Talking Weird #172 Filming Monsters with Seth Breedlove

Seth Breedlove is the founder and creative director of Small Town Monsters, a full-scale documentary production company based in Massillon, Ohio with a team of creative and business staff. Since 2015, Breedlove has directed and produced more than a dozen acclaimed films and series—including The Mothman Legacy, On the Trail of Bigfoot: The Journey, American Werewolves, and Bloodlines: The Jersey Devil Curse—as well as YouTube series like Bigfoot Decoded. His work, widely available on Amazon, Tubi, and other platforms, blends journalism, folklore, and cinematic storytelling to explore cryptids, paranormal mysteries, and small-town legends.

Small Town Monsters official site:
https://www.smalltownmonsters.com/

Small Town Monsters on Youtube:
https://www.youtube.com/@SmallTownMonsters

Seth visits with Talking Weird to chat about his considerable experience in the paranormal/cryptid/ufological documentary world, as well as to give us some insight into three, soon to be released and highly anticipated Small Town Monsters productions:

Two documentary feature films:
DAWN OF THE DOGMAN
&
LOST CONTACT
And the series:
SMOKY MOUNTAIN SASQUATCH SEARCH

Get ready for an insight-packed and fascinating episode with one of the world's top Fortean documentarians!

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
The paranormal UFOs, mounts and mysteries that you're listening to
Talking Weird, and now from a Kevin deep in the
northwards your host, Doctor Dean Bertram.

Speaker 2 (00:42):
Greetings, or my fellow widows and widows, Welcome to Talking
Weird on the Untold Radio Network. I'm your host, Dean Bertram,
and I'm delighted that you've decided to spend the next
hour or so of your life with me, whether you're
watching on YouTube or Facebook or x or listening to
the show on just the audio only version which drops
on all podcast platforms on the Friday, the day after

(01:03):
we go live at nine pm on Thursdays. Welcome, Thank
you for for being here. I hope you're keeping warm
if you're in North America, particularly up in the North
where I am, and I know where my guest is
tonight as well. It's been brutally cold. I think we've
had some record lows actually for this time of the year.
It feels like Christmas and January got here early. I
mean a snow blanketed cabin at the moment, which is

(01:26):
probably a wonderful time to talk about the kind of
weird and unusual things that we'll be talking about tonight.
Before I jump over though, to the wonderful guest that
we have for you tonight, I did want to just
a little bit talk about my short film The Shaver Mystery,
which I know many of you are aware of because
I've been talking about it for so long. It's a

(01:46):
standalone version from a standalone section really from my upcoming
feature documentary The Man Who Invented Flying sources about Raymond Palmer,
Richard Shaver and the creation of modern UFO belief. But
The Shaver Mysteries had a wonderful festival run for the
last couple year. It's played at dozens of fests and cons.
We are getting relatively close, I imagine, to the end of
the run now in May of this coming year, we'd

(02:08):
have been going for two years. If you haven't got
to any of the many events it's played at, you
have a chance this month, all of December, it's playing
at Another Hole in the Head in San Francisco, And
they also have an online version via the eventive site,
so you can actually go to Another Hole in the Head.
And I think their website is ah ith Another Hole,

(02:31):
which is obviously short for Another Hole in the Head
dot com, so that's AHH dot com or just google
Another Hole in the Head and you can go and
watch The Shave of Mystery online for all of December.
I think you have to buy a ticket to a
shorts block, watch some other amazing films, and while you're there,
just check out all the incredible movies that are playing there.
Their next screening that I know of, I thought, although

(02:52):
I do think there's going to be another one or
two per perhaps before May. Announced is going to be
at Contact Modalities Expo May first to third, which is
in Wisconsin. And if you go and check out Contact
Modalities Expo and that website is Contactmodalitiesxpo dot com, you
can buy tickets already. I'll be screening the film there.
I'll also be talking about The Shaver of Mystery. There's

(03:12):
all kinds of amazing guests. Jimmy Church is going to
be there, Chris Bledsoe, just look at our own network actually,
Barnaby Jones and the Ontip Radio Network's going to be
there as well. It's just a shockloaded incredible events. It's
going to be an awful lot of fun. I hope to
see some of you in person there because that'll be
that might be the last screening of the Shaver Mystery
before the feature version the man who invented flying sources

(03:36):
comes out. Anyway, enough about all of that, let's get
into the guest. I'm so delighted to have him. I've
wanted to have him on the show for years now.
He's the founder and creative director of Small Town Monsters,
a full scale documentary production company based in Macillon. I
hope I pronounced that right. I'll check with him, Macillon,
Ohio with a team of creative and business staff. Since
twenty fifteen, he has directed and produced more than a

(03:59):
dozen claimed films and series, including The Mothman Legacy on
the Trailer, Bigfoot, American Werewolves, Bloodlines, The Jersey Devil Curse,
as well as YouTube series like Bigfoot Decode. His work,
widely available on Amazon to be in other platforms, blends journalism, folklore,
and cinematic storytelling to explore cryptids, paranormal mysteries, and small

(04:20):
town legends. And I've been lucky enough to have a
number of films at Midwest Windfest Film festivaled running o'claire, Wisconsin,
first weekend of March over the years, and the audience
always absolutely adore them. So I can't say how delighted
I am to have joining me tonight, Seth breedlove greeting, Seth.

Speaker 3 (04:41):
Hey, is that is that the hole in the head?
Is that the Balboa in San Francisco?

Speaker 4 (04:50):
Yeah? I think so. Do you probably played there at
some stage over there?

Speaker 3 (04:53):
Yeah? I love I love the Balboa. I've actually I've
been to the Balboa, and then I think there's a
second location that's owned by this people. I don't know
if it's called the Balboa, but I did two festivals there.
We did and actually was flown out there for them.
Some of my favorite experiences nice with like STM travel
we're at the Balboa. But one of my all time

(05:14):
favorite experiences was the Balboa back in twenty god what
was it. It must have been like twenty seventeen, twenty sixteen.
I was there with Bob and Kathy Strain. Kathy is
the tribal relations manager for the Stanislaus National Forest. She
wrote the She's done a lot of the hairy Man

(05:36):
pictograph research and bigfoot research. She was a part she
was with me in Area X out in Oklahoma and
she's a bigfoot researcher. But we were there together. Bobo
was also there. But my favorite memory from that trip
I met a ton of people, like really influential people
in my life, including kai Wata Roath, who actually like

(06:00):
works at the theater and he lives in San Francisco.
Is one of the coolest, weirdest people you'll ever meet.
But when I was there, my favorite experience is I
went into the theater the morning of the event and
I was the only I got there super early. They
weren't even unlocked, and this guy making popcorn had to
let me in the front door. And I walked in
playing Slanted and Enchanted, the album by Pavement, and I

(06:25):
walked in and I was like, no way, was like
I never and he was playing the song called here
that is like that. I don't know if you know
this album, it's this was like college rock in the
very like early to mid nineties, and but not like grunge.
I don't know what you would call them. The lead singer,

(06:46):
Stephen Malcolmus, does his own solo stuff too, that's really great.
But anyway, they were playing the song here and Here
was like as a kid. It was as a kid,
I was like eighteen nineteen. But when I discovered that
song that was my anthem for like three years, but
no one ever knew it. And he sings like an
out of tune and it's like a weird song. But
I never never expected to hear that song, probably twenty

(07:08):
years after I had last heard it, and it started
playing and I almost broke down at tears. I ended
up talking to the guy behind the counter for like
two hours about music and yeah, I don't know that
just right. I love the Balboa and I love I
love the Balboa, and I love San Francisco.

