August 11, 2025 • 41 mins
Blue and Jason Gerber from the documentary Dawn Dusk, about artist and designer Chelli Look's battle with overwhelming grief, chat about the long process of making the film and how anything made with care and love can be art!
Links: https://www.dawnduskfilm.com/where-to-watch
Links: https://www.dawnduskfilm.com/where-to-watch
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
You are listening to the IFH podcast Network. For more
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Speaker 2 (00:41):
All right, hey, everybody, welcome back. Before we get started,
I just have a quick announcement following up from last week.
So September twenty sixth, it's a Friday. Make sure you
come out to Monday Night Garage in the chandelier room.
It's a cool new program called HS Deathmatch, which sounds amazing, right.
(01:03):
So we're gonna be pitting two films against each other
to see which is the more ridiculous film. So it's
going to be at six thirty PM. That's when doors are,
and you're basically going to help decide which is more ridiculous.
And it's not the full movies, it's just clips from
(01:25):
the movies. So you just get all the meat and
none of the other stuff. No veggies, just all meat.
So it's gonna be a lot of fun. So again
that's I mean, I know it's like two months away,
but you know market on your calendars now you have
Google calendar for a reason. September twenty sixth, Friday, doors
are at six thirty. It's at Monday night garage. All right,
(01:45):
so let's get to the guests. Got a great one today.
I got to see this documentary before before the interview,
and I was very very nice of them to send
it over so I could check it out. Very emotional documentary. Uh,
and so I just want to get into it. Jason
and Blue, how are you guys.
Speaker 3 (02:05):
Doing doing well? Thanks for having us here. I wish
we could come to that death match that sounds so fun.
Speaker 4 (02:13):
But sound fun?
Speaker 2 (02:14):
Well, we've got a two two month heads up, so
you can. You can play in your flights now. Now
it should it should be very interesting. You should be
very interesting.
Speaker 1 (02:24):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (02:24):
Tell everybody about yourself. Uh, tell all the listeners about
yourselves real quick.
Speaker 3 (02:29):
Yeah. So I'm Blue, I'm Jason. We are both directors
and we co direct together.
Speaker 4 (02:37):
A lot.
Speaker 3 (02:38):
We also direct individually as well, but we have kind
of branded ourselves as a commercial directing duo and we
work in commercials mostly. But we have this documentary called
Don Dusk coming out soon or yeah, it might already
be up, but I'm not sure when. Yeah, and it's
(03:02):
our first feature film. We've been making it for nine
years and it's been quite a journey. But we're very,
very excited about it. Yeah, so that's a little bit
about us. We both went to film school and both
fell in love with filmmaking at young ages and have
(03:22):
been pursuing the dream ever since.
Speaker 4 (03:24):
Yeah, and we direct, but we both come from kind
of different backgrounds and film. I come from the camera department,
kind of worked my way up to being a DP
and Blue kind of comes from the art department and
worked your way up to becoming a production designer and
kind of all along the way we were directing on
the side, and so we kind of made the leap
to being full time directors and basically called everyone we
(03:45):
knew and said, hey, we're directors now to you got
any work.
Speaker 3 (03:48):
Yeah, and it's been like twelve years now of us
doing that. Yeah, very cool.
Speaker 2 (03:55):
So yeah, nine years, that's a long journey for a film.
So I mean just just watching it, you know, I
see all the all the various haircuts and stuff throughout
the years, so that maybe that kind of that kind
of gives a sense of the scale of time, you know,
(04:16):
everything going on. So it's it's very interesting. Like K first,
I guess talk about obviously the film itself, but then
just keeping that momentum for keeping the momentum for anything
for any sort of time for a filmmaker a film
that you're making is tough. So talk about keeping that
up for nine years.
Speaker 3 (04:37):
Yeah, so I think that we so well to kind
of to clarify. So the production took about three years,
and then the pandemic happened and that kind of extended
post production. So post production took another like fourish years,
and then we had a small festival run for about
(05:00):
a year and then that's so that's eight and then
secured distribution and.
Speaker 4 (05:07):
Now and then that took it about a year.
Speaker 3 (05:10):
Yeah, yeah, Yeah, it's interesting like as filmmakers, you don't
really realize I think you think, like, oh, once I
have distribution, like you know, that's the end of the story,
like clear, clear sailing. But what you don't realize is,
at least with independent film, your work isn't really done
once you hit distribution. There's still a lot to do
(05:31):
and a lot of work you have to do. So
it's yeah, so we've still been working on this film
even though, you know, even though we've gone through all
the different stages of it. But yeah, so production took
about three years, and you know, I think during during production,
what kept us going was just seeing Shelley's story unfold.
(05:56):
And you know, the way that we this document is
a little unique because it's not one that we had
planned to make, and we had we had kind of
come across it, and we met Shelley and heard her story,
and then we started filming with her. And as we
(06:19):
started filming with her, we realized that it was going
to be a feature because it actually started off our
intention was to make a short, five minute piece about her.
But then once we heard more of her story and
kind of uncovered things that weren't really apparent on the
(06:39):
outside on the surface, we just kept digging and digging,
and the journey kept going and going, and we realized
that it was going to be a feature.
Speaker 4 (06:50):
Yeah, so you know, set the scene. It's twenty sixteen.
Vimeo staff picks our big deals. Everyone's making these little
beautiful maker documentary and they're all on Vimeo and people
are starting to put that like, commercial agencies are starting to,
you know, ask for that kind of work and wanting
(07:10):
to make that kind of work. And if you know
anything about the commercial industry, you kind of have to
have that. You kind of have to have something on
your reel and your portfolio that matches what the agency
is looking for. So we were like, let's fill in
the gaps, let's make a Little Maker documentary, Let's get
something in the portfolio. And that's the kind of setting
in which we were look with this. When we met
(07:33):
Shelley is in that time zone and we walked into
her studio. There was an open studio that we had
been invited to, and we walked into her studio and
we were really just impressed by her work and by
her as a person, and we thought, oh, she'd be
a good subject for a Little Maker doc So we
asked her if we could make one, and she said, yeah,
(07:54):
let's get coffee and talk about it. So we got
together and we chatted over coffee about you know, her,
and one of the things we asked her was, hey, like,
how did you get started doing this? And she didn't
tell us the answer we expected. She told us the
story of her sister. I think, just some context for
our listeners. Our movie is called Dawn Dusk. It's about
(08:15):
Shelley Look, who is a leather bag designer. Her sister
was murdered in a domestic violence incident by her sister's husband,
and our journey with Shelley is her healing journey, her
journey towards forgiveness, her journey through grief after that, and
that process is being poured out into her work as
(08:37):
a designer, and that process takes her in an unexpected direction.
So when we're at coffee with her, she tells us
the story of her sister and how she donates part
of the proceeds of her bags to a domestic violence
shelter and how she volunteers there. And it was kind
of an unexpected answer and it wasn't really the answer
to our question either about how did you get started,
But that's kind of what Blue was saying. As we
(08:59):
started filming and we started to see these that answer
was really layered into all the work that she was doing,
and we were seeing that and we were kind of
starting to uncover that. And I'm not even sure that
Shelley knew that necessarily, but it was her sister's legacy
was sort of woven into every aspect of her life
(09:20):
and her business, and we kind of saw a rich
story and we decided to just see where it took us.
Speaker 2 (09:27):
That's interesting, Yes, you already answered a lot of my
questions I had actually elevate, like how, you know, when
did you think when did you figure out as a feature,
And it sounds like just her openness in general was like, Oh,
this person's really going to be an open book and
we can you know, we could really get into you know,
because sometimes you go into I mean, as someone with
(09:47):
an unscripted production company myself, you go into stuff like
you meet people like, well, this person's all right, you know,
they're they're okay on camera or whatever. But sometimes you
meet someone like, oh, this person's really pooring the her
heart out. We should really have on this person.
Speaker 4 (10:03):
This is great.
