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00:00:00Good morning, everybody.
00:00:03Clearly, we're going to have to do last call a little earlier during our awards bash.
00:00:08Everybody have a good night last night?
00:00:11Anyone going to go to the awards bash?
00:00:13All right, terrific.
00:00:14Good.
00:00:14Well, we're glad you're here.
00:00:15Thank you very much for coming back to Coffee Talks.
00:00:18There's not a ton of people out here this morning, but the ones that made it, we're
00:00:22very grateful to you all for being here.
00:00:24Thank you to the Arduous.
00:00:25Thank you to Jackson Jets.
00:00:26Thank you to all of our partners, Steele, across the room.
00:00:28Thank you to our patrons, our Founders Circle, SVFF friends and family.
00:00:33Thank you to Netflix for allowing us to screen Train Dreams.
00:00:38And thank you guys for coming to the screening last night.
00:00:40If you did, whether you watched it before on Netflix, good for you.
00:00:43But we really appreciate you guys coming to the venue and seeing it with us.
00:00:47We're very grateful to you.
00:00:48So thank you for being part of it and coming this morning.
00:00:51Yeah, yesterday was a really powerful screening of this film.
00:00:55I actually personally had a lot of notes from people telling me how much they enjoyed it.
00:00:58So we're thrilled to, oh, okay, can you hear me now?
00:01:02Sorry.
00:01:05Anyways, we had a lot of people reaching out to us.
00:01:07So we're thrilled to get the gentleman back here today.
00:01:10We have a full slate of films today.
00:01:12So start here and then keep going through 7 o'clock tonight.
00:01:16Specifically, please come back at 11.45.
00:01:18We've got a great film.
00:01:20Andi Timminer, who's actually an award honoree of ours and an amazing film called All the Walls Come Down.
00:01:26Please come check that out and lots of other stuff on the schedule as well.
00:01:30Without further ado, I'd like to welcome Antonia Blythe from Deadline, our partner on this, to talk about the award.
00:01:35Thank you, Candie.
00:01:39Hi, everyone.
00:01:40Thank you very much.
00:01:41Thank you for being here.
00:01:42Thank you so much.
00:01:43I'm so excited to be honoring two of my favorite filmmakers today with our Deadline Disruptors in Film Award.
00:01:51We give out this award for people who are moving the industry forward in a positive way.
00:01:56And I have to say that Train Dreams is just one of the ways that Clint Bentley and Greg Cuidar are changing the industry.
00:02:04So please join me in welcoming them to the stage, the recipients of the Deadline Disruptors in Film Award.
00:02:14Clint Bentley and Greg Cuidar.
00:02:19Congratulations, guys.
00:02:23You guys take it away.
00:02:26Have fun.
00:02:26Thank you for coming.
00:02:27Yeah, there you go.
00:02:28Thank you so much.
00:02:30And now we're going to have a nice chat about your career, guys.
00:02:34So welcome.
00:02:36Congratulations.
00:02:38Thanks for the award.
00:02:41And thank you all for being here this morning, hungover or not.
00:02:44How are you here?
00:02:45We appreciate you being here.
00:02:47I hope some of you were here last night because we had a screening of Train Dreams.
00:02:51And if you haven't seen it yet, you have to.
00:02:53So first of all, we talked about this a little bit last night, about your five critics' choice award nominations that you've got for Train Dreams already.
00:03:06And the fact that Spielberg has called you to tell you he loved the film.
00:03:10How are you guys feeling in this moment?
00:03:12It must be kind of nuts because it's all just going a bit crazy for this film.
00:03:19It is wild.
00:03:20I mean, we, I guess, like from early on, always with our films, wanted to try and like just make films that we liked at the base of it and that we wanted to share with people.
00:03:34And then whatever came from that, good or bad, was kind of a cherry on top or icing on the cake.
00:03:40You know, it's always lovely when people love your film.
00:03:44And I think we just feel very grateful for it, you know, as however far it goes.
00:03:48I think the thing that, you know, I'm contemplating a bit right now is how do you define success, you know, with the work and how do you find the meaning in it?
00:04:00Because if you attach it to awards, acclaim, or if Spielberg calls you, although if Spielberg calls you, you've made it.
00:04:12No, but, you know, because in any given day, you know, and we've been fortunate, we're sort of doing this whole awards campaign thing for a second year in a row.
00:04:21And it's like, on one day, you can win a prize, not even be nominated for another, get a terrible review, you know, all the same.
00:04:34So which one of those are you going to derive, like, where the success is?
00:04:38So it has to exist outside of it, has to sort of come from within.
00:04:42And for us, I think it begins with, like, the work itself and the process and what it means to you.
00:04:49So you've got to find that first so you don't get thrown around in the washing machine of how the rest of this goes.
00:04:56I mean, one of the things I think is a hallmark of the way you two work is that you start with an appreciation for your subject.
00:05:04You're not chasing success.
00:05:05You're not chasing a blockbuster film.
00:05:08If it evolves that way, then so be it.
00:05:11But your interest in the subject comes first, right?
00:05:14Yeah.
00:05:15We haven't cracked the blockbuster film thing yet.
00:05:17For better or for worse.
00:05:21But no, that's the thing, I think, like, with all of these films, they come from a place of just wanting to make, wanting to tell the story or go into a world or something like that.
00:05:32And it's kind of been a bit different on each film in terms of that first driver that has set us on that path.
00:05:42But then, yes, like, trying to – we're always, in each film, just trying to find a way to tell the story right and get it right and make a good movie that you want to share with people.
00:05:52And then there's so much that goes into, you know, whether a film's going to be seen by people or be successful or not that's so outside of your control that, again, yeah, it comes from that place of just wanting to share something.
00:06:09Yeah, it has to come from the love of your art rather than waiting for applause, 100%.
00:06:15I do want to talk about how you guys first met because I love this story.
00:06:22So there's a nice woman called Rachel who introduced you.
00:06:26She's very nice.
00:06:27Yeah.
00:06:28Could you tell that story maybe?
00:06:29Yeah, I think it's your turn.
00:06:31Well, you're married to her.
00:06:35But so I was in business school at Texas A&M.
00:06:40I was an accounting major until I dropped out in the middle of a test to become a filmmaker my senior year.
00:06:48But Rachel was someone that I was in school with who always had this amazing gift of bringing interesting people together.
00:06:56She always would host these dinner parties with people all across campus.
00:06:59No one really knew each other, but things would happen from those conversations.
00:07:03And she's from this small town in Texas called Goldthwaite.
00:07:09And Clint is from a multi-generation cattle ranching and horse racing family that was from Florida.
00:07:15And they had bought a ranch in this tiny town in Goldthwaite and moved there.
00:07:20And Clint had been on his journey after college, you know, going up the coast, trying to make it as a singer-songwriter in New York.
00:07:29He actually lived in a stairwell for a while.
00:07:31I did not know that.
00:07:33I need to hear more about that.
00:07:35And had come home for the holidays to Goldthwaite to see his parents and was wanting to get into film.
00:07:41He had a literature background.
00:07:44And Rachel met him at a holiday party and was like, you should meet my friend Greg.
00:07:49He's trying to do film too.
00:07:51And I had just moved to Austin after deciding not to go to film school and was trying to figure it out and was making short films.