Speaker 2 (07:24):
That, yeah, I might. I might have missed that out.
I was in college then as well. But often a
lot of that stuff, stuff that was big in America
was sometimes big in Australia, and sometimes it just.

Speaker 4 (07:33):
Passed us by. Yeah, I could see that people in
my generation go, oh, you must have known this song.

Speaker 3 (07:38):
No, you know, Well, that was what was cool about
it was I just wouldn't have expected. Pavement was big
on the college scene, but like it was at a
really specific time and that time had passed by, like
by like thirty years when this guy was playing the song.
And it's not a poppy, it's like a it's not

(07:59):
a B side song. It's on Salannad and Enchanna, which
is probably their best known album, but it was like
a back It's like it might be the last song
on the album, and it's just a really slow, depressing,
sad song, which is like my favorite stuff.

Speaker 2 (08:12):
Were you back in your college days, we were already
interested in the type of subject matter of the films
that you you wanted to make for the last decade.

Speaker 3 (08:21):
First of all, like I only went to college for
one day, So my college career, my academic career was
not was not very impressive. And no, I didn't I
didn't really have an interest in this stuff until two thousand,
I want to say, like two thousand and six, two
thousand and seven, and I graduated high school in ninety nine.

(08:42):
So now and I didn't know anything, you know, my
introduction to it actually, now that I say that, I
have a very specific timeline of so my introduction to
the paranormal is like a thing that existed outside of
science fiction. Was my my older sister Sarah, came home

(09:04):
one day with a copy of John Keel's Mothman Prophecies
and it was the novelization of the movie cover. So
it was it was the Richard gear movie poster as
the cover, but it was the John Keel book and
I was like, oh, should I read this? Because you know,
in my house we were raised by a mom who
owned a bookstore, so we read a lot as kids,

(09:26):
and I said, should I read this? And my sister
was like, no, you know, I don't think you get it.
And it's really scary and demonic, like everyone everyone in
it is seeing demons. And you know, because like I
came from a really staunch Baptist background and so anything
involving like UFOs or Mothman or any of that stuff

(09:48):
had to be demonic. So we stayed away from it
when I was a kid. But we also like didn't
even really I just don't think we even really had
an awareness of it. It's funny because I say that.
But then the guy that really got me fully in
it ran the sound booth at the church I went
to at the time. So so the guy and I
who ran the sound booth, he he had recorded a

(10:09):
DVD with like a bunch of like there was a
documentary about Ogo, Pogo or Champ it was one the
other and it was on there, and then he had
he had put some so there was a big foot
thing that had Peter burn in it, and then there
was a like two or three ufo things. He was like, here,
I know you're a weirdo. So I figure. He goes here,

(10:30):
I know you're a weirdo like me, So I figure
you'll like this, and here to me the DVD, and uh.
I was going through a divorce at the time, so
I was like, oh, I might like this, and so
I I watched it and I did like it, and
then it became like my entire life from there.

Speaker 4 (10:45):
Yeah, I love I love Also that Mothmann prophecies.

Speaker 2 (10:48):
Obviously all the discovery of it had some impact that
that book had an equally significant, I think impact on May.
Were you making film before you started documentaries in this space?

Speaker 3 (11:01):
Yeah for sure, Well we were. So my director of photography,
Zach he and I became friends because I was sitting
outside of a border's books. He was seventeen at the
time and I would have been eighteen or nineteen, and
I was he was smoking a cigarette and I was
holding a New York Film Academy brochure and he was like,

(11:23):
are you going to film school? And I was like, yeah,
I'm gonna be a I'm going to be a filmmaker.
I was like, oh, that's cool. And then we went
home and he looked me up on aim Al instant
Messenger and we talked that night about filmmaking for like
three four hours. And then the first time we hung out,
we made a short film. I don't know what it was.

(11:44):
All I remember is we were chasing him down a
cobblestone street in the ghettos of Canton. My brother was
on top of my We were driving a van, a
huge passenger van that was my car, and my brother
was latched onto the top with one hand and with
the other hand he was filming with Zach's camera, and

(12:07):
we were chasing Zach down a cobblestone street. And when
we made that into some sort of movie. But yeah,
we would make short films, but they were mostly like
we were big Christopher guest fans, so like Waiting for
Goffman and invest In Show and like mockumentary. It was
kind of like our deal and which is scary. I

(12:28):
don't take that out of context. I was gonna come
them up to something shady here. But we loved like
that was probably your favorite genre and it was like
an accessible genre, right, because you could make You could
make that with no budget. You just had to come
up with some interesting characters and a funny story, and
then he could make something. Especially back then, because this
would have been ninety nine through like two thousand and three,

(12:51):
you didn't even really have you know, there was no
place to put this stuff online, so you just made
it and then maybe you showed it to some friends
and that's about it, which honestly is great because we'd
have been canceled out of existence by now. If someone
shot saw that stuff that we made.

Speaker 2 (13:09):
It's funny. It's the weirdest thing. In that same period,
it must have been around ninety nine, I shot a
short film with my girlfriend at the time and her brother,
which was a cryptozoological mockumentary based on a non existent
creature in Australia called the Warra magota, which was like
this feathered serpent I guess like a quitzcaddle called I

(13:30):
think it was called the Great Warra Magutu. And we
shot this thirty minute like mock doc and of course,
exactly right, we didn't have anywhere to post it.

Speaker 4 (13:38):
The only people who've ever seen that film did you
film it with our friends have family.

Speaker 2 (13:42):
I shot it with a Cannon XL one S, which
I had then, because I wanted to make a feature
on that movie, so I did this deal with Cannon.
I'm sure you couldn't do it now, but I knew
somebody who worked for Canon. I met her at a
party and she We tried to get it for free,
the camera, but they said, well, we'll give it to
you for half of retail. So we snatched up the
deal because half of retail of the X L one

(14:02):
S then, which was you know the movie that Danny
Boyle shot, you know, twenty days later on, it was
this hot Now, of course it's so outdated now, but
at the time we were so excited to get our
hands on it. So I think four of us chipped
in to buy this camera, and then we started making
these crappy short films. And some later films played at festivals,
but warram Magutu played nowhere, you know, because you make televisions.

Speaker 3 (14:24):
Did you make that up? The worm Magutu?

Speaker 1 (14:27):
Yeah?

Speaker 2 (14:27):
In fact, I think the title I think was my
girlfriend's brother Andrew Mitchell, who came up with the title
The Great War and Magutu. And then and then we both.
He kind of did one draft and then I was like, well,
I want it structured slightly differently, and I kiddled with it.
And then it was ridiculous because to make a thirty
minute short, unless it's like the Citizen Kane of shorts,
is never going.

Speaker 4 (14:47):
To screen anywhere. Like a thirty minute short's really hard
to program. Now I run festivals.

Speaker 2 (14:51):
I didn't know this at the time, so we never
played anywhere because you edited it.

Speaker 4 (14:56):
Uh then I edited.

Speaker 2 (14:57):
I had a PC and I had I had it
was it wasn't what was the It wasn't a dough
it was another It was a free software that came
with a PC magazine and what was the name of it?

Speaker 4 (15:12):
You know how there were these free based.

Speaker 3 (15:13):
Uh yeah, that's how we edited our stuff.

Speaker 2 (15:16):
It was you Lead. It was you Lead, a free
version of You Lead. I don't even think you Lead
exists anymore, but that's what I edited and we had
to have. Then you shot on like mini DV and
like us this hard WHI think.