Speaker 3 (10:04):
Yeah, yeah, I mean I think that was definitely part
of it. Was Yeah, I don't know if we would
have been able to make it if she wasn't so
graciously open with us, but she definitely definitely was. But
I think, you know, that, along with just our feeling
that this was a story that needed to be told,
(10:25):
I think was really what kept us going and what
you know, helped us decide that it did need to
be a feature because we realized that, you know, this
is a story that needs to be told, and I
don't think we're going to be able to tell it
in a short form like it needs it needs space
to be told, and we realized like we really were
(10:47):
only going to be able to do that in a
feature format.
Speaker 4 (10:50):
Yeah. As filmmakers, we're trying to let this, you know,
the story dictate, you know, the approach in a lot
of ways. And I think that the approach in this
case was, you know, a ninety minute documentary versus something
short form.
Speaker 5 (11:07):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (11:07):
We kind of like to say that we we accidentally
or stumbled into making a feature link documentary. We didn't
set out to do it, but we were kind of
listening and I think that we paid attention and realized
we had something.
Speaker 2 (11:20):
That's spart Yeah. So what was the what was the
initial before we even had even met her, Like, what
was the what was the idea of meeting and saying,
I wonder if this person is interesting enough to to
be in a documentary?
Speaker 3 (11:33):
You know?
Speaker 4 (11:35):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (11:35):
I mean it really was just like we were looking
for something for our portfolio. We we were looking for
something beautiful. We I think we had seen like this
video of like a surfboard maker making surfboards, and we
were like, oh, that's so cool. We want to make
something like that and yeah, and then it really it
(12:00):
was just like you know, we we kind of we
somehow got this invitation to come to this open studio
she was having and it was it was for the
launch of her new collection, which was called Don Dusk.
And we walked in and her studio at the time
was all white and the beginning of her collection, the
(12:23):
bags were like all black and they were all like
just really sleek and elegant and minimal, and she really
was like the most magnetic person in the room. Like
we were just really drawn to her. And that night,
like Jason and I kind of turned to each other
and we were like, this, this would be perfect for
that video we've been.
Speaker 4 (12:45):
Like by hand. Yeah, leather is is cactile. The whole
process felt like it lent itself well to a sort
of docu format.
Speaker 2 (12:55):
Yeah that makes sense, and it's and it's really interesting
watching because I'm I'm not I don't know anything about handbags,
but just the idea that something you could go to
the store and just pick up and say, this is
a neat handbag or whatever or whatever it is that
someone someone obviously designed that and put and in some
cases literally pour their heart and soul into this object.
Speaker 3 (13:19):
Yeah, yeah, a big part of so we would we
would have these really long interviews with her. That's one
of the reasons why she what did become so comfortable
on camera with us, So as we'd have these like
three hour long interviews with her where we would ask
her anything from you know, kind of big generic questions
(13:44):
like what is art to you what she would kind
of laugh at us about, to you know, to the
more detailed personal questions. But a lot of this stuff
that there's a big chunk that we talked about that
unfortunately didn't really get to make it into the film
because it just wasn't like, you know, in the beginning
(14:06):
when we're interviewing her, we were kind of like asking
all these questions because we were just learning about her
as a person and seeing what the story was. And
then you know, we kind of realized what the story
was and kind of honed in a little bit more
specifically on that vision. But in the beginning, like we
(14:26):
chatted a lot about like business values and artistry and quality,
and she we learned we ourselves learned a lot through
her about the slow fashion movement, which is this idea
that you know, it's the opposite of fash fashion, fast
(14:47):
fashion where you wear it once and you throw it
away kind of thing where it's like really low quality
and slow fashion. Is this idea kind of harkening back
to the ways that we used to make clothing, and
we used to make products where they will they're handmade
and they're made very well with high quality materials so
(15:10):
that they last a long time. And so it's like
you might pay a lot of money for this one item,
but you're going to have it for years and years
and years and years, versus with fast fashion, you're going
to probably pay a cheaper amount, but then it's going
to you know, be destroyed in a matter of like
(15:32):
months or something. So we learned a lot about that
and that was really fascinating for us, and you know,
just was just one aspect of who she is as
a person, that she is this very thoughtful and intentional person.
Speaker 4 (15:51):
Yeah. I like that you connected with the idea that
somebody poured their heart into making a handbag. Now I
would say that a fast fashion kind of bag you
by it, you know a big box store is not
necessarily a piece of art, but one of the kind
of I guess sort of one of the themes or
(16:12):
thesises of the movie. It's not the main one, but
that's in there is that like fashion is art and
that these bags that she's making are wearable pieces of art.
So we really tried in our filmmaking approach to treat
the bags like that as though no different than if
(16:33):
she was a painter or a sculptor. We wanted to
present the work in sort of almost a museum esque away,
So that retrospective of her bags at the end, where
we're kind of showing you all of her work, that's
sort of meant to sort of be a retrospective of
a season of her life, very much like you would
(16:53):
go to a gallery and the painter would say like, hey,
this is my work that out of this season of
my life, and I'm exhibiting it as a collection of work.
So in the case of bags, they're wearable, so instead
of just putting them on pestols, we put them on models.
And the bags are named after different types of light,
so we put them kind of in the type of
(17:16):
light that we thought might be representative of the name
of the light. So there's the aura sling, or there's
the halo clutch, you know, and it's even more special
because spoiler for your viewers, she closes her business in
this movie. That's part of a big part of the movie.
That's the unexpected direction that she kind of goes in.
She so like looking back at the season of her
(17:38):
life and looking back at these bags is even more
special because it's truly just like these are like it's
like a one and done time of her life. It's
these are like, this is the work that came from
the season, and the season and this chapter in her
life is closed. And so that's how we try to
treat that sort of montage at the end that kind
of closes it out. From a filmmaking approach, was like
thinking about it like wearable art. So it was helpful
(18:00):
to kind of keep that in mind as we film
throughout the process because it really informed a lot of
our like stylistic approach.
Speaker 3 (18:07):
Yeah, it's like one of the first things that you
hear her say in the film is when you're getting
a HC. Bag, you're getting a part of me. And
that really, you know, that really is the case, is
like she over the course of the film, you see
her really pour herself into these designs and into these bags.
(18:31):
And you know, part of the film is like realizing
that the part part of what she's pouring into it
is her grief and her healing, and you know, just
this legacy of her sister, and you know, this journey
of loss and grief that she is on into those designs.
Speaker 2 (18:52):
So when, how how soon in the process did you
know that she was going to shut the business down
and that like radically change your your your plans that
you had for the film.
Speaker 4 (19:06):
It was pretty late, actually, it was kind of late
twenty nine.
Speaker 3 (19:09):
Wait then we find out when you do in the movie?
Speaker 4 (19:11):
Yeah, well, essentially essentially we find out live as the
viewer does. It's sort of mirror our experience, mirrors the
way the viewers experiences of it. You know, we had
actually stopped filming. We thought we had maybe most of
the movie, and we were trying some different edits.
Speaker 3 (19:28):
It was like a small break. It was like a
few months, a.
Speaker 4 (19:30):
Few months, but we weren't sure how much more, if any,
we were going to be doing. And we were like,
let's get into the edit. Let's see what we have,
Let's see how we can put this story together. She
calls us and says, hey, I have an update. I'm
going to close my business. And at first we were like, oh, no,
how does this affect our movie? What does it? What
does it mean? And then I think we realized, oh,
this is actually like a natural conclusion to this moment
(19:55):
in her life and our story for our film, and
it actually that's the ending we were looking for. And
so we picked the cameras back up and we went
out and said, let's let's film this process of you
kind of closing down and making a shift in your life.
And I think that was that turned out to be
(20:16):
really great, and I think it actually makes our movie
and makes the story that we were trying to tell
about a person going through grief and working towards healing
much more powerful with kind of that shift the end.
Speaker 3 (20:34):
Yeah, I think you know, we got back from Florence.