00:07:58And I'd had an idea for a film.
00:08:00Because we both had a shared passion and interest in the U.S.-Mexico border for different vantage points.
00:08:07And I'd had an idea for a film.
00:08:09And in that sort of fateful first meetup, I was like, hey, I've got this idea.
00:08:14And he had, you know, just sort of made a student documentary traveling the entire length of the border and had the same passion.
00:08:21And we sort of fused right then.
00:08:23And we're like, let's try and make a movie.
00:08:26It just took six years to do it.
00:08:28And we had to figure out how to write a screenplay and all that stuff.
00:08:30And anyways, Glenn ended up marrying the girl and me too.
00:08:36Two for the price of one, man.
00:08:37I love that story.
00:08:40So that first film you made, Transfacos, which was 2016, right?
00:08:46I think that's right.
00:08:47Yeah.
00:08:48It was about the Border Patrol and that whole in-depth story.
00:08:52So, again, this film came from a place of deep interest, journalistic interest.
00:09:00Can you talk about that?
00:09:01Yeah, we had, as Greg said, we had this shared interest about the border.
00:09:05And this was, I think both of us started kind of working in various ways in exploring that as early as, like, 2008, maybe.
00:09:17And so, and it came from different directions.
00:09:22But it came from an interest in the people who were affected by that crisis and trying to use whatever nation gifts we had as storytellers to try and explore that.
00:09:33And for me, as Greg said, it was making a student documentary that was very bad, but, like, about that subject.
00:09:41And Greg had done a lot of work in a girl's orphanage in Nuevo Laredo of children who were kind of lost along the way, you know, in the migratory path.
00:09:53And had made a lot of short films trying to, like, express what he had experienced down there.
00:10:00And then, you know, as Greg had a short film script that he had written that he was trying – that's where it started was he was trying to make a short film because he had been on the border.
00:10:12There's this beautiful place called Santa Elena Canyon that's out in Big Bend in far west Texas out by Marfa and Presidio and all that.
00:10:22There's this old canyon that it looks like – it's a, like, canyon wall that looks like the wall from Game of Thrones.
00:10:31Like, it's crazy tall.
00:10:32And it just got – it has this little river kind of cutting through it that's just cut through it for hundreds of thousands of years.
00:10:37And Greg was there one time, like, on a trip with his wife and was just skipping rocks along the border.
00:10:43And these two Border Patrol agents showed up and just stood next to him for a minute.
00:10:47I don't even remember if they said anything.
00:10:48I was going to get arrested, but –
00:10:49Yeah.
00:10:50And then they just moved on.
00:10:51And he had this idea.
00:10:52There had been so many movies about the border, but none had really explored these people who – it's their nine-to-five job.
00:11:02It's this crazy humanitarian crisis, and yet for them, it's their nine-to-five job where they go to work, they clock in, they go home.
00:11:08And just there seemed to be so much, like, interesting potential to try and explore it through that.
00:11:15Also, the fact that over 75% of Border Patrol agents are Hispanic.
00:11:20And so exploring that aspect of it, it just seemed so thematically rich.
00:11:25And at first, it was just like we were just talking around this short film idea that he had.
00:11:30And then, as Greg is wont to do, even still, Dream's very big.
00:11:37And it was like, well, let's just make it into a feature and ask me to write it with him.
00:11:41And so that's what started that whole process.
00:11:42And then, yes, it was six years from that point of trying to figure out how do we write a script?
00:11:47How do we raise money?
00:11:48How do we do all these things to try and cobble a bit of money together to make an independent film?
00:11:53But it just came from that, of, like, seeing something that we both had a passion for and then him having kind of this, like, idea for another way to come around it that maybe hadn't been seen before.
00:12:03The community work sort of, we didn't have a really codified process.
00:12:10It was just, like, very instinctual.
00:12:12But all the things we were interested in about Border Patrol were not the things that were in the news.
00:12:18There weren't really many books.
00:12:19It was a very secretive insular agency.
00:12:21And we tried to get official access.
00:12:23They said no.
00:12:25And so we just would drive out into the desert and find a Border Patrol agent leaning on his truck, like, bored out of his mind, nursing a gallon jug of water.
00:12:33And we'd pretend we were lost Canadian tourists with an upside-down map.
00:12:37And just start chatting him up and eventually be like, yeah, actually, we're making a movie.
00:12:41And, you know, and they felt our genuine curiosity that we didn't have the idea or the story of what we were trying to define them as.
00:12:49We were asking them who they are.
00:12:51And then they'd be like, well, if you really want to know some more, like, some of my buddies are getting beers tonight in this one-stop light town.
00:12:59And we'd show up at the bar, and they'd drink us under the table.
00:13:02And then, you know, a week later, they'd be like, you know, well, why don't you come over to dinner with my family?
00:13:10And then you'd come around the dinner table.
00:13:12And then, you know, so slowly as trust was built and as we were just listening first, the thing started to surface up that was the deeper, potent idea of what the movie could be.
00:13:26There was also something, just a brief thing that that reminded me of.
00:13:30There was something that in that time that I think came to shape our process that we use even now that we were both documentary filmmakers in our past and had done a lot of that.
00:13:43We had talked a lot about, like, the fact that sometimes you're making a documentary and you're making, you know, you're setting up for an interview with somebody who's, like, agreed to be in the documentary.
00:13:52And while you're setting up and while everybody's setting up the cameras and you're kind of chit-chatting with the subject who's about to be on camera, they're telling you all these crazy stories and showing you things on their phone and da-da-da.
00:14:02And you're like, wow, this is incredible.
00:14:03This is why we're making this documentary.
00:14:05And then they sit down and they button up and they're like, no, I can't talk about that.
00:14:10That's why you always have to press record before they know you're recording.
00:14:15Oh, we're too moral for that.
00:14:17Oh, no, I'm just kidding.
00:14:18No, I'm joking.
00:14:19But that was part of the process in leading into this, like, what Greg's talking about, about talking to Border Patrol agents, where we were like, we feel like we can get closer to the truth of the experience by making it a fiction piece and making it a narrative rather than a documentary.
00:14:37Because in that case, when we tell the person, like, this Border Patrol agent, like, hey, we might use your story.
00:14:44It might end up in a movie, but it's not going to have your name on it or anything.
00:14:48Then they not only are not guarded, but they're excited because then they can watch a movie with their friends and be like, hey, that was me.
00:14:53I do feel like you guys have created this sort of hybrid where you're making, as you say, like documentary, but it's narrative film.
00:15:03And your filmmaking process is like you're doing a big undercover journalistic piece of work.
00:15:12And it's really interesting how you've managed to kind of make these narrative films with this underlying thing.
00:15:19Like with Jockey, your next film, your dad was a jockey.
00:15:22So you already had this kind of very in-depth understanding.
00:15:28Can you speak to that experience as well?
00:15:32Yeah, that was one, you know, we were, it's interesting also in speaking like kind of about our career where that was one, we made, we made Transpecos for around 700 grand, like that we were able to pull together.
00:15:45And that was like tapping every possible resource we could, we could uncover.
00:15:49And then it did well for an independent film, but it didn't quite make its money back for investors.