Speaker 3 (15:28):
You plugged the camera into the into the Yeah. Mine,
I edited with one of those. My mom was was
a very early stage Apple adapter adopter and she I
mean I'm talking like she was one of the first
people in the world to buy an Apple computer, and
she a Macintosh and she edited her computer, her catalogs

(15:48):
for her bookstore on this thing. And so she had
given me one of those colored transparent do you remember
the Apple the Macintosh computers that were like they were transparent,
weird looking like space age looking neon green. I remember editing,

(16:11):
plugging in my Sony camcorder into the computer, into the
into the computer itself and editing with I don't know
if it was called iMovie or what, but it was
whatever the proprietary Apple editing thing was. And you would
you would move a you would like condense a shot

(16:31):
and you would sit there for like three four minutes
while it condensed condensed the shot. And that was like
our and we had no idea. I mean, hours and
hours were spent on this and no one ever saw it.
Like we didn't know what to do with it, and
it was, uh, but we we made like we made
two longer form mockumentaries. One there were there was like

(16:55):
a sequel that we made to the first one we made,
and so we made two of them back to back.
And then we also did like some of their little thing.
All the people I was friends with at that time,
we were all like film geeks. I was just talking
about this with Micah Hank's brother Caleb. We were in
North Carolina filming a bigfoot thing and he's like me,

(17:17):
like he's written and drawing his own comic books. I
haven't done that. I'm just saying like, I'm a nerd
like him, and sorry kicked my desk, but he was.
He was telling me like him and Micah used to
make their own movies. And I was like, I think
anyone our age, like in our Age Bracket did that,
because that was at that point in time. It was

(17:41):
the birth of independent being able to do whatever you
wanted at least find some sort of audience somewhere. All
that came out of I always think two things, Well,
there's probably three. Richard link Later directed Slacker. I think
that's a big one. I think Kevin Smith's Clerics, obviously

(18:05):
is like the one where we all saw this dude
make a movie that any of us we thought could
make on you know, he shot it. What did you shoot?
That was that film? I don't even remember if that was.
It's not film, I don't know.

Speaker 4 (18:17):
Maybe it was sixteen mil or something.

Speaker 3 (18:19):
Yeah. I think the other big one was sexist and videotape,
because that's one where you're like, oh, I can actually
do this in that format.

Speaker 2 (18:26):
And of course Robert Rodriguez did his El Mariachi, but
he wrote the book Rebel Without a Crew, which was
kind of I mean, I'm sure you and probably everybody
in our kind of generation of filmmaking read that book,
and it's disingenuous in a way because it makes it
seem like, you know, you can go out and you
can just make this film and you're gonna have this

(18:48):
massive release. But of course he already had certain you know,
he had some connections and had some things lined up.
But it is that was the most empowering book I'd
probably almost ever read. Like I read that book and
I was like, I can go and do these Listening.

Speaker 3 (19:00):
Is listen to him? Have you listened to him talk
lately about making movies?

Speaker 4 (19:05):
Not lately, I back back in the day I did.

Speaker 3 (19:06):
I just still has he still has the same impact
on me, Like just listening he was on Rogan and
I listened to it and immediately called Eli, who's one
of our filmmakers at SDM.

Speaker 4 (19:21):
We've had about two or three times. No, great.

Speaker 2 (19:24):
I love his Canyon movie. By the way, one of
my favorite movies is Spectacular.

Speaker 3 (19:28):
It's really special.

Speaker 1 (19:30):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (19:30):
Yeah, he's got a really soft touch he's with with
people that I envy, uh and is just like innate
storytelling he's got. I always say, like everyone at SDM,
everyone I've ever made movies with, they all have some
ability that I was like, man, I wish I had that,
Like Alex can just go out and do whatever, get
his own stuff, and he has no fear and he's

(19:54):
he's like the opposite of me in a lot of ways.
And then Eli is Eli thinks very I don't know how,
He's got like a very dynamic approach to this stuff.
But yeah, that Rodriguez was on Rogan and they had
this whole discussion about making movies and it got me
thinking about like AI and how AI is impacting film.

(20:16):
And then I told Eli. I was like, you know,
I'm working on this. I called him after I listened
to this show and I was like, I'm working on
this Kinderhook movie. And it strikes me that like we
are we are, we have the opportunity to be clash
of the Titans Ray Harryhausen, Like everyone is going toward

(20:37):
like the AI stuff visually, and I get it, like
when it comes to independent film especially, like that's a
thing that people love to attack independent filmmakers as if
they're James Cameron who can easily slap you know. I'm
not using AI in my movie when he's got a
billion dollar budget, but it opens a lot of doors
for independence. But my thinking at that time when we

(21:00):
were talking about it, I was like, I want to
be like Clash of the Titans, Harryhausen. I want to
do the best work with what is available to us
right now that isn't AI give it this like really
unique voice. And that was all inspired by listening to
that podcast with Well with Rodriguez. I told you, dude,
sometimes if I am on the right mood, I'll talk

(21:23):
your ear off, so you might have to like end
up stepping in and just shutting me up and moving
me on to other topics.

Speaker 4 (21:28):
So I want to I mean it.

Speaker 2 (21:30):
Obviously it's a channel which is primarily talks about cryptids
and the paranormal and things, but my key interest is filmed.
So I have you on, so we're going to talk.
We've got to talk about the process and did you
ever watch John Pearson's Split Screen? Can you remember Split
Screen as well? It was a TV show that was
it was all about independent filmmaker. I think Pearson was

(21:51):
maybe the agent who'd hooked up people like Spike Lee
and people like that with distribution deals. And it's how
amazing cable was back in the day. Hey, this guy
had a cable television show just about independent.

Speaker 3 (22:02):
Film when we like what time period I.

Speaker 2 (22:05):
Would have been watching it in the late nineties, early
two thousands.

Speaker 4 (22:09):
I don't.

Speaker 3 (22:10):
I'm surprised they didn't because I used to watch, like,
who was the dude that was kind of creepy?

Speaker 4 (22:15):
He was?

Speaker 3 (22:17):
He was in New York. He had like pt Anderson
and all those guys on and he was he would
know him. I can't think of his name. He was
always he ended up getting canceled out of existence for something.
But I cannot remember this dude's name. But I used
to love anything. That was the Other thing that Caleb
Hanks and I were talking about was just like DVD

(22:39):
commentaries and their impact on most of us that are
like of our age range, who who want to make
movies or are making movies For a lot of us,
that was our film school. Yeah, Like my brother and
I would watch, you know, for fun. We'd put on
like Evil Dead too, and just just watch the the
commentary track or I don't know, dude, the Rock Michael

(23:02):
Bays The Rock has like one of the greatest commentary
tracks of all time. And that stuff is like really
like helpful when it comes to storytelling and film and
how to how to tell a story visually and all
that stuff. And it's sad a lot of that stuff's
gone away, but it's been replaced with YouTube, and I
think YouTube's been huge.

Speaker 4 (23:22):
For a lot of people.

Speaker 3 (23:23):
I you know, like I grew, I learned how to
make movie. I relearned how to make movies through like
film Riot and again, like Levi Allen has a channel
called well, it used to be called Left Coast Media,
but he does like adventure film stuff. And that's That's.

(23:43):
Everything I've done is self taught, which is probably pretty obvious.
But I always go back to those early days of
like for fun, watching for fun, watching the commentary track
on the Big Chill or whatever, like what ever, whatever
I was watching.