Another spoiler about the film. We go to Florence with
her because she goes there to do some soul searching
and to hone her craft at Leather School. And you know,
while we were there, we really we we captured kind
(20:58):
of this moment of transition where you can really tell,
and we could really tell in person that she was
going through something like she was processing something you know,
and she had been processing something all throughout the making,
but this was like a different kind of something. And
(21:19):
we left Florence kind of wondering, you know what, the
what the conclusion of that was going to be, you
know what, where she was gonna kind of like what
was going to happen after that time and after that
kind of soul searching that she did. And so when
she told us that she was closing, it really did
(21:41):
kind of make sense. After that that we realized, you know, oh,
this this really did begin in Florence, like where she
kind of had was able to get away from from
her typical life and from you know, the logistics so
running a business, and she was able to kind of
(22:03):
step away and think about who she was as an
artist and think about her art itself and where she
was at emotionally in this journey of grief. And then
you know, coming back and realizing that she needed to
close because she had kind of boxed herself in. It
(22:26):
made sense like once we once we kind of talked
to her about it, it made sense.
Speaker 2 (22:32):
I wonder, I kind of wonder if she was part
of it is just looking in the future and thinking
like I could easially get you know, stuck in this
and just thinking like looking forward, like well, I'll have this,
I'll have this, this company that lasts how many however
many years whatever, and it's just what to become known for.
Is that what I want to do? And there's some
(22:53):
irony in that too. I think she's making stuff that's
supposed to last for a long, long, long time. But
you know, the business itself is like, no, this is
just a this is just part of my journey. This
isn't the whole thing.
Speaker 4 (23:06):
Yeah, that's a good observation.
Speaker 2 (23:09):
Yeah, yeah, it's very very cool. So talk about to
talk a little bit more about filming, and I guess
specifically maybe the editing process, because that's really where I
feel like the story is told in like documentaries and stuff,
because you find a lot of stuff like, oh, we
forgot we had this and put this together. What were
(23:31):
the surprises that came out during the editing process.
Speaker 4 (23:36):
Yeah, I think that the big sort of revelation for
us in the edit was that we could tell this
story sort of in a nonlinear way. As you mentioned
at the beginning, the many haircuts of Shelley are shown
to you without regard to chronology. At least for the
first hour or so, we just show you whatever, whatever
(24:00):
needs to be seen on screen in that moment. And
we brought on our editor Meredith Mantic, who we have
to give a big shout out to Meredith incredible and
our resistance Courtney. They did an amazing job. They trimmed
down something like eighty hours of footage down to a
four hour assembly, down to a three hour rough cut,
down to a two and a half hour rough cut,
and so on and so forth until we got to
(24:21):
our sort of tight ninety that we were aiming for.
And in the beginning we had a chronological like a
cut in chronological order, and it just didn't work. It
just wasn't working. And documentaries are like all editing is
like a puzzle, but in a narrative, you have a
(24:43):
script and so you can at least rough you can
kind of essentially to keep the puzzle metaphor. You have
the box in front of you, and you have the
edges that you can kind of match, and you can
give yourself an outline, and then it's just filling in
the pieces in the middle. With a documentary, especially when
like ours, to continue the puzzle metaphor, it's sort of
like having no reference picture and all the pieces are
(25:05):
white and there are no edges, so you kind of
don't know like where to start. You can kind of
put any component of your film anywhere you don't have it.
You don't have the limitations of a script are actually
really helpful and sort of making decisions. We had unlimited
and it was almost paralyzing to be have so many options.
So when we had started to edit ourselves and quickly
(25:28):
we're like, we're too close to this. I think that
we need some outside help, and so we brought on Mereth,
who is also a co producer on the film, and
she started to whittle down and we started with that
chronological cut and it didn't work, and we said, you
know what what if we tried it based on themes?
What if we took this edit and just jumbled it
(25:49):
up and presented different themes to you in a way
that made sense for the story. And that sort of
non linear thematic cut was the revelation that we were like, oh,
this is working. We have a movie.
Speaker 3 (26:02):
Yeah, we and in that we realized, you know, this
really does make sense because grief is non linear. You know,
you're not when you're moving through grief. You're not moving
from point A to point B. You might be at
you know, point A and then point K and then
point like g Like, you know, you might move around
(26:27):
a lot because grief is just kind of it's unpredictable,
and you know, it's a kind of a winding sort
of journey. So cutting the film in a nonlinear fashion
really reflected Shelley's journey of grief and healing in in
that way because it is it is nonlinear in that sense.
Speaker 2 (26:52):
And I can definitely attest to that as someone who's
who lost this both my parents recently. That very thanks. Yeah,
it's it's a very uh, it's very weird. Like I
didn't I didn't know it was going to be this weird.
But I I can also attest to the whole puzzle
thing because we shot a docuseries several years ago that
(27:15):
we and you know, you just shoot some stuff. It's
about esports. This kid plays video games for a living.
And he also mentioned, hey, you know, I used to
be in a competitive drum drum thing like in band.
It was like a it was this weird competitive thing.
You know, we all get together and drum. I don't
know how exactly. It worked, but he we had him
play drums. I was like, oh, sure, Well it turned
(27:37):
out that he didn't quite make it as far into
the tournament that we wanted him to. So like this
footage of him playing this competitive drum became like a
metaphor of like where my life could have gone had
I not if I had stayed with this and not
gone into esports. You know, all of a sudden, it
just became this interesting new thing. It was, it's it was,
(27:57):
it's remarkable, like I just had no idea. We had
no idea that was going to happen, just zero clue.
Speaker 4 (28:03):
Right, Yeah, and then you have to sit down and
go what pieces do we have? Yeah? Where do they go?
Speaker 2 (28:10):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (28:10):
It's very interesting.
Speaker 2 (28:12):
So then so then yeah, you get the you get
the completed puzzle and everything, and you mentioned you you
cut it down from three hours two and a half
hours whatever. How do At what point did you know, like, okay,
we got to stop touching this. We're getting we're getting Oh,
I know, I said, you said, you mentioned you you
got some outside help, but like when did you have
(28:33):
that cut? We're like, that's it, we got it, let's go.
Speaker 3 (28:37):
Yeah, I think it was, we got it down.
Speaker 4 (28:39):
To one hundred minutes.
Speaker 3 (28:41):
One hundred minutes, yeah, we knew that. We so we
knew we wanted to do a test screening with some
trusted friends and some trusted folks around us to just
kind of get a sense, like from an outside perspective, how,
you know, if if the story made sense to, you know,
(29:02):
to people, because it's like when you've been editing something
for so long, you kind of begin to wonder like
like am I just too close to this? Is this
just me? You know? Or is this actually good? So,
you know, the three of us, Jason and I and
our editor Meredith, like we we all understood what we
(29:26):
were doing and knew, you know, what the story was,
but we wanted to make sure that it was coming
off in the way that we were intending for it too.
So we got it down to about one hundred minutes,
and we knew we needed to get it down to
about that long in order to do a test screening
because no one wants to sit through a three hour long,
(29:46):
you know, test test assembly. So yeah, so we got
it down to about that there and then screened it
to about like thirty people to get fe back and
the feedback was very helpful and it helped us reorder
some things. And then also we cut off about ten
(30:09):
minutes and got it down to our ninety minute, the
ninety minutes that it is now, which we felt like
was a really good length for this style of documentary.
Speaker 4 (30:21):
And then around then we were, you know, ready to
be say a picture lock.
Speaker 2 (30:26):
Right, Yeah, imagine. I'm also curious. You know, you mentioned
how vibrant Shelley is in like a room, like everybody
wants to watch her, which you know, in the film
business we deal with that a lot, just actors or whatever.
But there's just I don't know, there's maybe even especially
(30:47):
for documentary making, like you your subject has to be
very interesting on camera and maybe even off camera or
people are just not going to care. Maybe this is
a kind of a silly question, but like what do
you like?
Speaker 4 (31:03):
What do you think that is? Like?
Speaker 2 (31:04):
What is that? What is that thing that some people
have that you're just like, this person has to be
on camera, I have to I have to film this
person immediately.
