Saints & Sodas: Exploring LDS Culture Beyond the Stereotypes: Madison Pope's Story - Latter-Day Lights

What can an everyday tradition reveal about a community's faith and culture?

In this week's episode of Latter-Day Lights, Scott and Darla sit down with documentary filmmaker, Madison Pope, to discuss her upcoming film, Saints and Sodas—a deep dive into the unique soda culture that has captured national attention. Madison shares the fascinating story behind the documentary, from interviewing self-proclaimed soda addicts and health experts, to exploring the influence of pop culture and the history that helped shape Utah's signature drink trend.

Beyond the documentary itself, Madison reflects on her unexpected path into filmmaking—from creating short films as a college student in Massachusetts, to building a career in producing meaningful documentaries that explore faith and the human experience. She offers a behind-the-scenes look at the process of making documentaries, the challenges of uncovering a compelling story, and why authentic storytelling has the power to foster greater understanding and compassion.

Whether you're a dirty soda fan, a documentary enthusiast, or simply curious about the intersection of faith and culture, this conversation offers a thoughtful, entertaining look at one of Utah's most recognizable traditions—and the deeper stories that often exist behind the headlines.

*** Please hit SUBSCRIBE to get our latest episodes, and hit the SHARE button to help us share Madison's story and light with others. ***

To WATCH this episode on YouTube, visit: https://youtu.be/_y4mE-6292U

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To WATCH the film, “The Grim & The Dark,” visit: https://www.primevideo.com/detail/0LOA8NG3B8PG628OFF8PG8TKAX

To WATCH the film, “Born for This,” visit: https://www.primevideo.com/detail/0HX9KCF4WYZOVC2CUU76LMKKRF

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To READ Scott’s new book “Faith to Stay” for free, visit: https://www.faithtostay.com/

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Follow us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/latterdaylights

Also, if you have a faith-promoting or inspiring story, or know someone who does, please let us know by going to https://www.latterdaylights.com and reaching out to us.

Transcript

"Faith to Stay" by Scott Brandley

Scott Brandley 0:00

Hey there, as a Latter-Day Lights listener, I want to give you a very special gift today. My brand new book, Faith to Stay. This book is filled with inspiring stories, powerful discoveries, and even fresh insights to help strengthen your faith during the storms of life. So, if you're looking to be inspired, uplifted, and spiritually recharged, just visit faith to stay.com. Now, let's get back to the show. Hey everyone, I'm Scott

Intro

Scott Brandley 0:30

Brandley.

Darla Brandley 0:31

And I'm Darla Brandley. Every member of the church has a story to share when they can instill faith, invite hope, and inspire others.

Scott Brandley 0:38

In today's episode, we're going to hear from filmmaker Madison Pope on the making of Saints and Sodas, a film that does a deep dive into Utah's soda culture. Welcome to Latter-Day Lights.

Welcoming Madison Pope to the show

Scott Brandley 1:09

Welcome, Madison. Hi. This is gonna be a fun one. Um we're gonna talk about a new documentary that Madison has produced called Saints and Sodas. It's gonna be really fun. Talk about that whole thing, how it's exploded in Utah. But before we jump into that, Madison, why don't you tell us a little bit about yourself?

Madison Pope 1:34

Okay, um, so I'm Madison, and I grew up in Utah. I grew up in Logan in Cache Valley, so northern, northern Utah. And um I'm currently living in Provo, Utah. I moved here two years ago to work at Trademark Films, and we make documentary films. And the film that we're working on right now, that's gonna be released very soon, is Saints and Sodas, which is about the Utah dirty soda craze and Utah soda culture.

Scott Brandley 2:11

Awesome. So do you have any family?

Madison Pope 2:14

Oh, yeah. I've got so I I'm a middle child, and I have two brothers, an older, younger brother, and uh parents, and I'm divorced, but I have a daughter, an 11-year-old daughter, and that's that's us, yeah.

Scott Brandley 2:34

Well, we're super excited to hear your story, so let's turn the time over to you, and you can tell us where your story

Madison’s introduction to film

Scott Brandley 2:40

begins.