Speaker 2 (24:02):
Yeah, we've lost that with streaming. When DVD came became
a thing that was one of the wonderful attractions for me.
If I could pick up a DVD off the shelf
and look at it and had directors commentary, it would
make me want to buy it twice as much, sure
three times as much as if it didn't have director commentary.
So let's talk a little bit about like you said,

(24:23):
yourself taught, and you shouldn't self deprecate yourself because you
have an incredible body of work you made. Your output
is prolific. I was fortunate enough in the very first
year I launched my festival in America, Midwest Weirdfest, which
is going into its tenth year now, that you submitted
col The Boggy Creek Monster, and I obviously immediately loved it,

(24:44):
And I mean I knew I was going to play
it straight away. But that's before I wasn't in the
cryptid space again yet. I'd done my PhD on UFO's
number of years before then, I kind of stepped away
from anything paranormal. I'd run film festivals in Australia in
the genre space, I'd been a journalist, I'd done various
other things, but that was my kind of first introduction

(25:04):
to you. But as far as I'm aware, small Town
Monsters hadn't become a thing yet like it is now.
When were you aware when you started making films? I
think originally in the big foot space, because I think
your first at least three films were kind of bigfoot movies.
When were you conscious of this is going to be
this is going to be a career, This is going
to be a thing now and I'm going to be
making you know, my production company is going to be

(25:25):
making dozens of hours of content every year or more?

Speaker 4 (25:29):
Like when did that kind.

Speaker 2 (25:31):
Of click that I'm guessing because I'm assuming you were
doing that kind of part time at first. Maybe you
could talk a little bit about that, because I mean,
I don't know, and I'd love to hear.

Speaker 3 (25:39):
Well, yeah, I mean Minerva we started filming Minerva. Monster
was our first movie. We started filming it in the
summer of twenty fourteen. In the fall of twenty fourteen,
I filed the LLC for Small Town Monsters, So I
kind of had it in my head that this is
what I was going to go for, but it didn't

(26:03):
really it wasn't And then you know, like I actually
did Spring of twenty fifteen, I went down to part
time at my job and started focusing on STM. I
was focusing on STM as a full time job prior
to that. It's just that I was basically working two

(26:23):
full time jobs. I was working a desk job at
a medical billing company, and I was you know, I'd
edit and send emails and all that kind of stuff
in the evenings or sometimes while I was at my
day job, and I built the thing while still having
a full time job. And then in the spring of

(26:43):
twenty fifteen I went down to part time. I was
able to do that and start really heavily focusing on
what do I want this to be and what is
it going to look like? And you know the first
that's right around the same time where we went and
shot Beast of Whitehall. I wouldn't say there's a point

(27:05):
where I knew it was working. There's never been a
point where I'm like, this is this worked because it's
it's a small it's a family business. Like there's no
other way to look at it. My wife works here,
and you know, my my washroom with my washroom dryers
just full of DVDs that you know, she packs every

(27:27):
day and stuff like my stm is a huge part
of my everyday life too. It was probably not until
twenty seventeen after my my ex wife Adrian and I
had had Tommy, and three weeks after we had Tommy,

(27:48):
the mossmane A. Point Pleasant came out and just exploded
in a way that was life changing, just like right
out of the gate. People don't people. I mean, obviously
people don't recognize because who's going to be paying attention
to this? But it is insane to me now to
look back at what happened with Mothman of Point Pleasant

(28:10):
and how big it was like on Amazon at that
point in time, it was like the fourth or fifth
best selling movie on the platform, ahead of like Logan,
which had been out for a little while by that point.
But it was like the movies ahead of us were
like Rogue one and I forget what else, And then

(28:32):
I want to say it was Logan that was behind us,
But this is twenty seventeen, that Logan year. I don't remember.
It's all right around the same time, and we've never
experienced anything like it since. We've had movies come out
that have done better, like our most successful, most viewed
movie is on the trail of big for the discovery.

(28:53):
But in terms of like a movie that came out
and actually seemed like it broke through, you know, broke
past the sort of like genre barrier or niche cryptid
barrier or whatever. It's Moth made a point pleasant like
everyone was talking about that movie. And then that's right
around the same time where wing Guard, Adam wing Guard

(29:15):
messaged me because he had seen he but he had
come to He came to us through Invasion on Chestnut Ridge.

Speaker 4 (29:21):
That's one of my favorite small ten monster movies. But
thank you.

Speaker 3 (29:25):
Yeah, yeah, it was. So it was around that twenty
seventeen time period where I was like, okay, now we
really got to like what are we gonna do next?
How are we going to up the ante? And then
it became well, next year, we'll do three movies, and
then it became let's do four, and then it became
let's do four movies plus us the YouTube series, and
now it's four movies. Well this year, this twenty twenty

(29:47):
six year is very different. We're doing two three what
is it, two standard sort of feature films and then
two I don't know what you call him, like premiere
premium whatever, higher budgeted than what we're doing on YouTube
right now, like direct to YouTube stuff, it's a higher

(30:08):
budget than that. But on the trail of UFO Season
two and Sasquatch Factor, So it's it's been a progression,
but a lot of it is driven by Survival too,
because you know, like we switched, we pivoted to YouTube
because we were hitting the ceiling on what we could
accomplish in twenty twenty with independent films at the level

(30:32):
we were working at. You know, we don't have like
a million dollar marketing budget or anything like that, and
you're only going to get so far when you can't
when you can't make this huge spend on that kind
of thing. And so in twenty twenty we had I
started talking to Alex about doing like a survival YouTube show.
I was like, what if we did like what the

(30:53):
Outdoor Boys do, but we but we we do it
with Bigfoot and Alex was like, oh, I'd love that.
I was like, all right, let's do it, and so
I hired Alex. Alex was like the first STM employee.

Speaker 2 (31:06):
Listen, he's one of my favorite people in the entire space.
I've had him on the show a number of times
he's so he's so yeah, he's and I love his
content too.

Speaker 4 (31:14):
I'm so glad that he's part of Small tamots M.

Speaker 3 (31:17):
Yeah. I mean, it's a it is a thing where like, uh,
you know, some people come into the two to STM
and it it it's obvious, like it doesn't quite mesh
with like what are what our vision is for what
we should be creating. And then there's people that come

(31:38):
in and just immediately get it. Like I've had conversations
with people who wanted to make stuff with us and
it was like, it's obvious this is not gonna fly
with us because I I try to run the company
like it's a collab more than it's like a business.
You know, I don't know how to explain that, but
you want it to be like espcially for the people

(32:00):
who have to go make and shoot and edit this stuff.
You want it to feel free so they can kind
of do their own thing. But at the same time,
you don't want their own thing to deviate so far
from what we've established as being our thing. And in
other words, what I'm really afraid of we talked about.
We just had an STM retreat and I talked about

(32:22):
this a lot at the retreat, is like STM should
be organic, Like I don't like, we don't script. We
don't do this a lot, but you know, in a
lot of not a lot, but some of the shows
like on the trailer UFOs or on the trail of
Bigfoot or whatever, we'll do scenes where, like I'm talking
to other people, we don't script that scene, you know what,

(32:46):
Whereas television will like it'll be a scripted scene, and
it's pretty obvious as scripted.

Speaker 2 (32:51):
I want that if you're a filmmaker by background, more
than do you know what I mean, you have that
Probably I'm guessing I might be speaking out of turn,
but I'm guessing as a filmmaker, you you and a documentarian,
you want that organic feel, right right?

Speaker 3 (33:04):
Well that yeah, and a lot of that comes from
my background in the newspaper just because, like my approach
has always been to remain as objective as possible, and
I think with television you're always dealing with like this
is going to sell, so push this, So we're pushing
back against that. But yeah, I Anyway, Alex came in,
and Alex was one of the first out outside people

(33:26):
to work with STM. He made our on the trailer
Champ back in twenty I think that was twenty was
that twenty eighteen that came out.