Speaker 5 (31:14):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (31:14):
I think you're right, and that it's really hard to
pinpoint what that is and in like words or language. Uh,
this happens a lot when we're in a casting process,
right for a commercial or a short film or anything else.
Sometimes we're looking at an actor and we just know.
And the terminology we often use is they have it.
(31:36):
They just they have And I don't know what the
it is in terms of language, but I think that
when we saw and met Shelley, she she had it.
She was just had gravit like presence and like gravity.
And I think that it was a kind of kind
of a no brainer to sort of to be put
(32:00):
into her orbit. That gravity was sort of like, you know,
very magnetic, and it made sense and we as filmmakers
were able to I guess, identify that. But it is
a hard thing to put into terms. I think that's
maybe a thought about maybe you have.
Speaker 3 (32:14):
A sense of I think I think it's unique to
each person. So I think I know now what it
is about Shelley that makes her so magnetizing, but but
that is like unique to her. I wouldn't I wouldn't
say that it's the same for every magnetic person that
(32:35):
I mean, but I think just like, yeah, she has
a presence about her that I think really does come
from this, you know, this journey that she's been through.
I think she you know, she is someone who has
walked through darkness and come into a place of light,
(32:58):
and you know, for her civically, that was a sort
of spiritual journey for her, and so you can really
tell that she's kind of in touch with the divine
in a way, like from walking through that darkness and
coming into this place of light. And so she definitely
she has this like peaceful confidence about her. I think
(33:24):
that comes from comes from discovering that everything's that when
everything is dark around you, that it's still it's going
to be okay, that dawn is coming. And you can
really tell that, you know that she is sitting in
that place of rest in her soul.
Speaker 4 (33:46):
That's great.
Speaker 2 (33:47):
Wow. Yeah man. Yeah, but yeah, I mean like I've
seen it myself, just hanging out with friends or something
and then somebody puts a camera on somebody and go, oh, whoa,
there's a superstar all of a sudden, just out of
the blue. Yeah, it's it is hard to define, but
that's a that's a great answer. So, yeah, the film's
coming out August fifteenth. You got a distribution by Buffalo eight.
Speaker 4 (34:13):
Yeah, we've been a great partner in the process.
Speaker 2 (34:16):
That's awesome. Was that was that from I can't maybe
you already mentioned this, is that was that before all
the festival screenings or or did that the screenings help
with that picking up?
Speaker 4 (34:28):
I think that's something, at least in my limited experience
and my conversations with filmmakers, that the film festival circuit
seems to matter less and less for distribution. Distributors are
attending maybe the big eight festivals, and right, some of
(34:49):
those festivals have markets associated with them, so they're actually
more focused in the markets to begin with. Uh, And
then you know, I think with the occasional you know,
bidding through the night, Sundance Darling kind of thing, that
still happens. But a lot of even docs at like
some of the most recent big festivals, didn't find distribution
(35:09):
until many months later, if at all, some of them
until And I think that that's very interesting because we
didn't get a massive festival run. It's a festivals themselves,
and those audiences are an interesting thing to approach, especially
with the movie like ours are. I think our movie
(35:30):
is a little unconventional and doesn't always fit the mold
that programmers are looking for, and that's that was an
interesting thing to kind of run up against and so
we actually brought on a producer, Rep. Glenn Reynolds is
great and if you're looking for circus films, if you're
looking for a rep, he's great. And he shopped our
(35:53):
movie to distributors. And the distributors didn't care at all
about what festivals we had played at or not played at.
They just watched the movie and either passed or said yes.
And we got a couple offers, and we went with
Buffalo eight and they've been a good partner so far
and we're like really glad to be working with them.
They are getting us good placements and kind of guiding
(36:16):
us through some of the marketing process and the sort
of promotion process. But I would say that that came
through us just bringing on a rep whose job it
is to sort of help shop the film. Had really
nothing to do with the festival circuit. And I think
a lot of movies that are sort of scale are
not going to be impacted by their festival runs, like
(36:38):
a lot of the festivals are going to We went
to we, you know, the American Documentary Film festivals where
we had our world premiere, and it's a pretty reputable
one of the largest documentary film festivals in the world,
and there were hardly any buyers there at all. We didn't,
you know, get to do this sort of what you
think of as the networking with the sort of distribute
(37:00):
who are there looking for the next big hit. They're
doing a lot of their work digitally. Now they're screening
digitally and they're not necessarily attending every festival.
Speaker 2 (37:09):
I see that makes sense. Okay, Yeah, times are changing
for sure.
Speaker 4 (37:15):
Yeah, it's an interesting thing to navigate. Just I think
festivals have their place, but I don't know if you're
always going to get you a contribution.
Speaker 3 (37:21):
I will just give like a quick shout out to Glenn,
because you know, when we were trying to figure out
how to how to sell our film and like how
to get our film in front of distributors, you know,
we were hearing a lot of different advice. We were
hearing like, you don't need a sales rep. Like we
were hearing you know, you just do it yourself, or
(37:41):
some people were saying you definitely need it, that sort
of thing, and so we we Glenn got recommended to us,
and we decided to look him up, and thankfully he's
just like one of the good ones, and like there's
a lot of He's talked on a lot of like
podcasts and stuff, and he's kind of like an expert
(38:02):
in his field where he can speak really well to
just where the industry is at and you know how
things work. And when we first started talking to him,
he sent us like a page of like forty people
to contact to get referral, like to get like references from,
(38:26):
and some we knew, and we knew some of them,
which was great, so you know, but he he's just
like a he's a good he's a good one because
he he only works with films that he feels that
he will be able to sell. And I've heard stories
of you know, people getting kind of scammed, you know,
(38:46):
because there's someone's like, yeah, I can sell your film,
but then really like they're not able to and they
end up just like wasting money. But with Glenn, he
was like, I'm only gonna come on if I believe
I'm can all your film, and so that was just
really reassuring from the beginning.
Speaker 4 (39:05):
I think we could have self distributed or found a
distributor with cold emails, but it sure was a lot
easier and I think we ended up with a better
partner in Buffalo eight than we would have it without,
like having a pretty ser rep with us.
Speaker 2 (39:20):
That's awesome. Yeah, like a child. It takes a village
sometimes interesting people.
Speaker 4 (39:26):
You know. We essentially self funded and shot and directed
the whole thing ourselves. It was nice to have a
community and a team around us in the finishing stages
of the movie. That's great.
Speaker 2 (39:37):
Yeah, Well, as we wrap up, tell everyone where to
find information on the film and where we can screen
it on August fifteenth.
Speaker 4 (39:47):
Yeah, it's going to be live on to b for
you with ads. It's going to be on the Rokue
channel for you with ads. You can rent and purchase
it on Amazon, and it's going to be on fowsome
and Ganjing World as well. If you're a library user,
it's going to be on Hoopla. You can rent it
and more to come, I believe. But that's where you
can find it for now, and you can keep up
(40:08):
with us.
Speaker 3 (40:09):
You can. Yeah, you can go to our website. That's
probably the easiest way to find all the links that
you need. Don duskfilm dot com and there you'll see
links to our social media. We're on most social media
platforms at don Dusk Film and you can also sign
up for our newsletter as well, where we'll send out
(40:33):
news and information about local screenings or different partnerships that
we do. We have some plans in the works that
we're hoping to do in the next few months.
Speaker 2 (40:46):
Awesome, Well, it was great meeting you too. I really
appreciate you coming on the show and talking about this
great film. Everybody go check it out. Good luck with everything,
and hopefully it does very well and we get to
see more documentary.
Speaker 4 (41:00):
Shore you guys with you Check. Thanks Chuck, Thank you Check.
Speaker 5 (41:11):
Thanks for listening to Atlanta Film Chait. Subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify,
or wherever you find your podcasts. The show is produced
by Trankle Aggression Productions and Zombie Cat Productions. Your host
is Chuck Thomas. Editing is by josh umcgold Key. The
soundtrack is by Michael Breezy Keys Jones. I am your
(41:34):
humble announcer, Rob Scheimer. Remember you are your own biggest fans,
so go out make your projects and don't let anyone
stop you.