00:15:56And so going into the next one, even though it was my first film as a director, you know, we were working so closely together.
00:16:03Greg, we wrote it together and Greg was producing it.
00:16:05And so we thought it would be easier to make the next one.
00:16:08And yet it wasn't.
00:16:10And nobody wanted to make it.
00:16:11And it was an independent film about horse racing where we're trying to like, you know, make a film on the backside of a track.
00:16:17And this is all to answer your question because we found that like, not only were we not going to get like a million bucks to make that movie, we weren't even going to get what we made like Transpecos for.
00:16:29It was really hard.
00:16:30And so we, it was, we learned a lot from that film, I think for both of us in terms of taking things that were barriers and trying to figure out like, okay, how do you, how do you, when you hit this brick wall, how does it become something that you actually use to the benefit of the film rather than something that limits the film?
00:16:50And so we ended up making that movie for like $350,000 that we cobbled together.
00:16:58And, but as part of that, we're like, okay, we're not going to try and do it in a traditional fashion.
00:17:03And, and there's a few things we can talk about within that, that, that came from that film.
00:17:09But one was the approach creatively, which was like, okay, we, we were, we were already doing these things on client films where a client, like some local insurance company or something is like, can you make me a video for my website for five grand?
00:17:24And, and we always found ways to, within that, give them something much better than they were paying for.
00:17:31And, and, and it was just exciting in that way.
00:17:33But then, you know, we saw it a lot with, with other independent filmmakers of sometimes like you go into a more traditional path and making a film and then the film seems very small, you know?
00:17:46And so we wanted it to feel big and grand.
00:17:49And so we ended up, and yes, it came from a place where my father was a jockey and I grew up in that world of horse racing and really wanted to show a version of that world that we hadn't seen.
00:18:00It wasn't the Walt Disney version of it.
00:18:03And, and as part of that documentary process, like brought Greg out to a track and we went and we just hung out with the jockeys and.
00:18:13Slept in a tack room.
00:18:14Slept in a tack room and like, and then woke up in the morning and like, they're all, you know, they're, they're exercising the horses in the, in the sunrise and, and seeing the world through his eyes, through fresh eyes, like helped me see things I hadn't seen before in it.
00:18:29And so all that to say, like one big aspect of that was just stripping it down to this really like trying to take a documentary approach within a narrative.
00:18:37And we had a script that we went out with, but it was also the script had so much space.
00:18:43Greg brought up last night that we, we like 60 to 75% of that script was rewritten while we were on the backside of the track.
00:18:50And it would be things where we either met somebody and decided like, oh, you should be in the film.
00:18:55What do you want to do?
00:18:55Um, or it was like, we would do research and find that there was this river nearby this track where like it was on a preserve where wild horses lived.
00:19:06And so we wanted to go out and like have a scene with our character, like encountering these wild horses on a river, you know, um, I think statute of limitations is okay now, but like very much just like without permission or anything, just going out and walking along the river with the crew.
00:19:22Um, I don't know if I answered your question at all, but that's how jockey came about.
00:19:28You did.
00:19:28I have to say, when I talked to Kerry Condon about train dreams, she said, you know, when I said, how did you get cast in the film?
00:19:34She goes, well, I just got on a zoom with them and all we talked about was horse racing because she's obsessed with horses and horse riding.
00:19:41Yeah, she has, and she rescues horses from, from tracks and she was in a show called luck that, that was about horse racing, um, and just loves them.
00:19:50And yeah, we spoke for like an hour, barely talked about train dreams at all.
00:19:54And I was, I got off and I was like, I hope she's doing it.
00:19:56We only talked about horse racing.
00:19:58I think she was sold because she's obsessed with nature and train dreams is such a love of nature film.
00:20:03Um, I did want to also talk about Sing Sing because, and that would lead me into one of the reasons Deadline had named you as Disruptors way back when we did the can rollout.
00:20:19I think what you're doing with pay and equity in film is amazing.
00:20:23Can you speak to how you did that with Sing Sing?
00:20:25Um, well, it actually began with Jockey.
00:20:29That was the first time we, we, and, and, and it was out of what Clint was describing in terms of, we can't make this for what we made the last film for.
00:20:37We need to find a way to lower risk and, and make this movie for less money, but not make it cheaper.
00:20:43How can you actually increase on quality, but lower this overall cost?
00:20:48And to do that, I think just requires a new paradigm, a new structure.
00:20:52Um, and we were also sort of listening to, um, kind of a lot of the things that our, our peers and, and collaborators were facing in terms of sustainability and, and jumping from job to job.
00:21:06And this, I, there, there, there were always these, uh, seeing other filmmakers sort of toying with parody structures where the crew, casting crew earned the same rate across a film.
00:21:18Um, but it would usually stop with just production, and then there'd be no sort of reward on the other side for that casting crew working beneath their rate.
00:21:27And, um, and then the traditional above the line, quote unquote, would hold all of the equity, you know, the producers and actors and, and director.
00:21:36And so, we tried to just synthesize a lot of it into the process of making Jockey, which was everybody on Jockey, from the star of the film, through Clint and I, through the crew, all the way through post-production, the editor, sound designer, composer.
00:21:52We all worked for the same rate, um, which is to say that, um, the only variable someone earning more or less is time.
00:22:01Um, and so, what we're saying is that everyone has the same intrinsic value on the project.
00:22:07And then, we also shared all of the equity that the creative story would get with all of those artists.
00:22:14And, uh, and then there were other elements that we integrated into Jockey, but also were slightly different on Sing Sing, of how do you change, to get in the weeds, like how do you change waterfalls, of how profits are shared, and how money moves through a project.
00:22:28And those were things that we were interrogating, too, but in the success of Jockey, we made that film for $350,000, but then we were able to sell it at Sundance for low seven figures, and, and, you know, the investors made, you know, a huge profit, but also the cast and crew, too.
00:22:46We issued more than the budget of the film back to the artists who made it.
00:22:50And then, there were all these stories, oh, yeah.
00:22:55And that was done with a 10-person crew, um, and then, you know, that expands with post-production.
00:23:00But we were hearing all these stories of people going back and finishing a degree, um, with, with, with this discretionary, with profit that, outside of the gig mentality of survival, expands imagination and possibility.
00:23:16Or stories like someone had an unfinished bathroom renovation that had sat for, like, six months, and the check they got was the exact amount they needed to finish that.
00:23:24And so, when we were making Sing Sing, we were like, can that scale up, you know, can you do that now with a 50-person crew and 25 cast?
00:23:34Is that possible?
00:23:36And, and, and then as scale grew, it became, you know, and we were able to pay a higher base rate as well to everybody across the film.
00:23:44Um, all of a sudden, new things became radical, where, you know, you know, Coleman Domingo, uh, the star of the film, is earning the same rate as a production assistant.
00:23:53And, and that production assistant, you know, normally is sort of ground out of our business because they're working for next to nothing now, is actually earning a livable wage.
00:24:02What does that start to transform?
00:24:04Um, and we had 92 artists on that film that had equity, um, including, and I think specifically for Sing Sing, the majority of our cast were formerly incarcerated people who had been taken advantage of by systems, you know, throughout their lives.
00:24:21Now, we're literal owners of their own story, um, which was a really powerful sort of impact for us.