Madison Pope 2:41

Okay. Um I think I'll I'll just kind of tell you guys kind of my film background. Um, so I I was never really interested in film, um, but in high school my little brother was, and he had somehow gotten a camcorder of some sort. And he would kind of make like goofy videos with his friends. And I my senior year of high school, I was on student council, and we had like a another student who usually took care of all the films. He would he'd always make our student council videos, but for some reason, one time he couldn't. So my younger brother showed me how to use the camera, and he he taught me how to kind of edit an iMovie. So that was kind of my first introduction to film. And I found that to be kind of fun and interesting. And so then when I graduated high school, I really I had an older brother who had gone to school back east, and I just thought I really wanted an experience outside of Utah because I had lived here my whole life and um just wanted to try something different, and so I had applied to schools, and I got into a school in Massachusetts called Leslie University, and I went there for my freshman year, and it was really cool. It was um in Cambridge, Massachusetts. It was next to Harvard. Um, we're kind of actually in between like their law school and some of parts of their other campus, so it was like a really cool area to be in, and it was a really unique experience. Um, a lot of times I was like the first Mormon anyone had ever met. It was 2007, 2008 when Mitt Romney was a big running for president and stuff. And so people weren't. I mean, sometimes I talked to people, they weren't, I would say, Oh yeah, I'm from Utah. Like, oh, is that where the Mormons are from? I'm like, yeah, and they'd be like, Oh, but you're not one. And I would be like, I actually am. So I think some people, you know, sometimes you get confused with the Amish. And so it was kind of like so it was it was a culture shock in a lot of ways, and it was also a really good experience. And while I was there, I took a film class, and it was called ethnographic film, which is it's like a type of documentary filmmaking, except it's the films are longer and not as much editing. It's more used for like documenting, read like a like a culture or like a practice, like so it'll instead of it'll show like they'll be like three hours long and and just you know, kind of yeah. So they're they're interesting films, they're documentary, but slow moving and really document the whole thing. So we had to make we had to make our own short ethnographic films. So I thought like, oh, I'll do um Family Home Evening, a film about what Family Home Evening is, and I can represent like my culture, my people. And um I went to a singles ward, but there was, I think, there was actually like quite a few student singles wards um in Boston. There was even like an older, I think there were like two like kind of graduate school wards, if I'm remembering right. But one of those wards, there was a bishop from one of those wards, and um I had met him, and I just thought he had the cutest family. They had, I think, three or four kids, and I asked, like, hey, could I come to your house on a Monday night and film your family home evening? And they were totally for it. And so I made like this little film where I filmed the family home evening, and then um, and everyone in the class made these little films, and I just remember showing it, and afterwards, there's um a student who he was really alternative, like punk rock, like head to toe. Like he was huge, really tall guy. Um, his hair was always a different color, he wore these like huge boots, and he was always smoking. And so I remember we after showing my film, we we had watched it a couple times. And the second time we'd shown the film, I remember walking out for a break and he was already smoking, and he was like, Hey, I don't know why, but every time I see your film, I just feel so good inside. He's like, I really love your film. And I that was like the biggest like compliment to me. I was like, Oh, if if Harry loves my film, then that's that is so sweet. Like, I just love that. And so it was so cool. Yeah, it was really cute. So that was a fun experience for me, and I ended

Madison gets into art school

Madison Pope 7:50

up deciding like um I wanted to do painting and drawing. I was I'm an artist and I wanted to do more of that, and so the the school I was at really didn't have a program for that, and it was expensive, and it just I ended up coming back to Utah. So I got back to Utah State, got into their art program, and um while I was there, uh there was a graphic design professor, his name was Alan Hashimoto, and he for some reason I still don't know why he had like an interest in film. And there was no film program, there was a journalism program, and that was like the closest thing to a film program at Utah State. I don't I don't know what it's like there now, they might have a little bit more, but um at the time there was nothing, and he so this professor had somehow convinced a BYU film grad to come to Utah State to do his thesis. And and so, and his emphasis was documentary, so his name's Andy Lorimer. So he ended up at as a grad student in the art department at Utah State, and they kind of worked out that they would get Andy film equipment in exchange for like teaching some of the undergrads how to use the equipment. So an email went out, it was like, hey, we and another part of the deal was it was like the hundredth year anniversary of the art department, and they wanted a documentary made about that. So they sent out an email and they said, like, we need four students to work on this, must have experience. And so I was like, Well, I took an ethnographic film class, and so I kind of like fudged, fudged my way a little bit. Um, so I felt like I had something to say in the email. And um, they ended up uh I ended up getting into the class, and so there were just four of us, and Andy taught us how to use the cameras, he taught us the basics of documentary, of how to shoot an interview, and then um it was a really fun project. I got to film a lot of the professors who were in their 70s and 80s who had taught at the university. I got to like go into their homes and see their artwork and learn about their experiences. And so that's where I really caught the bug for documentary film. And um, and this whole time I was still a painting and drawing major, I was still doing that. Um, but I just kept doing this film thing on the side, and I didn't get really any credit. I got weird uh advanced graphic design credits for it because they didn't really know what to do for us. And so, but every semester I would just it kind of turned into like a secret video club where just students who are interested in film and had no place to go kind of ended up there. We had like business majors, biology majors, um, some other art majors, and we would just kind of help each other do film projects. So that's kind of how I got into documentary