You are listening to the IFH podcast Network. For more
amazing filmmaking and screenwriting podcasts, just go to ifhpodcastnetwork dot com.
Speaker 2 (00:41):
All right, hey, everybody, welcome back. Before we get started,
I just have a quick announcement following up from last week.
So September twenty sixth, it's a Friday. Make sure you
come out to Monday Night Garage in the chandelier room.
It's a cool new program called HS Deathmatch, which sounds amazing, right.
(01:03):
So we're gonna be pitting two films against each other
to see which is the more ridiculous film. So it's
going to be at six thirty PM. That's when doors are,
and you're basically going to help decide which is more ridiculous.
And it's not the full movies, it's just clips from
(01:25):
the movies. So you just get all the meat and
none of the other stuff. No veggies, just all meat.
So it's gonna be a lot of fun. So again
that's I mean, I know it's like two months away,
but you know market on your calendars now you have
Google calendar for a reason. September twenty sixth, Friday, doors
are at six thirty. It's at Monday night garage. All right,
(01:45):
so let's get to the guests. Got a great one today.
I got to see this documentary before before the interview,
and I was very very nice of them to send
it over so I could check it out. Very emotional documentary. Uh,
and so I just want to get into it. Jason
and Blue, how are you guys.
Speaker 3 (02:05):
Doing doing well? Thanks for having us here. I wish
we could come to that death match that sounds so fun.
Speaker 4 (02:13):
But sound fun?
Speaker 2 (02:14):
Well, we've got a two two month heads up, so
you can. You can play in your flights now. Now
it should it should be very interesting. You should be
very interesting.
Speaker 1 (02:24):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (02:24):
Tell everybody about yourself. Uh, tell all the listeners about
yourselves real quick.
Speaker 3 (02:29):
Yeah. So I'm Blue, I'm Jason. We are both directors
and we co direct together.
Speaker 4 (02:37):
A lot.
Speaker 3 (02:38):
We also direct individually as well, but we have kind
of branded ourselves as a commercial directing duo and we
work in commercials mostly. But we have this documentary called
Don Dusk coming out soon or yeah, it might already
be up, but I'm not sure when. Yeah, and it's
(03:02):
our first feature film. We've been making it for nine
years and it's been quite a journey. But we're very,
very excited about it. Yeah, so that's a little bit
about us. We both went to film school and both
fell in love with filmmaking at young ages and have
(03:22):
been pursuing the dream ever since.
Speaker 4 (03:24):
Yeah, and we direct, but we both come from kind
of different backgrounds and film. I come from the camera department,
kind of worked my way up to being a DP
and Blue kind of comes from the art department and
worked your way up to becoming a production designer and
kind of all along the way we were directing on
the side, and so we kind of made the leap
to being full time directors and basically called everyone we
(03:45):
knew and said, hey, we're directors now to you got
any work.
Speaker 3 (03:48):
Yeah, and it's been like twelve years now of us
doing that. Yeah, very cool.
Speaker 2 (03:55):
So yeah, nine years, that's a long journey for a film.
So I mean just just watching it, you know, I
see all the all the various haircuts and stuff throughout
the years, so that maybe that kind of that kind
of gives a sense of the scale of time, you know,
(04:16):
everything going on. So it's it's very interesting. Like K first,
I guess talk about obviously the film itself, but then
just keeping that momentum for keeping the momentum for anything
for any sort of time for a filmmaker a film
that you're making is tough. So talk about keeping that
up for nine years.
Speaker 3 (04:37):
Yeah, so I think that we so well to kind
of to clarify. So the production took about three years,
and then the pandemic happened and that kind of extended
post production. So post production took another like fourish years,
and then we had a small festival run for about
(05:00):
a year and then that's so that's eight and then
secured distribution and.
Speaker 4 (05:07):
Now and then that took it about a year.
Speaker 3 (05:10):
Yeah, yeah, Yeah, it's interesting like as filmmakers, you don't
really realize I think you think, like, oh, once I
have distribution, like you know, that's the end of the story,
like clear, clear sailing. But what you don't realize is,
at least with independent film, your work isn't really done
once you hit distribution. There's still a lot to do
(05:31):
and a lot of work you have to do. So
it's yeah, so we've still been working on this film
even though, you know, even though we've gone through all
the different stages of it. But yeah, so production took
about three years, and you know, I think during during production,
what kept us going was just seeing Shelley's story unfold.
(05:56):
And you know, the way that we this document is
a little unique because it's not one that we had
planned to make, and we had we had kind of
come across it, and we met Shelley and heard her story,
and then we started filming with her. And as we
(06:19):
started filming with her, we realized that it was going
to be a feature because it actually started off our
intention was to make a short, five minute piece about her.
But then once we heard more of her story and
kind of uncovered things that weren't really apparent on the
(06:39):
outside on the surface, we just kept digging and digging,
and the journey kept going and going, and we realized
that it was going to be a feature.
Speaker 4 (06:50):
Yeah, so you know, set the scene. It's twenty sixteen.
Vimeo staff picks our big deals. Everyone's making these little
beautiful maker documentary and they're all on Vimeo and people
are starting to put that like, commercial agencies are starting to,
you know, ask for that kind of work and wanting
(07:10):
to make that kind of work. And if you know
anything about the commercial industry, you kind of have to
have that. You kind of have to have something on
your reel and your portfolio that matches what the agency
is looking for. So we were like, let's fill in
the gaps, let's make a Little Maker documentary, Let's get
something in the portfolio. And that's the kind of setting
in which we were look with this. When we met
(07:33):
Shelley is in that time zone and we walked into
her studio. There was an open studio that we had
been invited to, and we walked into her studio and
we were really just impressed by her work and by
her as a person, and we thought, oh, she'd be
a good subject for a Little Maker doc So we
asked her if we could make one, and she said, yeah,
(07:54):
let's get coffee and talk about it. So we got
together and we chatted over coffee about you know, her,
and one of the things we asked her was, hey, like,
how did you get started doing this? And she didn't
tell us the answer we expected. She told us the
story of her sister. I think, just some context for
our listeners. Our movie is called Dawn Dusk. It's about
(08:15):
Shelley Look, who is a leather bag designer. Her sister
was murdered in a domestic violence incident by her sister's husband,
and our journey with Shelley is her healing journey, her
journey towards forgiveness, her journey through grief after that, and
that process is being poured out into her work as
(08:37):
a designer, and that process takes her in an unexpected direction.
So when we're at coffee with her, she tells us
the story of her sister and how she donates part
of the proceeds of her bags to a domestic violence
shelter and how she volunteers there. And it was kind
of an unexpected answer and it wasn't really the answer
to our question either about how did you get started,
But that's kind of what Blue was saying. As we
(08:59):
started filming and we started to see these that answer
was really layered into all the work that she was doing,
and we were seeing that and we were kind of
starting to uncover that. And I'm not even sure that
Shelley knew that necessarily, but it was her sister's legacy
was sort of woven into every aspect of her life
(09:20):
and her business, and we kind of saw a rich
story and we decided to just see where it took us.
Speaker 2 (09:27):
That's interesting, Yes, you already answered a lot of my
questions I had actually elevate, like how, you know, when
did you think when did you figure out as a feature,
And it sounds like just her openness in general was like, Oh,
this person's really going to be an open book and
we can you know, we could really get into you know,
because sometimes you go into I mean, as someone with
(09:47):
an unscripted production company myself, you go into stuff like
you meet people like, well, this person's all right, you know,
they're they're okay on camera or whatever. But sometimes you
meet someone like, oh, this person's really pooring the her
heart out. We should really have on this person.
Speaker 4 (10:03):
This is great.
