the

ending, what I want to see, what a last image might be, and I put that down and

then I reverse engineer it from there.

That is a good idea.

I have never thought of that.

I have all these little vignettes that I have written that don't really have

much of a point, but they're just, nature-comedy story, like spiders.

Nature.

Wh—Spiders?

Well, so we go walk in the park and at night in the summertime, we'll just

suddenly walk through spider webs, and so I have these ideas that these

spiders are having a good time, just trying to fling in front of people

and scare people, or annoy people.

I love that.

Silly things like that, or deer out in the backyard.

There's a lot of nature here, so, these animals have little human characteristics,

and they like to play jokes on people.

I love the spider thing.

That'd be a quick, one minute story.

I'm like, that's what I need to do, just one minute, or 30

seconds, just do something.

The form that commercials have become, speaking of, you know, capitalism,

the form is a great model, right?

You can make an impression, or follow a protagonist in 30 seconds and still have

a button out, you know, have a satisfying punch line or point to it, right?

With "Easy Abby," web series, those episodes are eight or nine minutes.

And so I got accustomed to and enjoyed the episodic nature because I had more

freedom, because episode to episode, I didn't have to have it be a story world

that was consistent or an aesthetic world that needed to be consistent,

like with lighting or location.

Even the clothes people are wearing.

It's like, "Oh, whatever.

This is two weeks later in her life, or it's 10 days."

If it's important that it's the next day, then I have to pay more

attention to what she's wearing.

But if not, there's this freedom, right?

With a feature film, you have to know, is this taking place, when

the movie begins and the movie ends.

Does it take place in a weekend?

Is it two years?

You have to know that with a feature so there's a consistency and a cohesion.

But with the shorter form, there's so much freedom.

So, that's also why I like short form.

Are there other differences that you have with working between web

series and that type of thing?

I think that would be the main difference for me.

Also, there's 14 episodes in season one, 14 episodes in season two of "Easy Abby."

Even though that's two feature film worth of content.

We shot that how I could shoot it, meaning, it wasn't 12 days in

a row or 15 shoot days in a row.

Like, typically it's the efficient way to do a feature.

And this was more like, "okay, who's available?

Let's get all the scheduling for the small cast and crew."

But it could be spread out when we shot it in Chicago.

So it's like, " okay, we're gonna do two episodes this week,

we can't do it then others.

Next episode, two weeks after that."

But within reason so it doesn't take you forever to get the whole season shot.

But I had written the whole season, so the episodes were written in

terms of the scripts and each script is about eight or nine pages So

eight or nine minutes long, edited.

Nine times out of ten, all your footage needed to be shot in one

shoot day it could be contained like, "we're going to get all this today."

We might be in two locations, but also smarter if you try to keep

it in one location for that day.

That was a pretty efficient model.

And at the same time, it was important to me to not have it look too stagey.

Or like a black box, right?

I want it to be real locations, a real apartment, a real restaurant,

a real coffee shop, a real laundromat, a real bike shop.

You have to find those places, get permission in those places.

Get production insurance for those places.

Especially if you're not paying them, but you can guarantee that you have

production insurance if anything breaks.

That's one model I still want to pursue.

I'd like to do another web series in that same vein.

It sounds like you have a lot of ideas still and a lot of goals.

I do.

I do.

Someone save me.

A lot of motivation, too.

Alright, well, thank you so much.

This was a lot of fun.

It was really interesting to talk to you.

Thank you.

Yeah, I love talking to you.

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