00:24:27And we've issued over a million in profits on that film to those 92 artists and heard even more of those crazy stories of how it changed people.
00:24:39Well, you guys talk about this in a really humble way, but it's actually incredible what you've done.
00:24:45And that initiative is called Ethos that you created.
00:24:48I know that when you tried to start this off with Jockey, there was one person, I don't want to, I don't know the names.
00:24:57I'm not going to drop you in it, but there was one talent rep that was dead against, hey, my talent doesn't want to earn the same as, you know, your grip or your production assistant.
00:25:09And that person, when the film was a really big success and sold, called you and went, love this film, it's amazing.
00:25:16And then again, you know, you set out to make Sing Sing, and separately from the equity and equal pay, you also were making a film about incarcerated people that didn't have any of the traditional prison tropes.
00:25:35And you were told, and you were told, it's unsellable, right?
00:25:40Yeah.
00:25:40Yeah, it was really hard to get that film going, and to make it in the way that Greg wanted to make it.
00:25:49And it was an interesting lesson, I think, for both of us, looking back on that film, because Greg made Trans Pecos.
00:25:56It's out in 2017.
00:25:58Very quickly, he found this article in Esquire about this program at Sing Sing, and wanted to make that as his next film.
00:26:06Trans Pecos was a bit of a thriller.
00:26:08It has deeper things on its mind, but it's in the bucket of a thriller.
00:26:11And so a lot of the feedback that Greg got along the way was like, don't do Sing Sing.
00:26:18Like, do another thriller like this, you know?
00:26:21And a lot of great things happened by waiting, and Sing Sing wouldn't have been what it had been, what it ended up being, had he made it at the time.
00:26:32But when he came back around to it, and was like, no, this is the way I want to make it.
00:26:37A lot of those things, I think we had seen also with Jockey, Jockey was one that nobody wanted to make, and so we had to finance it on our own, and as we said, for very little money.
00:26:47And then all of the things that we had been told, the reasons why the film wouldn't work, they were the things that then, when it did work, were the things that were celebrated about the film.
00:26:57And that became true on Sing Sing, in just a much bigger level, down to a lot of the storytelling devices, how Greg wanted to approach it, how it was being cast, all of that.
00:27:10And really, it was like, there wasn't a bidding war for that film.
00:27:14There was one, Black Bear Pictures, run by Teddy Schwartzman.
00:27:18And he was the only person who, not only put an offer on it, to help us make it, but there was no back and forth.
00:27:29They got it on like a Thursday, and by Monday, they were like, yeah, let's do it.
00:27:34We were also four weeks out from shooting.
00:27:37We were also, yeah, we were also having panic attacks.
00:27:41Greg was already, Greg and our producer, Monique, they were already up in upstate New York.
00:27:45Living out of a van, putting things on my credit card.
00:27:52So, you now are taking that ethos initiative that we talked about, and trying to spread the word, so that, essentially, this could save independent film, if it's used correctly, right?
00:28:03What have been some of the reactions to it?
00:28:06Well, you know, the bigger vision is, you know, as we were rolling Sing Sing out into the world,
00:28:13we were sort of fascinated that A24s, you know, one of their main ways of marking the film was around a pay parity structure, you know?
00:28:21And just to see that ripple effect and resonating and filmmakers coming to us and saying, how do we deploy this, you know, is it possible for us to make a movie in this way?
00:28:32And, you know, the answer was yes, you know, and it's actually, it's a simple concept and structure, just hard to follow through.
00:28:40And actually, you know, hold the line and make it in that way, because inevitably you'll meet agents who will say, well, if you want this actor, you got to give us a side deal.
00:28:49It's like, well, there's no side deal, there's just the deal.
00:28:51And how do you accumulate that and how do you, you know, stay true to it?
00:28:57And we had this hope and something that, you know, we've been steadily building is to start to finance films on the model
00:29:07so that we can enable other filmmakers to make their films if they embrace this philosophy
00:29:11and to see it work in the hands of other artists and across other genres and, you know, that this is actually at the core creating, you know,
00:29:24this laboratory of, like, ideas that can shape the industry.
00:29:27And if we can do it and lay enough ground with enough artists being able to deliver films through a model like this
00:29:35that can get made, that hopefully can get seen, it builds a precedent that, you know,
00:29:40built upon itself that others can point to.
00:29:43And maybe ideas beyond this that we can't even fathom are actually the ideas that really change the industry,
00:29:50but at least we're trying something.
00:29:52Yeah.
00:29:58And we're also trying to, you know, we've done it, all the films we've done it on,
00:30:03like, with Jockey and Sing Sing so far, and the way we know that it works is, like,
00:30:06the sub-2 million dollar films, you know, in a very independent space.
00:30:10But we're also trying to, hopefully, as we can go on now with future films,
00:30:15is to take these ideas and bring them into larger budget films,
00:30:21where maybe it doesn't work on a $10 million film to pay everybody equally because, you know,
00:30:27scales don't work out.
00:30:28But you can take these ideas of sharing equity and bring those into bigger budget films where that's not at all common.
00:30:39It starts to happen when, you know, when you provide ownership to someone,
00:30:46moving someone from an employee to a partner mindset, what starts to happen in the art itself,
00:30:51where it's like, oh, if I'm going to empty the tank on a project and give everything to it,
00:30:56I'm going to do it for something that I feel like belongs to me, that really does.
00:31:00And we started to see, you know, the way artists contributed.
00:31:07It's not something that, you know, you can measure.
00:31:11But I definitely know, you know, and have strong belief that it showed up in the film itself, you know,
00:31:17and made it better.
00:31:18I think one of the things, too, that we're curious about is, like,
00:31:20we're trying to integrate, yes, as Clint's saying, that into the bigger budget films that we do.
00:31:27But, you know, I just shot a studio film this fall that came into someone else's system.
00:31:31You know, ethos was a part of it, but not the lead producers.
00:31:35That was something I was really worried about is, like, we didn't have pay parity on that film.
00:31:39And I was like, is this movie going to suck now?
00:31:42It's, like, what's lost.
00:31:44And I think there's something that needs to start underneath pay parity of, like, the values and ethos.
00:31:48And I think that's first and foremost that your casting crew feels known and seen and appreciated
00:31:56and that you're paying attention, you know.
00:31:59And just a simple act, like, for filmmakers out there, and maybe you already do this,
00:32:03but know everyone's name.
00:32:05That's just, like, a great starting place.
00:32:07And it's hard to do on a 200-person crew.
00:32:10But if you can greet everyone in the morning by name and thank them at the end of each day,
00:32:15that alone, you know, starts to ripple through the crew.
00:32:21And, like, ideas surface, like our DP on that, Andrew Droz Palermo,
00:32:26the slates that, you know, you mark a scene before you do a take
00:32:31normally just has the director and cinematographer's name on it.
00:32:35And he just one day was like, what if everyone's name's on the slate?
00:32:38And it was every single crew person's name, casting crew, alphabetical, no titles.
00:32:44I don't think it's ever been done before.
00:32:46But that, again, that sort of, if you create a culture where people feel like they can have leadership
00:32:51and ownership and they feel recognized, ideas like that can start to surface
00:32:55that set the tone for a whole shoot.