Speaker 4 (33:33):
I remember I watched it as soon as it came out.
It was great.

Speaker 3 (33:35):
Yeah, yeah, And it was obvious with Alex that, like
we both had the same kind of approach to this
stuff when it comes to the filmmaking side of things.
Alex and I don't agree on everything, but when it
comes to like, you know, don't fake stuff and don't
push an agenda, I think is ultimately the goal of

(33:56):
everything we do. So with him and yeah, he was
a natural fit. And Eli was the same thing. Like
Eli had actually been messaging me for ages about wanting
to get involved in STM. But I mean at that
time it was like I can't I can't fathom hiring
people to work for me because this is so I

(34:17):
knew from being behind the scenes, how up and down
it is like year to year. Especially in those early
days of STM, it was really like are we going
to be here next year? It still is, like I
would say twenty actually twenty twenty one through twenty twenty
four was probably the darkest days of them. At the company.

(34:40):
There have been just because like we lost our main
distributor and they owed us hundreds of thousands of dollars,
and you did not realistically know if the company would
stay if we'd managed to stay in business, because we
also didn't have a you know, like a distribution pipeline
in place at that time. So, but my thing has

(35:02):
always been we were supposed to be a counter to
everything else, at least in the mainstream. I still believe
that independent people who with an independent attitude are gonna
are going to probably approach this subject in the right way,
you know, if it's driven by passion for the for

(35:23):
the subjects or whatever. For me, it's become less about
like a passion for Bigfoot or Mothman or whatever, and
it's more about a passion for like preserving these stories
as they actually happened, which has been That's been a
fun evolution too, because I got I started out saying
that a lot, and I meant it, but it was
just it became something I was just saying, and then

(35:45):
I kind of like I hit a wall where I
was like, I'm sick of saying this, and we're making
money doing this, So am I really being honest by
saying I really care about about historical preservation. But then
in then my mom died and I was like, oh,
like my mom's entire career as a bookstore owner was

(36:06):
built around historical preservation, Like this is very much a
part of who I am, so I do like that is.
We just had that retreat, and that was a huge
part of the retreat. We had a genealogist come in
and give a talk about researching your family, like your
family background, because I want that to be in the

(36:26):
forefront of anyone involved in SEM should respect their own
history first, like their family history, the history of wherever
they live, if it's Canada or the US or the UK, whatever,
and learn as much as we can about where we
come from because it influences you know, who we are
and who we're going to become and who our kids

(36:48):
are going to become. And so I've really doubled down
in the last year on that preserve preservation thing because
that ultimately is the one thing that I can point
at and say, this is what mainstream tea does not
give a crap about, Like they do not care about
the authenticity of this event. They want an entertaining product.

(37:11):
And I get it, But our number one goal needs
to be the preservation of that event as it happened.

Speaker 2 (37:19):
I suspect you must appeal your model, must appeal to
incredibly decent people, because so many this is the first
time I've had you on the show, and first time
I've talked outside of outside of messenger with you or
outside of emails with you. But there's so many people
in your who are a bigger part of the small
Town Monster's family, which is think some of the nicest,
most incredible people I've ever met in this space. Whether

(37:41):
it's Heather, or whether it's Alex, or whether it's Eli
Watson or Jason Ewleitz. That many people have appeared in
your shows. They're all really wonderful people. So there's obviously
something you're doing which is attracting the right kind of
people to want to make this content with you, to
make these kind of films with you, to be part
of that that mission or that intention of preserving history.

Speaker 4 (38:04):
They obviously get it.

Speaker 2 (38:04):
Because every single person I've ever had and again I've
had probably half a dozen or more people on who
have been part of SMaL Teme Monsters or have appeared
multiple times allow of Blackbirds another example. All these people
are some of the greatest people in the paranormal filmmaking
space that there are.

Speaker 4 (38:21):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (38:22):
Now, Lyle was one of the first. Yeah, Lyle, I
mean it's funny. The first three movies were such varying
degrees of weird crew changes because the first movie, I
got in a huge fight with the producers, and then
we didn't make anything else together, and I went and

(38:43):
reshot Beast of Whitehall. I had already shot Beast of
Whyhaw with these other two guys, and then we got
a huge disagreement over things and I had to go
reshoot the whole movie. I did that with my dad
and Brandon Dalo. So we shot this whole movie the
three of us, and then we turned around and made
Boggy Creek Monster with a crew of like twelve people,

(39:05):
which is like very different like we I actually it's
one of the bigger crews we've ever taken on anything.

Speaker 4 (39:11):
It's still one of my favorite films.

Speaker 2 (39:12):
I told Ali when he was on recently because I
love alis Kenyon movie.

Speaker 4 (39:16):
I haven't watched Alex's Kenyon movie yet. I need to,
but I.

Speaker 2 (39:20):
Love that so much, And I said, listen it might
be my favorite small town monsters film Uape Canyon by Eli.
But I was like, I'll be honest, though, I have
a really soft spot for you know, Boggy Creek Monster,
so that.

Speaker 3 (39:33):
It's funny because like Boggy is one I actually have
huge issues with. I love, I love the way certain
things look, but I also look back on it and I'm like,
I wish i'd just like Taken. And we took a
lot of time with that movie, especially compared to what
we take now, but like at that time, I was

(39:55):
still working a part time job, so that, you know,
like I feel like I could have done a better
cut of that or just done a different sort of approach,
because at the end of the day, it's not really
the story I.

Speaker 4 (40:08):
Wanted to tell.

Speaker 3 (40:08):
The story I wanted to tell was about Charles Pearce,
Charles B. Pearce and the making of the movie, and
we focused a little bit on that, but it wasn't much.
It was more about you know, the cases that inspired
the movie, and then like the present day stuff. But
I like a lot of stuff. When I go back
and rewatch that movie, I'm like, yeah, I mean, I'm

(40:29):
impressed by the fact that we pulled off what we
did with what we were working with because we just
didn't have a lot. But that Ape Canyon movie that
Eli made. The thing, the sequence in that movie that
I love is he brings all those people together in
the room toward the end of the movie. It's all

(40:49):
the relatives. And that's the kind of thing we're like
on the fly. I don't think I would think to
do that in that way. I would do something different
that wouldn't be as organic and feels as raw and
emotional as that scene does. That to me is a
really ELI moment, and Eli edits in a really cool

(41:10):
way that I don't. I like, I edit everything in
one timeline in Adobe, and I don't, you know, it's
all just I just put things one after the next
in the timeline, and I because I always go back
to I used. This goes back to what we were
talking about earlier. On the Magnolia DVD UH, Paul Thomas

(41:31):
Anderson talks about how writing a movie is like painting.
You you start at the beginning, and then you move forward,
and then you have to go back a little bit
and you touch up some things here and there, and
then you go forward and then you go back to
that thing, and then you touch up a little bit
more and then you know, like you keep moving forward.
Like that's how I edit a lot of the time.