Madison’s freelance journey + getting a job at Trademark Films

Madison Pope 11:20

film. And but then once I graduated, um I started doing wedding videos um because that made money and it helped me provide for my family. And so I did wedding videos for a while and got kind of burnt out from that. And I had some friends who had owned a baby blanket company, and they invited, they asked if I would do some video for them. So that kind of got me into the commercial world. So I spent a long time shooting content for like small businesses, content for like Instagram and websites, and I got into photography, and I got into set design, and I worked on a lot of film sets and um commercials and stuff like that. And but again, I got pretty burnt out from that. I was freelancing, and it's just really hard to uh feel like you have any consistency in your life, and so then I got a job offer to work at Trademark Films, and I was really excited because um it was documentary film, and so I took that about two years ago, and I moved down to Provo and started making documentaries for real. So that's kind of my little

How Madison got the opportunity to do “Saints & Sodas”

Madison Pope 12:45

my little journey here so far. Awesome.

Scott Brandley 12:48

How did you get into this opportunity to make this this documentary that we're talking about today?

Madison Pope 12:56

So this was our team was we're always looking for ideas of things to shoot. And we had just finished a film and we were trying to figure out what our next film would be. And some of our crew members had been shooting in Texas um a couple months prior. And whenever anyone found out that they were from Utah, they kept asking about the soda, and it was like, oh, is like soda, is that real? Is that really a thing? Because the dirty soda had gone viral after Secret Lives of Mormon Wives came out in 2024, and it had gone viral online, and a lot of people have were trying it at home, trying to mix their own, driving really far, or visiting Utah to try the dirty soda. So we realized that there was like a lot of interest and a lot of confusion and a lot of like questions about it. People were trying to figure out what was going on, so we thought like this this seems like hot, let's let's like dive into it. So that's how this documentary came about. Before we go any further, though, are you guys soda drinkers or what's your relationship with dirty soda?

Everyone’s relationship to Dirty Soda

Madison Pope 14:15

Definitely had it.

Scott Brandley 14:20

We've spent a lot of money on dirty sodas over the years.

Darla Brandley 14:25

Yeah, and you go through waves, right? You're like, oh, I've got to have one, and then you're like, and then you don't have one for a long time, and then you know, you know how it is. You go in and out. It's a really cool.

Scott Brandley 14:36

I was for a long time, I was addicted to a well, I think we all get you, you kind of get your favorite one. Yeah, I was addicted to they called it Christopher Robin. They changed the name. It was uh from Fizz, one of the Fizz drinks root beer, root beer, raspberry, coconut, cream. Like you, it's just this like crazy combination of flavors, right? But man, you take the first sip of that thing, and it just like you just get this I don't know, sugar rush, I guess is what you the best that you could call it, but it's it was almost like a drug. Like I had to wean myself off of it because it was so good.

Madison Pope 15:16

What's uh what size were you getting? Were you going like 44 ounce or were you in the middle?

Scott Brandley 15:23

No, we we uh you know didn't want to feel too guilty. So we go you like for the 24 ounce ones usually.

Madison Pope 15:34

Yeah. I those the drinks they hit different, the dirty soda. There's something about them, yeah. I remember the first I didn't really I remember the first time a friend took me through a drive-thru to get a dirty soda, and I I was just like, I don't know, I don't really get it. But once I tasted it, I was like, oh, like I I can get it. That's it. Yeah.

Scott Brandley 16:00

Which one is your favorite?

Madison Pope 16:02

Well, yeah, I've kind of so it's funny making this documentary, like I've never been a big soda drinker, but for research purposes, obviously, we had to, you know, get into it. And so I've like try I've actually tried a lot. I think it's really fun to go to every I what I've realized is every town kind of has its local soda shop. So there's kind of like a lot of mom and pop shops. I think those are fun to visit. It's fun too because like uh a lot of them are like same drinks, different names. Like I've never heard of the Christopher Robin, that's really funny. And and then there's like the bigger chains, so we've gone to swig a lot. We've it's really funny. I so I live right close by the BYU stadium, and there's there's just like a swig there that's huge, that's people are always at, and then like just around the corner from that swig, they actually built like a second swig in an old it used to be a bank, and so it's a huge drive-thru, but so there it's like double swigs, like about two minutes down the road, and then like four minutes in the other direction. There's a so delicious, and we also we have a fizz here, we have a we have a bunch of options, we're getting a thirst, those are kind of the big chains. Um but so we we really we like the drinks, like uh if we need a drink, we'll go to Swig. I really like the cookies at So Delicious. So what I've learned is like I'm not much of the soda girl, but these soda shops like have incredible treats, like the cookies or the pretzel bites, like Thirst does beigniers, it does huge like mall pretzels that they they make fresh. They a lot of like Thirst and Soda Licious have their own bakeries, so like yeah, that's amazing.