00:32:57Can you guys see why we name them Disruptors of the Year?
00:33:07So, Greg, you had told me at some point, you know, a while ago,
00:33:12I was asking you about the way that you work as a team.
00:33:17So, say, for example, you directed Sing Sing and, Clint, you directed Train Dreams.
00:33:22And, Greg, you had said to me that, you know, in some ways,
00:33:25filmmaking can be quite a lonely endeavor.
00:33:27So, can you talk a little bit, both of you, about how you support each other?
00:33:30And it's not by design that you swap roles, but it just kind of comes about that way.
00:33:37Yeah, it just kind of naturally, I mean, we started as all, like all of us do.
00:33:42You know, we started with a bunch of, in Austin, with a bunch of friends making films.
00:33:46And everyone's, when you're at that phase where you're just trying to make short films
00:33:51and trying to figure out how to do it, everybody's helping everybody.
00:33:53And that's true from any young filmmaking group around the world, right?
00:33:58It's like, sometimes you're directing and sometimes you're holding the boom pole for your friend
00:34:03while they make their short film.
00:34:04And we were both writer, director, producers in our own right.
00:34:09And sometimes Greg would be producing for me.
00:34:12Sometimes I'd be producing for him.
00:34:14Sometimes we'd just be writing something together and then Greg goes off and does it or whatever.
00:34:18And then, you know, with the first two films, it was very easy to, you know, for us to write something together
00:34:28and then me to support Greg in making his film, producing, for him to direct.
00:34:34And it was very easy in the second one for him to do that for me and to help me make my film.
00:34:42And I think what you see a lot of times is then filmmakers kind of, they drift apart and they do their own thing.
00:34:46And I don't know, it's not, we don't have nothing in contracts or anything like that,
00:34:50but it's just like, we just wanted to keep supporting each other.
00:34:53And that looks different on every film.
00:34:56But yeah, we a lot of times write together and then one of us produces for the other one to direct.
00:35:02And it really is, the other thing about it is that as a director, you're constantly, you know,
00:35:09you're in the driver's seat of a project and for better or for worse at times.
00:35:14And one thing that's really nice about, and really kind of a blessing about the way that we have worked
00:35:21is like one of us, you know, steps back and is in support of another person,
00:35:28which I think is good for the ego, but also, you learn a lot as a director.
00:35:35You watch somebody else directing and I think both of us have like picked up little things from the other person
00:35:40and our films have changed by like being in, like having a front row seat to this person making a film.
00:35:47And you're always kind of watching and like thinking like as they're doing something,
00:35:51a lot of times you're like, I would do it differently.
00:35:54And sometimes you're right and a lot of times you're very wrong.
00:35:58And you're like, oh, that turned out that way and I would have never thought about that.
00:36:01Yeah, and also, you know, if I were on my own, I would not have been involved with a jockey or a train dream
00:36:12just for my own, you know, artistic sensibility or, you know, the things that I click to,
00:36:17that I see as a film.
00:36:19But my life is so much more enriched because I got to be a part of those
00:36:26and that served me as a storyteller and provided just in the work itself
00:36:32and what those movies are about and what they convey and, you know, have been deeply changed by it, you know.
00:36:39And so the invitation into things, you know, because I'm in Clint's orbit is part of its impact too.
00:36:48And one of the things I always joke about is like, I'm always like, as I was growing up
00:36:54and now I think I have more nuance to my work, but it was always like, what's happening in the story
00:36:59and what's the action and move it along, move it along.
00:37:02And when I was watching Clint direct Jockey as I was producing for him, you know,
00:37:09there'd be moments where he and Adolfo would just have Clifton Collins Jr.
00:37:13just smoking a cigarette by the sunset or staring out on a racetrack.
00:37:16I'm like, is this going to be used anywhere?
00:37:19I'm like, why are we spending this hour on this that we already don't have any time to shoot this movie?
00:37:25But then I saw it in the cut and the way that a movie can inhale and exhale and breathe
00:37:32and we can find ourselves into the character's headspace, you know,
00:37:37was one of like the greatest lessons I've learned as an artist getting to be, you know, next to Clint.
00:37:42That is the perfect segue into talking about Train Dreams,
00:37:46a film that feels like it's alive and breathing and it isn't chasing a hero story.
00:37:54It's about an ordinary man living an ordinary life.
00:37:58Can you talk about how you felt when you read the book by Dennis Johnson
00:38:01and what you wanted to tell people about that work with your film?
00:38:06I think that, like, exactly what you just said is what struck me.
00:38:12I mean, the book had, it was beautiful and felt like it had a lot of cinematic potential
00:38:16that, you know, we could go off in the woods and make this film about logging.
00:38:21It's also got a love story.
00:38:23It also deals with death.
00:38:24It has a big fire, big pivotal fire sequence that felt like that would be, like,
00:38:30exciting as a filmmaker to execute.
00:38:31All those things.
00:38:32But at the base of it, it was a story about a person.
00:38:36It felt like an obituary for somebody you'd never read an obituary about.
00:38:41Like, you know, his obituary in the paper would have been, you know,
00:38:45Robert Grenier dies and a cat has died, date of birth unknown, you know,
00:38:50and, like, and maybe one line in the local paper.
00:38:53And then he's kind of out of the world.
00:38:54And yet this was a whole celebration of his life and all of the, like, funny, odd,
00:39:01strange, sad, every part of it, that I was really excited to do that with a film
00:39:07and have a protagonist that was not somebody who, I think we do see these sometimes
00:39:13where it's, like, an ordinary person, but then they go and take on the Supreme Court
00:39:18or they go and invent, you know, a new way that the cars drive or something.
00:39:21And this was just, like, his big thing that he does in life is he falls in love
00:39:27and he has a family and he helps people along the way
00:39:30and he doesn't help people when he should help people sometimes and fucks up, you know,
00:39:34and, like, and just all these things, like, treating those.
00:39:39For all of us, I think, like, you know, none of us is going to, like, rob a bank
00:39:44or invent something that changes the world.
00:39:47But, like, I'm thinking about it.
00:39:49Like, most of us are not going to rob a bank.
00:39:53But you're going to fall in love and you're going to lose a job
00:39:56and you're going to lose a family member.
00:39:59And all of those things are huge, epic moments emotionally.
00:40:03And so I was really excited to use the film to treat a simple life
00:40:09as something epic and beautiful without, like, trying to resist the urge
00:40:15and the temptation to, like, turn it into something bigger than it is, you know?
00:40:19This moment of hanging out with the family and just laying around on a lazy Saturday afternoon
00:40:23is beautiful.
00:40:24And, like, how can you capture that beauty and put it across in a film?
00:40:28I mean, I think that's another reason why you two are extraordinary filmmakers
00:40:33is that a lot of people wouldn't have even thought to approach that.
00:40:38They'd have been like, oh, we need to, you know, make him become a pilot of a plane
00:40:43and rescue people or whatever it is, you know, and you didn't...
00:40:46Well, that note came from, like, people who turned down the movie.
00:40:50That was another thing where I think, you know, shouting out Black Bear Pictures
00:40:56in terms of, like, we had this script and we were looking for financing
00:40:59and one person, one company, like, saw the value of it, you know,
00:41:05in terms of, like, getting behind it.