Speaker 3 (10:04):
Yeah, yeah, I mean I think that was definitely part
of it. Was Yeah, I don't know if we would
have been able to make it if she wasn't so
graciously open with us, but she definitely definitely was. But
I think, you know, that, along with just our feeling
that this was a story that needed to be told,
(10:25):
I think was really what kept us going and what
you know, helped us decide that it did need to
be a feature because we realized that, you know, this
is a story that needs to be told, and I
don't think we're going to be able to tell it
in a short form like it needs it needs space
to be told, and we realized like we really were
(10:47):
only going to be able to do that in a
feature format.
Speaker 4 (10:50):
Yeah. As filmmakers, we're trying to let this, you know,
the story dictate, you know, the approach in a lot
of ways. And I think that the approach in this
case was, you know, a ninety minute documentary versus something
short form.
Speaker 5 (11:07):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (11:07):
We kind of like to say that we we accidentally
or stumbled into making a feature link documentary. We didn't
set out to do it, but we were kind of
listening and I think that we paid attention and realized
we had something.
Speaker 2 (11:20):
That's spart Yeah. So what was the what was the
initial before we even had even met her, Like, what
was the what was the idea of meeting and saying,
I wonder if this person is interesting enough to to
be in a documentary?
Speaker 3 (11:33):
You know?
Speaker 4 (11:35):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (11:35):
I mean it really was just like we were looking
for something for our portfolio. We we were looking for
something beautiful. We I think we had seen like this
video of like a surfboard maker making surfboards, and we
were like, oh, that's so cool. We want to make
something like that and yeah, and then it really it
(12:00):
was just like you know, we we kind of we
somehow got this invitation to come to this open studio
she was having and it was it was for the
launch of her new collection, which was called Don Dusk.
And we walked in and her studio at the time
was all white and the beginning of her collection, the
(12:23):
bags were like all black and they were all like
just really sleek and elegant and minimal, and she really
was like the most magnetic person in the room. Like
we were just really drawn to her. And that night,
like Jason and I kind of turned to each other
and we were like, this, this would be perfect for
that video we've been.
Speaker 4 (12:45):
Like by hand. Yeah, leather is is cactile. The whole
process felt like it lent itself well to a sort
of docu format.
Speaker 2 (12:55):
Yeah that makes sense, and it's and it's really interesting
watching because I'm I'm not I don't know anything about handbags,
but just the idea that something you could go to
the store and just pick up and say, this is
a neat handbag or whatever or whatever it is that
someone someone obviously designed that and put and in some
cases literally pour their heart and soul into this object.
Speaker 3 (13:19):
Yeah, yeah, a big part of so we would we
would have these really long interviews with her. That's one
of the reasons why she what did become so comfortable
on camera with us, So as we'd have these like
three hour long interviews with her where we would ask
her anything from you know, kind of big generic questions
(13:44):
like what is art to you what she would kind
of laugh at us about, to you know, to the
more detailed personal questions. But a lot of this stuff
that there's a big chunk that we talked about that
unfortunately didn't really get to make it into the film
because it just wasn't like, you know, in the beginning
(14:06):
when we're interviewing her, we were kind of like asking
all these questions because we were just learning about her
as a person and seeing what the story was. And
then you know, we kind of realized what the story
was and kind of honed in a little bit more
specifically on that vision. But in the beginning, like we
(14:26):
chatted a lot about like business values and artistry and quality,
and she we learned we ourselves learned a lot through
her about the slow fashion movement, which is this idea
that you know, it's the opposite of fash fashion, fast
(14:47):
fashion where you wear it once and you throw it
away kind of thing where it's like really low quality
and slow fashion. Is this idea kind of harkening back
to the ways that we used to make clothing, and
we used to make products where they will they're handmade
and they're made very well with high quality materials so
(15:10):
that they last a long time. And so it's like
you might pay a lot of money for this one item,
but you're going to have it for years and years
and years and years, versus with fast fashion, you're going
to probably pay a cheaper amount, but then it's going
to you know, be destroyed in a matter of like
(15:32):
months or something. So we learned a lot about that
and that was really fascinating for us, and you know,
just was just one aspect of who she is as
a person, that she is this very thoughtful and intentional person.
Speaker 4 (15:51):
Yeah. I like that you connected with the idea that
somebody poured their heart into making a handbag. Now I
would say that a fast fashion kind of bag you
by it, you know a big box store is not
necessarily a piece of art, but one of the kind
of I guess sort of one of the themes or
(16:12):
thesises of the movie. It's not the main one, but
that's in there is that like fashion is art and
that these bags that she's making are wearable pieces of art.
So we really tried in our filmmaking approach to treat
the bags like that as though no different than if
(16:33):
she was a painter or a sculptor. We wanted to
present the work in sort of almost a museum esque away,
So that retrospective of her bags at the end, where
we're kind of showing you all of her work, that's
sort of meant to sort of be a retrospective of
a season of her life, very much like you would
(16:53):
go to a gallery and the painter would say like, hey,
this is my work that out of this season of
my life, and I'm exhibiting it as a collection of work.
So in the case of bags, they're wearable, so instead
of just putting them on pestols, we put them on models.
And the bags are named after different types of light,
so we put them kind of in the type of
(17:16):
light that we thought might be representative of the name
of the light. So there's the aura sling, or there's
the halo clutch, you know, and it's even more special
because spoiler for your viewers, she closes her business in
this movie. That's part of a big part of the movie.
That's the unexpected direction that she kind of goes in.
She so like looking back at the season of her
(17:38):
life and looking back at these bags is even more
special because it's truly just like these are like it's
like a one and done time of her life. It's
these are like, this is the work that came from
the season, and the season and this chapter in her
life is closed. And so that's how we try to
treat that sort of montage at the end that kind
of closes it out. From a filmmaking approach, was like
thinking about it like wearable art. So it was helpful
(18:00):
to kind of keep that in mind as we film
throughout the process because it really informed a lot of
our like stylistic approach.
Speaker 3 (18:07):
Yeah, it's like one of the first things that you
hear her say in the film is when you're getting
a HC. Bag, you're getting a part of me. And
that really, you know, that really is the case, is
like she over the course of the film, you see
her really pour herself into these designs and into these bags.
(18:31):
And you know, part of the film is like realizing
that the part part of what she's pouring into it
is her grief and her healing, and you know, just
this legacy of her sister, and you know, this journey
of loss and grief that she is on into those designs.
Speaker 2 (18:52):
So when, how how soon in the process did you
know that she was going to shut the business down
and that like radically change your your your plans that
you had for the film.
Speaker 4 (19:06):
It was pretty late, actually, it was kind of late
twenty nine.
Speaker 3 (19:09):
Wait then we find out when you do in the movie?
Speaker 4 (19:11):
Yeah, well, essentially essentially we find out live as the
viewer does. It's sort of mirror our experience, mirrors the
way the viewers experiences of it. You know, we had
actually stopped filming. We thought we had maybe most of
the movie, and we were trying some different edits.
Speaker 3 (19:28):
It was like a small break. It was like a
few months, a.
Speaker 4 (19:30):
Few months, but we weren't sure how much more, if any,
we were going to be doing. And we were like,
let's get into the edit. Let's see what we have,
Let's see how we can put this story together. She
calls us and says, hey, I have an update. I'm
going to close my business. And at first we were like, oh, no,
how does this affect our movie? What does it? What
does it mean? And then I think we realized, oh,
this is actually like a natural conclusion to this moment
(19:55):
in her life and our story for our film, and
it actually that's the ending we were looking for. And
so we picked the cameras back up and we went
out and said, let's let's film this process of you
kind of closing down and making a shift in your life.
And I think that was that turned out to be
(20:16):
really great, and I think it actually makes our movie
and makes the story that we were trying to tell
about a person going through grief and working towards healing
much more powerful with kind of that shift the end.
Speaker 3 (20:34):
Yeah, I think you know, we got back from Florence.