(41:52):
I'll put like a story cut in place of the
movie that's like the three four hour long really raw
cut of the movie, and then I go back, can
I chop up? And then I start really polishing things,
And then eventually it gets to a point where I'm
just like stylizing the movie, like what's the style of
the movie. But Eli edits scene by scene, so he

(42:12):
creates like sequences for each scene. And I see like
the advantage to that because it's very like and you
can see that approach in his edits in a way
that you won't see in mind. You know, like he's
very musical, like I said, dynamic, but he has a
really musical approach to editing, where like music beats hit

(42:37):
at certain points. Something like I've learned a lot from
him in editing stuff that way. Because Eli lived in
my house for thirty plus days back in twenty what
was it, twenty twenty three, the same year my mom passed.
He actually he lived in my house for during the
the it was it was longer than thirty days. It's

(42:57):
like forty days. He he was editing dog Man Triangle,
and he was having a hard time with it because
he had never done a full feature movie, and I
had a lot of feedback for him, and he was
getting frustrated, and I was like, you know what, just
come to Ohio, live here, and you can stay at

(43:17):
my wife's apartment. She still had an apartment. You and
can go stay at her apartment and then come to
my house every day. We'll feed you, we'll work together.
So that's what we did for like for like forty days,
we worked on dog Man Triangle together. So I learned
a lot from him during that editing process, just like
seeing how he edits because it's not the same way

(43:37):
I do things, and it doesn't work for me in
the same way it works for him. Sometimes I'll try
to do it and it works okay, but his approach
to it is very different from mine. But it's still
good to learn from other people. I think that's ultimately,
like the biggest benefit of working at STM is if
you can actually spend time with each other. That's these

(44:00):
retreats and stuff are really big for like Alex and
I and things like that, because like this retreat we
just did. We had a friend of mine, Ward Heine,
who actually directed our Werewolves on Earth movie we put
out a couple of years ago. He's he's a filmmaker
in the in the paranormal space. He does a lot
of like supernatural stuff, but he does a lot of
work with like Tony Merkle, and Ward lives in Akron

(44:24):
wildly enough, so he lives twenty minutes from me. So
Ward and I became friends and then but Ward is
like an incredible cinematographer. He's worked with like the DP
on Stranger Things and stuff like that, Like he's got
some crazy knowledge. So we had him come to the

(44:46):
retreat and give like a workshop on cinematography because I
was like, we all need this, Like everyone that works here,
even the guys that are like established know what we're doing.
Like I need it. So if I need it, everyone
needs it. So yeah, Yeah, that's the kind of thing
that I think is like huge for people like us,
where you're constantly kind of like working on this stuff.

(45:07):
It can become muscle memory and you're not really being
creative with it, you're just function I don't even know.
It's it's literally like muscle memory. You just sit down
and you start on a thing, and it can be
you can get I don't know if it's laziness so
much as just routine.

Speaker 4 (45:28):
Yeah, I suppose.

Speaker 2 (45:29):
I supposed we start to follow operative patterns when we're
creating if we're not careful. One of the things I
love about the Small tab Monster films, particularly the direction
that they're going in now and I saw that lost Contact,
which you were kind enough to send an advanced copy
of me too.

Speaker 4 (45:46):
I also saw.

Speaker 2 (45:47):
In Smoking Out Squatch Third, and of course Ali's.

Speaker 4 (45:53):
What's what's the title of the Epe Canyon movie from.

Speaker 3 (45:55):
Elis Eli's Siege of a King.

Speaker 2 (45:59):
Is I think in the paranormal space, so many documentaries
focus on the phenomenon itself, and it's the phenomenon itself
is kind of ephemeral. I mean, the stories are wonderful,
but it's the people who have experienced these things and
the people's connection with these stories, which to me is
a filmmaker and just as an historian, it's just me

(46:21):
the most. I think Siege of Ape Canyon was fantastic
on the way that its focused on Mark Marcel, who's
the I suppose the primary investigator of the Ape Canyon mystery.
I've got Mark's little monograph on Ape Canyon O from.

Speaker 4 (46:36):
My bookshelf somewhere.

Speaker 2 (46:37):
He's always been a real gentleman whenever I've had any
online encounters with him. But to focus on for Eli's
decision to focus on Mark Marcel's journey on discovering these things,
I think made it to me more interesting. Much like
I don't want to spoil it because I know Lost
Contact isn't coming out yet, but there's so many parts
where you witness you interview the original witnesses of it,

(47:01):
who are fairly old now because Mantel Case, which is
about one of the most famous UFO cases in the
history of youuthology in nineteen forty eight, and lot of
the witnesses have obviously gone, but you still get into
some of some of the experiences with the original witnesses,
which is amazing. And perhaps this is the most relevant

(47:23):
because I'm talking to you now, and I love that
the Smoky Mountain Sasquatch search, or at least the first
episode which I've seen, is kind of wrapped in this
idea that you yourself have this connection.

Speaker 4 (47:35):
To the land.

Speaker 2 (47:36):
This is somehow going to be a personal story that
to me makes it a far more attractive tale, far
more attractive documentary.

Speaker 3 (47:44):
Yeah yeah, well, I mean that's the thing that draws
me into all this stuff to begin with. But I
mean more so than Lost Contact, which is very much
like I was drawn to that story.

Speaker 5 (47:56):
Because of the the guy, Thomas Mantel, but then learning
about the thing the other thing about less context and
that whole story that is tragic and sad.

Speaker 3 (48:09):
Is like the lasting effect of Thomas Mantel's death on
his family is like the we we had the opportunity
or the blessing or whatever you want to call it.
To interview Thomas's grandsons Eric, when is it Eric and Terry,

(48:32):
and they talked about their dad and who would have
been Thomas's son, and and he ended up becoming like
an alcoholic and most of his life was was ruined
to some degree, not ruined, but it's he struggled with
it the rest of his life, just never really knowing

(48:52):
his dad or not spending as much time with his dad.
And so the lasting implications of that event really while
the rest of the world that is aware of it
just kind of sees it as this fun UFO dogfight story.
That's what I was drawn to with that one. But
I mean, and like you said, ELI really did that
well with Siege of a Kenny. And the first thing

(49:14):
that happened with Siege that we even made it as
a movie is that Mark approached me, so Oret contacted me.
It was like, hey, I talked to Cliff about doing
something together and Cliff was like, just talk to Seth.
So so Mark had messaged me, and I was like,
I don't really want to do this unless I know
you're actively involved in like a key part of the thing.

(49:37):
So he was a big you know, like, we wouldn't
have made it without Mark coming to us in the
first place, because I knew he had some level of
ownership over that story. I don't know that he feels
he does. I'm sure he does, but he would not
admit it, and I don't think he would do anything
vindictive to anyone who went and covered it. But I
wouldn't have wanted to make that story without him involved.

(50:01):
But beyond that, the and and maybe even inspired by that,
like the movie that I've got coming out that I'm
really excited about. We've got movies coming out Donna the
dog Man comes out of one.

Speaker 4 (50:15):
By the way, just quickly. Dawn the dog Man is amazing.

Speaker 2 (50:17):
I watched it last night with my daughter and my
mother who's visiting from Australia for the holidays, and we
were riveted by it.

Speaker 3 (50:23):
Cool.

Speaker 4 (50:24):
It's a fantastic film.

Speaker 2 (50:25):
It's it's up there because I have so many small
town monster movies that I love, but it's really up there.

Speaker 4 (50:31):
I really enjoyed that movie.

Speaker 3 (50:33):
Like, yeah, with that one, we're trying to pay homage
to Linda.

Speaker 4 (50:40):
And I love that I knew Linda. She came. In fact,
they will premiere her.

Speaker 3 (50:43):
First the Mountain Lion movie.

Speaker 2 (50:47):
The Return to wild Cat Mountain and her start and
her father came to mid and her husband rather came
to Midwest.

Speaker 4 (50:52):
We fest one of the nicest people I've ever met
in my life.

Speaker 3 (50:55):
Do you do you still have contact info for like
her son?

Speaker 4 (50:57):
Because I would, Yeah, I'll find it send it to you.