00:41:08Yeah.
00:41:09I want to talk to you about Joel Edgerton,
00:41:12who you collected an award for last night, guys.
00:41:16So I can't imagine any other actor doing this, okay?
00:41:21But the story is, is that Joel had wanted to do this years ago.
00:41:25He'd wanted to buy the rights.
00:41:27He didn't know that they weren't available.
00:41:29And he wanted to play Robert.
00:41:31And so I think that was, like, 12 years ago.
00:41:35And then he was like, oh, it's not meant to be.
00:41:38The rights are gone.
00:41:39Forget it.
00:41:40It's never going to happen.
00:41:41Then he gets a call years later from you guys.
00:41:46Did you know that he had wanted to play Robert?
00:41:49Or was that coincidental?
00:41:49No, not at all.
00:41:51It was completely coincidental or magic or whatever it meant to be,
00:41:55whatever the word is.
00:41:57We had both always been big fans of his.
00:42:00And then, but, like, I was careful not to, like,
00:42:04think about any one person as we were writing the script.
00:42:07And because it's such, like, a delicate, like, role.
00:42:12That not only, like, is delicate in terms of who can play it emotionally,
00:42:15but also, like, who can you, who's the right age that you can age up and down
00:42:19and can play, like, you know, late 20s or early 30s,
00:42:23but then can also play an 80-year-old man, 70-year-old man.
00:42:27And so, no, we had no, we had no knowledge that he knew the book at all.
00:42:36And we just went to him in the same way that you do to any other actor.
00:42:41Like, you know, we went through casting director who went to his agents.
00:42:45Don't you just think that's kind of a crazy coincidence?
00:42:47It's weird.
00:42:48It's not a coincidence.
00:42:49He then slid into your DMs, too.
00:42:52He then, yeah, we, we, it was another thing where, like,
00:42:54it went to him on, like, a Tuesday or Wednesday.
00:42:56And then on Saturday, I remember I was, like,
00:42:59I'd gone with the family to have breakfast,
00:43:01and we were coming back home, and I just opened up Instagram.
00:43:04And I got a note from Joel Edgerton saying,
00:43:09Hi, it's Joel.
00:43:10And I was, like, okay.
00:43:12What do I do with this?
00:43:14But, but, yeah, I think, like,
00:43:16and I think I talked a little bit about this last night in our Q&A,
00:43:20but, like, the film just along the way attracted who it needed, you know?
00:43:25And any time with, there was some other casting where somebody, you know,
00:43:32turned down a role that I was hoping they would take,
00:43:35or we lost a location, or something like that,
00:43:40or I got a different looking dog than I wanted to get.
00:43:43And, but it always ended up being for the better of the film.
00:43:47It always ended up being, like, the film was attracting, even now,
00:43:51like, the film feels like it's attracting what it, what it needs to it.
00:43:55And it's very much, like, outside of any of our control.
00:43:58It's just a very charmed project.
00:43:59I think the one thing that I would just counter and say that is in your control,
00:44:04and, and why that sort of happens,
00:44:06because it doesn't always happen.
00:44:07And I think you have, if you define the purpose of the work you're trying to do
00:44:14and the values that you're trying to do it from,
00:44:16you're sort of planting a flag or put, you know, lighting a little beacon
00:44:19that draws the right people to it.
00:44:23But if you don't do that, you know,
00:44:26then you never know what you're going to get, you know?
00:44:28And sometimes it can be great, and sometimes not so great.
00:44:30Yeah, we talked about this a little bit last night,
00:44:33about how the sort of magic that happens with your filmmaking
00:44:38comes from being open to what might evolve,
00:44:42rather than having a fixed idea and a rigid control, right?
00:44:45That's, that's kind of worked for both of you throughout.
00:44:49Yeah, and it was something that, like, I think we found along the way,
00:44:52and it's something where you're not,
00:44:53you're very nervous to do it as a filmmaker.
00:44:56And it's very hard, because, like, everything in a film
00:44:59has to be scheduled down to a 15-minute block, you know?
00:45:03And if you go over that, if you're treating your crew well
00:45:06and you're being honest, like, then you start paying a lot of money
00:45:08because you're paying people overtime, you're paying lunch,
00:45:11you're paying penalties for lunch, like, overages and stuff like that.
00:45:15And so, like, it's very hard to say, like, okay, in two weeks
00:45:19we're going to be at this location at this time
00:45:21with these five people or ten people
00:45:24who are going to say these lines that we wrote a year ago.
00:45:29And, and to do all of that within that structure to say,
00:45:31and magic's going to happen, is, like, very tough, right?
00:45:36And it's also very, but it's also very nerve-wracking.
00:45:39You think, even on a short film, if you're spending, you know,
00:45:41a few grand on a short film that you barely have
00:45:44that you've cobbled together,
00:45:46or even if you're doing it for nothing
00:45:48and everybody's taking time away from their families on the weekends
00:45:51or away from their friends, you're thinking about, like,
00:45:54you feel not right going, like, all right,
00:45:58we're just going to go and see what happens.
00:45:59Because then, like, it's like, okay, you think about the money
00:46:02that's being spent in that moment.
00:46:04And so it's something we've just, like, edged into
00:46:06and gotten a bit more, like, confident on how to do it along the way.
00:46:11And I think one of those was we were making a short film
00:46:13as a proof of concept for Jockey.
00:46:15And I remember this one day where we had, like,
00:46:19it was a Saturday morning,
00:46:20and we were going to, like, create this locker room scene.
00:46:23And we had all these jockeys on the track
00:46:25that were going to come out, like, 30 jockeys were going to come out.
00:46:27We were going to fill this locker room out.
00:46:28It was a scene we had written, you know,
00:46:30and it was going to be great.
00:46:32And then Friday night, we checked with everybody.
00:46:34They were like, yeah, totally good.
00:46:36And then Saturday morning, we're, like, going out there
00:46:39first thing in the morning to the track,
00:46:41and all these jockeys are, like, hopping in the back
00:46:43of pickup trucks and leaving.
00:46:45And we're like, what the hell?
00:46:45Where are you guys going?
00:46:46Like, we're about to shoot the scene.
00:46:48And they're like, no, no, a match race popped up
00:46:50at this town nearby,
00:46:51and we're going to go make some money.
00:46:53And I remember being in that moment, being like,
00:46:55oh, man, like, that's the movie.
00:46:58Like, if we could just hop in to the truck with a camera
00:47:01and take our actor and go out and see what happens
00:47:04and, like, make something out there, that's the movie.
00:47:06We didn't do that.
00:47:07And we just went with five jockeys and, like,
00:47:10pieced it together in the locker room.
00:47:14And it wasn't as good, you know, because, like,
00:47:16we were sticking to the plan.
00:47:18And rather than, like, finding a way for the plan
00:47:21to adapt to life, and the more we've done that,
00:47:27then, you know, jockey came, making jockey, like,
00:47:31came from this idea that, like, we're going to treat
00:47:33the whole film that way.
00:47:34Like, we're going to have a plan, but also,
00:47:36if jockeys are jumping in the back of a pickup truck
00:47:38to go somewhere, we're going with them, you know?
00:47:40And then Sing Sing didn't have the same, like,
00:47:43worlds in terms of it was all set in a prison,
00:47:46and so you couldn't, like, go somewhere else.