Another spoiler about the film. We go to Florence with
her because she goes there to do some soul searching
and to hone her craft at Leather School. And you know,
while we were there, we really we we captured kind
(20:58):
of this moment of transition where you can really tell,
and we could really tell in person that she was
going through something like she was processing something you know,
and she had been processing something all throughout the making,
but this was like a different kind of something. And
(21:19):
we left Florence kind of wondering, you know what, the
what the conclusion of that was going to be, you
know what, where she was gonna kind of like what
was going to happen after that time and after that
kind of soul searching that she did. And so when
she told us that she was closing, it really did
(21:41):
kind of make sense. After that that we realized, you know, oh,
this this really did begin in Florence, like where she
kind of had was able to get away from from
her typical life and from you know, the logistics so
running a business, and she was able to kind of
(22:03):
step away and think about who she was as an
artist and think about her art itself and where she
was at emotionally in this journey of grief. And then
you know, coming back and realizing that she needed to
close because she had kind of boxed herself in. It
(22:26):
made sense like once we once we kind of talked
to her about it, it made sense.
Speaker 2 (22:32):
I wonder, I kind of wonder if she was part
of it is just looking in the future and thinking
like I could easially get you know, stuck in this
and just thinking like looking forward, like well, I'll have this,
I'll have this, this company that lasts how many however
many years whatever, and it's just what to become known for.
Is that what I want to do? And there's some
(22:53):
irony in that too. I think she's making stuff that's
supposed to last for a long, long, long time. But
you know, the business itself is like, no, this is
just a this is just part of my journey. This
isn't the whole thing.
Speaker 4 (23:06):
Yeah, that's a good observation.
Speaker 2 (23:09):
Yeah, yeah, it's very very cool. So talk about to
talk a little bit more about filming, and I guess
specifically maybe the editing process, because that's really where I
feel like the story is told in like documentaries and stuff,
because you find a lot of stuff like, oh, we
forgot we had this and put this together. What were
(23:31):
the surprises that came out during the editing process.
Speaker 4 (23:36):
Yeah, I think that the big sort of revelation for
us in the edit was that we could tell this
story sort of in a nonlinear way. As you mentioned
at the beginning, the many haircuts of Shelley are shown
to you without regard to chronology. At least for the
first hour or so, we just show you whatever, whatever
(24:00):
needs to be seen on screen in that moment. And
we brought on our editor Meredith Mantic, who we have
to give a big shout out to Meredith incredible and
our resistance Courtney. They did an amazing job. They trimmed
down something like eighty hours of footage down to a
four hour assembly, down to a three hour rough cut,
down to a two and a half hour rough cut,
and so on and so forth until we got to
(24:21):
our sort of tight ninety that we were aiming for.
And in the beginning we had a chronological like a
cut in chronological order, and it just didn't work. It
just wasn't working. And documentaries are like all editing is
like a puzzle, but in a narrative, you have a
(24:43):
script and so you can at least rough you can
kind of essentially to keep the puzzle metaphor. You have
the box in front of you, and you have the
edges that you can kind of match, and you can
give yourself an outline, and then it's just filling in
the pieces in the middle. With a documentary, especially when
like ours, to continue the puzzle metaphor, it's sort of
like having no reference picture and all the pieces are
(25:05):
white and there are no edges, so you kind of
don't know like where to start. You can kind of
put any component of your film anywhere you don't have it.
You don't have the limitations of a script are actually
really helpful and sort of making decisions. We had unlimited
and it was almost paralyzing to be have so many options.
So when we had started to edit ourselves and quickly
(25:28):
we're like, we're too close to this. I think that
we need some outside help, and so we brought on Mereth,
who is also a co producer on the film, and
she started to whittle down and we started with that
chronological cut and it didn't work, and we said, you
know what what if we tried it based on themes?
What if we took this edit and just jumbled it
(25:49):
up and presented different themes to you in a way
that made sense for the story. And that sort of
non linear thematic cut was the revelation that we were like, oh,
this is working. We have a movie.
Speaker 3 (26:02):
Yeah, we and in that we realized, you know, this
really does make sense because grief is non linear. You know,
you're not when you're moving through grief. You're not moving
from point A to point B. You might be at
you know, point A and then point K and then
point like g Like, you know, you might move around
(26:27):
a lot because grief is just kind of it's unpredictable,
and you know, it's a kind of a winding sort
of journey. So cutting the film in a nonlinear fashion
really reflected Shelley's journey of grief and healing in in
that way because it is it is nonlinear in that sense.
Speaker 2 (26:52):
And I can definitely attest to that as someone who's
who lost this both my parents recently. That very thanks. Yeah,
it's it's a very uh, it's very weird. Like I
didn't I didn't know it was going to be this weird.
But I I can also attest to the whole puzzle
thing because we shot a docuseries several years ago that
(27:15):
we and you know, you just shoot some stuff. It's
about esports. This kid plays video games for a living.
And he also mentioned, hey, you know, I used to
be in a competitive drum drum thing like in band.
It was like a it was this weird competitive thing.
You know, we all get together and drum. I don't
know how exactly. It worked, but he we had him
play drums. I was like, oh, sure, Well it turned
(27:37):
out that he didn't quite make it as far into
the tournament that we wanted him to. So like this
footage of him playing this competitive drum became like a
metaphor of like where my life could have gone had
I not if I had stayed with this and not
gone into esports. You know, all of a sudden, it
just became this interesting new thing. It was, it's it was,
(27:57):
it's remarkable, like I just had no idea. We had
no idea that was going to happen, just zero clue.
Speaker 4 (28:03):
Right, Yeah, and then you have to sit down and
go what pieces do we have? Yeah? Where do they go?
Speaker 2 (28:10):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (28:10):
It's very interesting.
Speaker 2 (28:12):
So then so then yeah, you get the you get
the completed puzzle and everything, and you mentioned you you
cut it down from three hours two and a half
hours whatever. How do At what point did you know, like, okay,
we got to stop touching this. We're getting we're getting Oh,
I know, I said, you said, you mentioned you you
got some outside help, but like when did you have
(28:33):
that cut? We're like, that's it, we got it, let's go.
Speaker 3 (28:37):
Yeah, I think it was, we got it down.
Speaker 4 (28:39):
To one hundred minutes.
Speaker 3 (28:41):
One hundred minutes, yeah, we knew that. We so we
knew we wanted to do a test screening with some
trusted friends and some trusted folks around us to just
kind of get a sense, like from an outside perspective, how,
you know, if if the story made sense to, you know,
(29:02):
to people, because it's like when you've been editing something
for so long, you kind of begin to wonder like
like am I just too close to this? Is this
just me? You know? Or is this actually good? So,
you know, the three of us, Jason and I and
our editor Meredith, like we we all understood what we
(29:26):
were doing and knew, you know, what the story was,
but we wanted to make sure that it was coming
off in the way that we were intending for it too.
So we got it down to about one hundred minutes,
and we knew we needed to get it down to
about that long in order to do a test screening
because no one wants to sit through a three hour long,
(29:46):
you know, test test assembly. So yeah, so we got
it down to about that there and then screened it
to about like thirty people to get fe back and
the feedback was very helpful and it helped us reorder
some things. And then also we cut off about ten
(30:09):
minutes and got it down to our ninety minute, the
ninety minutes that it is now, which we felt like
was a really good length for this style of documentary.
Speaker 4 (30:21):
And then around then we were, you know, ready to
be say a picture lock.
Speaker 2 (30:26):
Right, Yeah, imagine. I'm also curious. You know, you mentioned
how vibrant Shelley is in like a room, like everybody
wants to watch her, which you know, in the film
business we deal with that a lot, just actors or whatever.
But there's just I don't know, there's maybe even especially
(30:47):
for documentary making, like you your subject has to be
very interesting on camera and maybe even off camera or
people are just not going to care. Maybe this is
a kind of a silly question, but like what do
you like?
Speaker 4 (31:03):
What do you think that is? Like?
Speaker 2 (31:04):
What is that? What is that thing that some people
have that you're just like, this person has to be
on camera, I have to I have to film this
person immediately.
Speaker 5 (31:14):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (31:14):
I think you're right, and that it's really hard to
pinpoint what that is and in like words or language. Uh,
this happens a lot when we're in a casting process,
right for a commercial or a short film or anything else.