Speaker 3 (51:01):
Yeah, because her and her her and I would had
talked a bunch of through email, and I watched that
movie when it first came out. She had sent it
to me for like feedback, and I gave her feedback.
I forget where I was going with that. But yeah,
the movie was supposed to be as much as I
can make it a homage to her, because I know
she was. She was a little disappointed. Like her her

(51:21):
encounter story wasn't in Bray Road Beast. That interview that's
in Dawn of the dog Man is from Bray Road Beast.
So I was able to reuse those sequences that were
cut out of that movie in a way that hopefully
feels like a homage, not like.

Speaker 2 (51:38):
I loved it too, and it was dedicated to which I
was really moved by, so I was so happy to
see that on the screen.

Speaker 3 (51:43):
Yeah, she was amazing. She was really sweet. And it's
funny too because her background was similar to mine, where
she was like a newspaper reporter. And when her and
I met, we really hit it off. And then I
I got to spend time with her again in like
twenty I want to say it was like twenty twenty

(52:05):
nineteen maybe at the Crypticcon in Kentucky, and she was
so sweet to me and we talked about stuff we
wanted to do together, and then it just never I
never got around to it, and then she passed before
we could do it. We had email correspondences prior to
her not too too far prior to her death too.

(52:26):
But the movie I'm I'm beyond Dawn of the dog
Man in our Bennington Triangle movie. There's a this Kinderhook
movie that's coming out, is like that is as far
toward like a character study as I've ever done. It's
a it's a wow, And it's funny because it's like
I was. You know, we published Bruce's book, which, by

(52:47):
the way, if you haven't talked to Bruce Hallenback, you
definitely should. He wrote the Kinderhook Creature book and that
STM published and then he you know, he's obviously a
key part of the movie. But it's funny. We had
chosen that movie in part because I felt I owed
it to Bruce when we were when we filmed Beast

(53:11):
of Whitehall, that was my first time ever hearing about
the Kinderhook creature. I'd never had no awareness of that
story and never heard of the Blob or any of that.
I only knew about the Kinderhook creature. And so we
we made Beast of white Hall, and then years pass
and we made on the Trail of bigf The Journey,
and when I made that, I was like, I want
to do something about Bruce in this movie. So I'm

(53:31):
going to contact him and we're going to go to
Kinderhook and we're going to do a sequence about the
Kinderhook creature because it kind of ties into, you know,
the natural lay of the land in that part of
the country. And so I contacted Bruce and he was
down to do it. So we went over there and
we filmed this entire like hour plus. We actually had
to shoot his interview twice because I something happened with

(53:53):
our mics, and so we shoot his interview twice, and
then I know, he kept saying to me he was
happy we were covering his story, but he really wanted
to be able to talk about the other stuff that
had happened beyond the Bigfoot sightings. And I was like, yeah, yeah,
probably not going to work in what we're doing. Uh,
But I was like, I would love to do this

(54:14):
at some other time.

Speaker 4 (54:15):
And so.

Speaker 3 (54:17):
I never forgot that. And when we started doing publishing,
I said, Bruce is the guy whose story needs to
be told, like he's been wanting to tell the story
for years, and so, you know, we published his Kinderhook Creature,
but we not only published it, but I talked him
into doing it. I was like, I contacted Bruce and
I was like, Bruce, would you I didn't have to

(54:38):
talk him into it, but I was like, Bruce, would
you want to do like some sort of memoir about
the things that happened on your property when you were
a kid? And he was like yeah, yeah, and so
like that was. That was the first big book we published.
Right now that I'm saying that, I think dog Man
Triangle came out after that.

Speaker 4 (54:57):
I think I think it was Baron's book.

Speaker 3 (54:59):
I need Yeah, yeah, you gotta get Aaron On. Yeah.
Veggie Man was the first book. It was like a
children's book written by Michael David Strayer and illustrated by
by Bally Raven. And then we did the Kinderhook book
and then you know, like the Kinderhook book didn't sell well,
which didn't sit right with me because I know how

(55:20):
these how much work goes into writing a book versus
what an author actually gets in return for that work,
and it's it's it's not good. It's not a good situation.
So you know, I read, I had read the book
and loved the book, but I told Heather. I was like,
I want to do it. I want to be able
to tell that story visually now because I'm ready to

(55:41):
to kind of go back to that story. And so
I contacted Bruce and said I wanted to make the movie,
and he was totally down for it. And then like
the week before filming, literally the week before filming and
even into the filming, we were filming everything. We stayed
in Vermont, right at the base of Glastonbury Mountain, which

(56:04):
is where the Bennington Triangle is, and then an hour
and a half down the road is Kinderhook. So we're
doing all this once. We're gonna film the Bennington movie,
We're gonna film this Kinderhook movie. We're going to film
an entire six episode series called Monsters of the north
Woods or Northwoods Bigfoot, I think is what we ended
up calling it, but should have been Monsters in the Northwoods.

(56:24):
But we right before the week before I started reading
rereading the book, and there's a lot of subtext in
there about Bruce's upbringing and kind of being an outcast
and stuff I hadn't really caught the first time through.
And it also could be that my mom passed. I

(56:46):
keep mentioning my mom's passing. But you know, obviously it
begin in fluential event.

Speaker 4 (56:50):
Yeah, of course it might have.

Speaker 3 (56:51):
Been the fact that my mom hadn't passed when I
read that book, so rereading in a second time, maybe
I was just better tuned to that. But I really
like locked on to the fact that he had this rerilliant,
sweet relationship with his grandma, and his grandma raised him,
and he had kind of been I don't want to

(57:13):
put any words in his mouth, so I'm not I
gotta be careful when I'm talking about this, but he
was raised by his grandma, despite the fact his mom
and dad lived right across the street essentially, And so
that was what I lashed onto, not any nothing about
blobs or ghosts or poultrygeists or UFOs or bigfoot. It

(57:34):
was that relationship that I was like, this is what
I want to learn about, Like what the heck? Like
what is that like as a kid? You know, to
have that kind of upbringing and then to have a
lot of this activity, the bizarre activity that does occur
around the house seemed to be associated with his grandma,
specifically to the to the extent extent that when she

(58:00):
passes like there's a really poignant story that ends the
movie about how like after she passed, he was sitting
outside his house really heartbroken one night, and he saw
this red light in her room and there was no
explanation for it, and the red light wasn't there when
he went upstairs. It was just this mysterious light that
came on in her room bathed the whole house in
this glow. And there's that's the stuff that like, that

(58:22):
movie is very much a study of Bruce hallenback as
as a person and what it's like to have someone
in your life who believes in you one hundred percent,
because it's really obvious that his grandma believed in him.
But it's also about, like that movie is about what
happens when paranormal events intrude into the real, everyday lives

(58:43):
of people, because that is the thing that gets kind
of overlooked in all of this is this stuff happens
to people who are just trying to live their lives,
like pay their bills and go to work and raise
their kids or whatever. That's who this stuff happened to.
And it isn't always uh, you know, like outside of

(59:04):
our niche community. It's the view is that anyone that
claims to have these encounters is some sort of fame
chasing weirdo, you know. But for the most part, the
people I talk to are just ordinary, everyday people and
that was what I really locked onto with this Kinderhook thing.

(59:25):
And I'm excited. I honestly should send you a.

Speaker 4 (59:29):
Screener because I was going to say that it's.

Speaker 3 (59:31):
Already gone out. Yeah, it's not going to be out
till next spring, is the thing. It won't be out you.

Speaker 2 (59:35):
Back to Yeah, screen or we can talk about that extensively.