00:47:48But the way that Greg structured it was like,
00:47:51okay, you've got all these people who were actually
00:47:52in the program and know this,
00:47:54and if they're going to go this way
00:47:55and it takes the scene somewhere else,
00:47:57we're going to go with it.
00:47:58I was just thinking of the end of Sing Sing,
00:48:00where we had written many versions
00:48:04of it, and we were always like,
00:48:05ah, so far, actually, all the endings
00:48:08of our films are different
00:48:11than what we started production with
00:48:13because we have an idea,
00:48:17but we're, like, as we go along the way,
00:48:19like, listening to, like, where,
00:48:20what the movie's trying to tell us.
00:48:22And the end of Sing Sing, you know,
00:48:24Coleman Domingo as Divine G gets out of prison
00:48:27after 27 years inside,
00:48:30and his friend that he meets
00:48:32and becomes his best friend,
00:48:34this guy, Divine Eye, played by himself,
00:48:37Clarence Macklin, is waiting for him
00:48:39to take him home.
00:48:40And I remember Coleman pulled me aside.
00:48:43We had had some scripted lines,
00:48:46but he was getting ready to walk up
00:48:47to see Clarence, and he was like,
00:48:49I can't handle it right now.
00:48:52You have to promise me that no matter what,
00:48:54because I don't know what I'm going to do,
00:48:56that Clarence will not touch me in this scene.
00:48:59And I was like, okay, I promise.
00:49:00Well, he thought he was going to break down.
00:49:02Yeah, and I was like, I promise.
00:49:05And then I went over to Clarence,
00:49:07and I was like,
00:49:07Coleman is going through a lot right now.
00:49:09He's asked me that you don't touch him in this scene,
00:49:13but whatever you do, don't let him go.
00:49:15And then they came together,
00:49:17and you could feel Coleman fighting it,
00:49:19and then Clarence was going like,
00:49:20uh-uh, come here.
00:49:21And he fell into Clarence's arms,
00:49:23and then this thing came from within,
00:49:26you know, that we shot.
00:49:27That scene is only one take.
00:49:29We never shot another.
00:49:31And then after they pulled apart,
00:49:33they just were in this flow
00:49:35and improvised all the lines,
00:49:36and that became the end of the movie.
00:49:40Well, I have to say that
00:49:42listening to you guys,
00:49:44watching your work,
00:49:46and seeing the way you advocate for people
00:49:48on your sets,
00:49:49and everything that you're doing
00:49:51is proof you're sitting right here
00:49:53with all these nominations and awards,
00:49:56the good guys win sometimes.
00:50:03And now it's time for audience questions.
00:50:06Does anyone have a question?
00:50:08Okay.
00:50:08I guess the mic's coming to you.
00:50:11We've got a mic coming around.
00:50:12Yeah.
00:50:15Do we have microphones?
00:50:17Yes, belted out.
00:50:18Can someone turn the mic on?
00:50:48Okay.
00:50:48It's on.
00:50:48It's on now.
00:50:50Oh, great.
00:50:50Okay.
00:50:51Mike, I love the partnership you all have.
00:50:53The first act of it and making a film,
00:50:55you guys writing it together.
00:50:56The second one's producing,
00:50:57the other one's directing.
00:50:59And the third act of it and the edit,
00:51:01how does that work between the two of you
00:51:02when you guys have started with the same idea
00:51:04and then when you guys come together
00:51:06to edit the picture?
00:51:08How does that work?
00:51:10It's just good.
00:51:11It's still the same.
00:51:12I mean, we find that, like,
00:51:13you know, the person who's directing it
00:51:16is then in the edit with our editor working.
00:51:20And the good thing about having the other person
00:51:22is as a director, inevitably, on your film,
00:51:26you start to lose perspective on what's what, you know?
00:51:28And you love something and you fight for it,
00:51:32but then you start to hate that thing after a while
00:51:35and you're like, actually, this is terrible.
00:51:37And it's good to have a person next to you
00:51:40who's not in the edit in the day-to-day
00:51:42in the same way that you are,
00:51:44but knows what you're going for.
00:51:46And then when you're in that place
00:51:48and you can say, hey, should this be cut or not,
00:51:50that person can be like, yes,
00:51:51you should have cut it three edits ago,
00:51:53like three cuts ago, or no, no, no.
00:51:56Like, this is good.
00:51:56Like, you hate it because you've seen it 50 times,
00:51:58but, like, it's good.
00:51:59And so just having that person who is a bit of a, like,
00:52:03before you show it to producers
00:52:05or before you show it to the financier
00:52:07where, like, there's going to be more pressure on it,
00:52:10that you've got a safe place to, like, try things out
00:52:13and be like, hey, I'm trying this version of the scene
00:52:15or that version, what do you think?
00:52:17We're not always aligned on that.
00:52:19Well, one of the things I joked in our,
00:52:21it came about, like, in editorial
00:52:22is that I was like, I'm the Grim Reaper
00:52:24and you're the watchmaker.
00:52:25And I was like, I'll just, like, just, like,
00:52:28cut it all out.
00:52:28Like, I don't care anymore.
00:52:29And Clint being like, well, it can be good
00:52:32if you just keep working at it and find what's there.
00:52:35But then sometimes I'm like, Clint, pencils down.
00:52:37Like, stop, stop tinkering.
00:52:40And, but there's something about,
00:52:41that extends across the whole partnership,
00:52:44you know, where I would, you know,
00:52:47go film something that was written
00:52:49on the back of a napkin at the bar last night.
00:52:51And Clint, you sometimes have to wrestle a draft
00:52:56out of his hands because he always,
00:52:59it's part of what I've learned from him,
00:53:00is he always believes there's a better idea,
00:53:03a better line that's sort of, like, worth digging for,
00:53:06you know.
00:53:07And I think maybe I've helped him
00:53:09just take a leap at some point, you know.
00:53:12Actually finish something, yeah.
00:53:13Are there any more questions?
00:53:18I think you were first down there on the, on my right.
00:53:26Hey, guys.
00:53:27I wanted to ask about your process of, you know,
00:53:31the, I guess, the research that goes into your, you know,
00:53:34you getting to know your subjects and everything.
00:53:37Sometimes you'll, a lot of times you'll hear
00:53:39about, like, documentarians spending, like, years
00:53:41with a subject before they roll the camera and everything.
00:53:43And I wanted to know what your approach is
00:53:46to going and, and sort of scouting out
00:53:49the, the, the locations and the, and the, and the characters.
00:53:53Do you have a set plan of, like,
00:53:54hey, we got this amount of time to, like,
00:53:56find whatever we have?
00:53:57Or do you just, like, no, we'll commit to staying here
00:53:59as long as we have to be able to get what we think we got?
00:54:03But, and so, yeah, I just love to hear that
00:54:05because you're approaching it from, like,
00:54:07a fiction standpoint of view,
00:54:08and which I think is, has its own set of, you know, things.
00:54:14Sing Sing was nine years from the idea
00:54:16to the end of its run, not by choice.
00:54:21You know, there were, there were a lot of times
00:54:23along the way that we really wanted to make the film,
00:54:26but if we would have made it then,
00:54:27it would have never been what it is.