Sometimes we're looking at an actor and we just know.
And the terminology we often use is they have it.
(31:36):
They just they have And I don't know what the
it is in terms of language, but I think that
when we saw and met Shelley, she she had it.
She was just had gravit like presence and like gravity.
And I think that it was a kind of kind
of a no brainer to sort of to be put
(32:00):
into her orbit. That gravity was sort of like, you know,
very magnetic, and it made sense and we as filmmakers
were able to I guess, identify that. But it is
a hard thing to put into terms. I think that's
maybe a thought about maybe you have.
Speaker 3 (32:14):
A sense of I think I think it's unique to
each person. So I think I know now what it
is about Shelley that makes her so magnetizing, but but
that is like unique to her. I wouldn't I wouldn't
say that it's the same for every magnetic person that
(32:35):
I mean, but I think just like, yeah, she has
a presence about her that I think really does come
from this, you know, this journey that she's been through.
I think she you know, she is someone who has
walked through darkness and come into a place of light,
(32:58):
and you know, for her civically, that was a sort
of spiritual journey for her, and so you can really
tell that she's kind of in touch with the divine
in a way, like from walking through that darkness and
coming into this place of light. And so she definitely
she has this like peaceful confidence about her. I think
(33:24):
that comes from comes from discovering that everything's that when
everything is dark around you, that it's still it's going
to be okay, that dawn is coming. And you can
really tell that, you know that she is sitting in
that place of rest in her soul.
Speaker 4 (33:46):
That's great.
Speaker 2 (33:47):
Wow. Yeah man. Yeah, but yeah, I mean like I've
seen it myself, just hanging out with friends or something
and then somebody puts a camera on somebody and go, oh, whoa,
there's a superstar all of a sudden, just out of
the blue. Yeah, it's it is hard to define, but
that's a that's a great answer. So, yeah, the film's
coming out August fifteenth. You got a distribution by Buffalo eight.
Speaker 4 (34:13):
Yeah, we've been a great partner in the process.
Speaker 2 (34:16):
That's awesome. Was that was that from I can't maybe
you already mentioned this, is that was that before all
the festival screenings or or did that the screenings help
with that picking up?
Speaker 4 (34:28):
I think that's something, at least in my limited experience
and my conversations with filmmakers, that the film festival circuit
seems to matter less and less for distribution. Distributors are
attending maybe the big eight festivals, and right, some of
(34:49):
those festivals have markets associated with them, so they're actually
more focused in the markets to begin with. Uh, And
then you know, I think with the occasional you know,
bidding through the night, Sundance Darling kind of thing, that
still happens. But a lot of even docs at like
some of the most recent big festivals, didn't find distribution
(35:09):
until many months later, if at all, some of them
until And I think that that's very interesting because we
didn't get a massive festival run. It's a festivals themselves,
and those audiences are an interesting thing to approach, especially
with the movie like ours are. I think our movie
(35:30):
is a little unconventional and doesn't always fit the mold
that programmers are looking for, and that's that was an
interesting thing to kind of run up against and so
we actually brought on a producer, Rep. Glenn Reynolds is
great and if you're looking for circus films, if you're
looking for a rep, he's great. And he shopped our
(35:53):
movie to distributors. And the distributors didn't care at all
about what festivals we had played at or not played at.
They just watched the movie and either passed or said yes.
And we got a couple offers, and we went with
Buffalo eight and they've been a good partner so far
and we're like really glad to be working with them.
They are getting us good placements and kind of guiding
(36:16):
us through some of the marketing process and the sort
of promotion process. But I would say that that came
through us just bringing on a rep whose job it
is to sort of help shop the film. Had really
nothing to do with the festival circuit. And I think
a lot of movies that are sort of scale are
not going to be impacted by their festival runs, like
(36:38):
a lot of the festivals are going to We went
to we, you know, the American Documentary Film festivals where
we had our world premiere, and it's a pretty reputable
one of the largest documentary film festivals in the world,
and there were hardly any buyers there at all. We didn't,
you know, get to do this sort of what you
think of as the networking with the sort of distribute
(37:00):
who are there looking for the next big hit. They're
doing a lot of their work digitally. Now they're screening
digitally and they're not necessarily attending every festival.
Speaker 2 (37:09):
I see that makes sense. Okay, Yeah, times are changing
for sure.
Speaker 4 (37:15):
Yeah, it's an interesting thing to navigate. Just I think
festivals have their place, but I don't know if you're
always going to get you a contribution.
Speaker 3 (37:21):
I will just give like a quick shout out to Glenn,
because you know, when we were trying to figure out
how to how to sell our film and like how
to get our film in front of distributors, you know,
we were hearing a lot of different advice. We were
hearing like, you don't need a sales rep. Like we
were hearing you know, you just do it yourself, or
(37:41):
some people were saying you definitely need it, that sort
of thing, and so we we Glenn got recommended to us,
and we decided to look him up, and thankfully he's
just like one of the good ones, and like there's
a lot of He's talked on a lot of like
podcasts and stuff, and he's kind of like an expert
(38:02):
in his field where he can speak really well to
just where the industry is at and you know how
things work. And when we first started talking to him,
he sent us like a page of like forty people
to contact to get referral, like to get like references from,
(38:26):
and some we knew, and we knew some of them,
which was great, so you know, but he he's just
like a he's a good he's a good one because
he he only works with films that he feels that
he will be able to sell. And I've heard stories
of you know, people getting kind of scammed, you know,
(38:46):
because there's someone's like, yeah, I can sell your film,
but then really like they're not able to and they
end up just like wasting money. But with Glenn, he
was like, I'm only gonna come on if I believe
I'm can all your film, and so that was just
really reassuring from the beginning.
Speaker 4 (39:05):
I think we could have self distributed or found a
distributor with cold emails, but it sure was a lot
easier and I think we ended up with a better
partner in Buffalo eight than we would have it without,
like having a pretty ser rep with us.
Speaker 2 (39:20):
That's awesome. Yeah, like a child. It takes a village
sometimes interesting people.
Speaker 4 (39:26):
You know. We essentially self funded and shot and directed
the whole thing ourselves. It was nice to have a
community and a team around us in the finishing stages
of the movie. That's great.
Speaker 2 (39:37):
Yeah, Well, as we wrap up, tell everyone where to
find information on the film and where we can screen
it on August fifteenth.
Speaker 4 (39:47):
Yeah, it's going to be live on to b for
you with ads. It's going to be on the Rokue
channel for you with ads. You can rent and purchase
it on Amazon, and it's going to be on fowsome
and Ganjing World as well. If you're a library user,
it's going to be on Hoopla. You can rent it
and more to come, I believe. But that's where you
can find it for now, and you can keep up
(40:08):
with us.
Speaker 3 (40:09):
You can. Yeah, you can go to our website. That's
probably the easiest way to find all the links that
you need. Don duskfilm dot com and there you'll see
links to our social media. We're on most social media
platforms at don Dusk Film and you can also sign
up for our newsletter as well, where we'll send out
(40:33):
news and information about local screenings or different partnerships that
we do. We have some plans in the works that
we're hoping to do in the next few months.
Speaker 2 (40:46):
Awesome, Well, it was great meeting you too. I really
appreciate you coming on the show and talking about this
great film. Everybody go check it out. Good luck with everything,
and hopefully it does very well and we get to
see more documentary.
Speaker 4 (41:00):
Shore you guys with you Check. Thanks Chuck, Thank you Check.
Speaker 5 (41:11):
Thanks for listening to Atlanta Film Chait. Subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify,
or wherever you find your podcasts. The show is produced
by Trankle Aggression Productions and Zombie Cat Productions. Your host
is Chuck Thomas. Editing is by josh umcgold Key. The
soundtrack is by Michael Breezy Keys Jones. I am your
(41:34):
humble announcer, Rob Scheimer. Remember you are your own biggest fans,
so go out make your projects and don't let anyone
stop you.
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