Speaker 4 (59:39):
Do you know approximately when in the spring.

Speaker 3 (59:41):
Or I don't. We're going to self release it, so
it's kind of in our hands.

Speaker 2 (59:46):
I would see the premiere at Midwest wet When's when
is it first weekend in March?

Speaker 3 (59:51):
Yeah, that might actually work. See see the movie's done.
Bruce wants me to come to Kinderhook and do a
premiere in Kinderhook too, but we haven't shown anything at
Midwest Weird Fest in years. So well, I abandoned film
festivals in general, which was not any sort of thing

(01:00:12):
aimed at you. And I'm sure I already know like
you're approached it to. It's very different. But I had
such a negative experience with film festivals for a while.
I'm sure I'm just a baby when it comes to
that kind of stuff, but uh, I'm really excited for
that one. That's one where, like I I got wildly

(01:00:33):
attached to the story and Bruce and his grandma like
like you kind of like know, you kind of figure
out Sometimes you have a story you're trying to tell
where you figure out right away what you want to
do with it, like right at the gate, and when
when you do that, a lot of times those are
the best things I've made, you know, Like our Belwitch

(01:00:53):
movie is my favorite movie we've made. And and that
was one where I knew what I wanted to do
right out of the gate.

Speaker 2 (01:01:01):
I physically bought the DVD of that from Heather. By
the way, when we will both speaker is at a
Crossing Realms conference in Missouri.

Speaker 4 (01:01:10):
Oh cool, so's I've thought. Sorry, was that was that Alton? What?

Speaker 3 (01:01:18):
Alton Alton or No, Alton's Illinois.

Speaker 2 (01:01:21):
Yeah, No, it was it was where it was It
was just outside of Kansas City. I kind of it
was actually uh no, I can't remember.

Speaker 1 (01:01:27):
It was.

Speaker 4 (01:01:28):
It was Richmond, Missouri.

Speaker 2 (01:01:29):
Which always made me want to say Richmond, Virginia because
that's what you think about it.

Speaker 4 (01:01:33):
But it's a town outside of Kansas City.

Speaker 3 (01:01:35):
Okay, yeah, yeah, Bell is one of one of my favorites.
There was just such a like, yeah, there's something. I mean,
there's no two ways about it. There's times where my
brain is just locked in and I'm firing on all
cylinders and I wake up in the morning and I
have a new idea for a scene I want to do,

(01:01:56):
and then and then there's movies where I'm like, I
had to sit here and forced myself to edit scene
by scene. And it's not that I'm uninterested in the
story or I'm not attached to the people. It's just
that you're some stories are harder to break, you know.
At the same time, like some sometimes those movies end
up being terran Skies was like that, like I had

(01:02:18):
no idea.

Speaker 4 (01:02:19):
What I love that movie.

Speaker 3 (01:02:20):
By the way, my son kind yeah, that's my My
eight year old is a is a big fan of
Terran Sky. So there's there's others. I mean, a lot
of the a lot of the bigger like the On
the Trail of UFOs and stuff. I've had that issue
where I'm like, I'm I'm forcing myself to do this,
and I have ideas, but I don't know how to

(01:02:41):
execute it on it with this with Kinderhook, it was
like I'd have an idea and then I'd just be like,
I'm going to shoot this and make it work. However,
it felt like, you know, we were talking about all that
the early days of making movies. That's what that felt
like for me. There is something very like freeing about
kind of doing it completely alone. And and I was

(01:03:05):
doing a lot of once we got past like obviously
filming the documentary portions, it became more about what can
I accomplish on my computer downstairs or filming something in
my backyard with my acemn S three and like a
piece of green cardboard, you know, as a backdrop, what
can I do? And And then that really was like

(01:03:28):
the fun part of putting that movie together. It was
also super stressful though, like Courtney, my wife told me,
like you you're still like decompressing from putting that movie together.

Speaker 2 (01:03:41):
By the way I did, I mentioned so many small
town mosts of people before I forget to mention Shandon Legroux,
who when you talked about the UFO series, then in
one of the big Foot ones. She's an amazing human
being as well. It was great to and in the
dog Man when she's in a number.

Speaker 3 (01:03:54):
Of your Yeah, we're we're prepping to go. We actually
just had our first production meeting today on the trail
of UFO Season two and dog Man Legacy, because she's
involved in both of them, and we're filming both of
them at the same time in somehow in one week.
Eight episodes eight hour long episodes of on the Trail
of UFO season two, plus an entire movie we're gonna

(01:04:16):
somehow do in a week when she's here. So we
haven't actually filmed together since twenty twenty three. It's the
longest we've gone since probably twenty eighteen without doing something together.

Speaker 4 (01:04:30):
Well, well say hi to it for me. I haven't
talked to her for ages, So yeah, she's great.

Speaker 2 (01:04:36):
You know what I've had you on for an hour
plus now an incredible conversation.

Speaker 4 (01:04:40):
I'm serious.

Speaker 2 (01:04:40):
Let's get you back for the Kinderhook thing in the spring.
If you want to screen Midwest Winfest will premiere hit
me up after the after the show.

Speaker 4 (01:04:47):
But you were just an incredible guest.

Speaker 2 (01:04:50):
Seth I've wanted to talk to you for years on
the show, so that was so great to have you tonight.

Speaker 3 (01:04:54):
Yeah, thanks for having me. I'll do it whenever.

Speaker 2 (01:04:57):
Man, And what urils would you be direct people to? Obviously,
small town Monsters dot Com will be in the in
the show notes and the YouTube channel will be in
the show notes. But is there anything additional additionally you'd
like to point people out at the moment.

Speaker 4 (01:05:12):
Just.

Speaker 3 (01:05:14):
Small town Monsters dot com, Facebook, Instagram, all that stuff.
We've got a lot of quote unquote content coming out
on multiple platforms. Now Courtney, Andy Matski, and Aaron Deese
have been working really hard on getting stuff redistributed to

(01:05:36):
other platforms. So if you're a fan of our stuff,
it's finally after losing our previous distributor, we're finally getting
things rolling again. I know a lot of new stuff
is popping up on Future Today has a has a
streaming platform called Fossom, which is kind of like a
two B competitor. It's pretty cool. They have a bunch

(01:05:59):
of our stuff and they're gonna have a lot more
stream Beacon TV is about to get a bunch of
our stuff. That's Shane Pittman's paranormal streaming platform. And then
what is the other one? Oh, Alien Nation, which is
like a streaming channel. They've got a lot of our
we have a direct relationship with them, so a lot

(01:06:19):
of that stuff. But if if you're like I don't
have any of that, then check Amazon and to be
YouTube obviously, and uh, what's the other one. Roku has
a bunch of our stuff now, So we're starting to
trickle back out all over the place, So just look
stuff up if something isn't out yet and you're like
looking for it, like I think it's Invasion on Chestnut.

(01:06:42):
Ridge might not be available anywhere currently. You can still
get DVDs through small Time Monsters dot com. But some
of some of these older movies we're just now finally
getting back out, so it's.

Speaker 2 (01:06:56):
Not Ridge is such a great movie. People should go
and buy the DVT DVD from small Town Monsters dot
Com if they don't have it. It's one of my favorites.
It's so great, awesome. Well again, thank you, Seth. And
until I get to talk to you again, which hopefully
will be the not too distant future, and until I
get to talk to everybody else out there, which will
be same weird time, same weird network, The Untold Radio

(01:07:17):
Network next week at Thursday, nine pm.

Speaker 4 (01:07:20):
Please keep it weird.