00:54:30You know, so I'm very grateful for the cosmic forces
00:54:33that, that delayed it.
00:54:36But I, I think generally, you know, I think it's,
00:54:40I think first we, we scour everything
00:54:43that we can available through books
00:54:48or, or, or through other works,
00:54:52through the, through articles.
00:54:54Then at some point we try to get into the field,
00:54:57which for Train Dreams was hard
00:55:00because that was set in the 1900s,
00:55:02so we couldn't quite time travel,
00:55:04but we could in a way where we went
00:55:05to Bonners Ferry, Idaho, where it's set,
00:55:07and we just spent time in its,
00:55:10in the natural landscape
00:55:11and dive bars with loggers
00:55:14to, with the Kootenai people
00:55:16at a, you know, a fish nursery,
00:55:18you know, and on and on.
00:55:19And I think you're just looking at some point
00:55:23to where you do feel a sense of credibility,
00:55:27you know, that, that's, that you actually,
00:55:30that you, that you have a knowledge
00:55:32of the people and the place
00:55:33such that when you tell a story,
00:55:36which is almost like an arrow shot
00:55:38through that world,
00:55:39that people watching it will feel
00:55:40all that homework around it
00:55:42in the peripheral, you know.
00:55:44And it's hard to pinpoint exactly
00:55:46when that happens,
00:55:47but I do think you do know
00:55:48when it's time to make it.
00:55:51That's always been very clear for us.
00:55:53Arriving there, not so much.
00:55:57And there was someone in the middle.
00:56:01Oh, sorry, yes, sorry.
00:56:03Oh, I'm, I think,
00:56:05yes, we'll go to you next.
00:56:09I'll be right with you.
00:56:14Okay, hold on, you're going to get a mic.
00:56:17I'll come back to you in a second, I promise.
00:56:24There were two things in your movie
00:56:26that most impressed me.
00:56:30One was the silence.
00:56:34There was a ton of important things
00:56:37said very slowly.
00:56:41Two were the trees.
00:56:43I grew up in the woods.
00:56:46I grew up in 1944.
00:56:49We had radio.
00:56:51Now we have so much streaming,
00:56:54it's impossible.
00:56:56So, with the silence,
00:57:01Joel Edgerton got it.
00:57:04You guys nailed it.
00:57:06And I'm really proud of your work.
00:57:09Thank you very much.
00:57:10That's very kind.
00:57:12That was nice.
00:57:14And then we just have time for one more
00:57:16in the corner there.
00:57:21That was really sweet.
00:57:22I don't know how to follow that up.
00:57:24Last night, after the film,
00:57:25you guys talked about how you,
00:57:27you were rereading the novella
00:57:28and how you got this new meaning from it
00:57:30and, before making the film.
00:57:33And I'm curious, you know,
00:57:34when you're,
00:57:35whether it's you're writing it
00:57:36or you're filming it
00:57:37or it's finally edited,
00:57:38like, when you were making Train Dreams,
00:57:40was there a new interpretation,
00:57:42a new meaning you saw in the work
00:57:43in this form for you guys?
00:57:47Yeah, I,
00:57:48it's very funny
00:57:49because, like,
00:57:50I read the novella a lot
00:57:54when we were talking about it
00:57:56and trying to get on it.
00:57:56We were both, like, you know,
00:57:57marking up that whole book,
00:57:59trying to get in between the lines
00:58:01and, and, and understand it.
00:58:03And then I put it away
00:58:04and, and let the film become
00:58:06what it wanted to be
00:58:07as we were writing it.
00:58:09And then in the,
00:58:10I would very rarely go back to it.
00:58:13Only when I was stuck on something
00:58:16would I go back to it
00:58:17and kind of look at it
00:58:18and say, like, what was,
00:58:19what, what,
00:58:20remind me what he was trying to do here
00:58:22to, to try and get back to it.
00:58:23But it's been very interesting
00:58:24with this film
00:58:25where
00:58:27I felt like I understood
00:58:30what it was about
00:58:31in writing it.
00:58:33And then I got a new understanding
00:58:34in making it
00:58:35from everybody coming on board
00:58:37and, and what it was, like,
00:58:38turning into.
00:58:40And then I really felt like
00:58:41I, I found it finally in the edit.
00:58:44And then I was like,
00:58:45oh, finally I think I understand
00:58:46what this is about.
00:58:48And yet now that it,
00:58:49it's been very strange
00:58:50and beautiful
00:58:51that now that it's out
00:58:52in the world,
00:58:54now that people are speaking back
00:58:56about it
00:58:57and talking,
00:58:58and talking about what,
00:58:58what it,
00:58:59what it's done for them
00:59:00and what it means to them,
00:59:02I feel like I'm just now
00:59:05learning what it's about
00:59:06in a strange way.
00:59:08And it,
00:59:08and, and some people
00:59:09say things
00:59:10that, that, that, like,
00:59:12that they feel like
00:59:13the film is about.
00:59:13And I'm like,
00:59:14yeah, 100%,
00:59:15that makes sense
00:59:15and that's very beautiful.
00:59:16I didn't think of that.
00:59:18But that's great.
00:59:20Well, it's a universal story
00:59:21and I suppose
00:59:22that's the whole point
00:59:24is that it,
00:59:24it applies to all of us
00:59:26in some way or another.
00:59:27There is something
00:59:28very special about,
00:59:29like, when you,
00:59:30when you,
00:59:30whether it's a painting
00:59:31or a, or a,
00:59:32or a piece of literature
00:59:33or a, or a film,
00:59:36when it,
00:59:37it's a,
00:59:38it's a,
00:59:39when it,
00:59:39when it works,
00:59:41there's something there
00:59:42and then there's a person
00:59:43and there's something
00:59:44in between them
00:59:45and, and, and something
00:59:46gets created new
00:59:48by the interaction
00:59:50between the audience
00:59:51and the piece of art.
00:59:53And I don't know
00:59:54how to reverse engineer it.
00:59:55Like, if, if,
00:59:57if we knew as filmmakers
00:59:58or as artists
00:59:59then every film
01:00:00would be perfect.
01:00:02But there is something
01:00:03very magical
01:00:03that happens
01:00:04between an audience member
01:00:06reacting to a piece of art
01:00:07and something new
01:00:08that gets made specific
01:00:09to that person
01:00:10whether, you know,
01:00:11and, and, and that can be different
01:00:14for each, each of you.
01:00:16That's just very special
01:00:17and magical
01:00:18and I think,
01:00:19and I think is very exciting
01:00:20about, like,
01:00:21whatever's next.
01:00:22Well, I think what you guys
01:00:24both do is a kind of alchemy
01:00:26and it's incredible to watch
01:00:27and I just want to congratulate
01:00:28you both so much
01:00:29for all your success
01:00:31and I can't wait
01:00:32to see what you do next.
01:00:34Thank you so much,
01:00:34Clint and Greg.
01:00:35Thank you all.
01:00:36Thank you for being here.
01:00:36Thank you for being here.
01:00:41Thank you so much,
01:00:42thank you for your,
01:00:43thank you.
01:00:44Thank you so much.
01:00:46And to it,
01:00:47thank you very much.
01:00:47It was wonderful.
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