Darla Brandley 18:13

There's a lot going on,

The most surprising learning in making the documentary

Darla Brandley 18:15

yeah.

Madison Pope 18:16

Yeah, yeah.

Darla Brandley 18:17

So when does this documentary come out and when can we see it?

Madison Pope 18:21

Yeah, that's the big question. We're we're it's like the edit is done. We're working on like the sound and the coloring and final animations right now, and then we're also kind of shopping it around to see if anyone wants to pick it up. So it could be we're hope like definitely this summer. So like as of right now, we're kind of towards the end of June, and we're hoping like July or August.

Darla Brandley 18:50

That would be so much fun. I'm excited to see hear all the things you found out. What was the most surprising thing you found?

Madison Pope 18:58

I think I um it was surprising like how much soda people drink. Like there's kind of it's it's it's kind of fun. We we talked to like um a guy who he's a self-proclaimed soda addict, and he drinks like the you know, like the 12 packs of soda cans. He can drink like three or four of those a day. Oh my goodness. Wow. He's yeah, and he um he has he's actually like installed his own in-home soda fountain in his basement. He can actually just go get soda there. So he was a really fun character. We I he's actually my friend's brother. She, when I was working on this film, she was like, Hey, you should talk to my brother. And um, he's actually a lot of people recognize him. His videos go viral a lot because of the amount of soda he's drinking. It's incredible. And um, so we've I followed him around a grocery store. He got like for a soda haul that was it was having like a sale. So we talked, we talked to Steve, we talked to um uh we talked to uh uh Jen and Zach Affleck from Secret Lives of Mormon Wives, and we get their like take on it because the reality show was a big part of it going viral. We talked to um Patrick Mason, he acts as our Mormon historian, and we had him kind of explain the context of like the word of wisdom, and how in Utah people were drinking less coffee and alcohol, and it kind of created this like space for soda, but we also kind of talked about how a lot like caffeinated soda was kind of taboo. Um, like when I was growing up, like we could not drink caffeinated soda.

Darla Brandley 20:57

I don't I'm sure you guys oh yeah, it definitely totally was. My mother was horrified that I drank Dr. Pepper. Like, dare you, you know.

Madison Pope 21:10

Yeah, I remember my brother like accidentally drinking Mountain Dew at like a party when we were kids, and we were like, Oh, like oh no.

Darla Brandley 21:20

It's still silly now, but you know, I I understand where it came from.

Madison Pope 21:24

So yeah, totally. And it was a funny cultural thing, and then it it kind of went away. Um, we kind of I think I think there was kind of a famous conference talk where Elder Ookdorf referenced drinking many liters of an unnamed soda, and and then um kind of after that, like BYU uh let started selling caffeinated soda again on campus. They hadn't done that since the 50s. And so then in I think it was 2017, they started selling like caffeinated drinks again. And so that really helped. All of those things kind of helped the there was like kind of like a cultural, it was kind of a myth that we could not drink caffeinated soda. But the church had never said you couldn't do it. Like they'd never specifically said it. But um a lot of people interpreted the word of wisdom as like, oh, it makes sense we shouldn't drink caffeinated soda. But anyway, so since that's kind of gone away, I also think that helped boost like the soda, the soda movement.

Darla Brandley 22:41

So yeah, definitely, definitely. It's

How long does it take to make a documentary?

Darla Brandley 22:45

our vibe.

Scott Brandley 22:47

How long does it typically take to create a documentary? Like what goes into it?

Madison Pope 22:52

Yeah, so this one, I mean, it it just varies a lot. And this one, I did not expect it to take this long. I started pre-production on this in January 2025. And I think we did our that's when I first started doing research and and started kind of setting up interviews. The first interviews that we did were in March of 2025, and um we did some shoots of that last summer and kind of were getting final things, and then I was in the edit for a really long time, and it was kind of hard because I I was just trying to figure out how to piece all these things together and kind of figure out what the story was because we have you know, like a religious side of it, we have a reality TV show side of it, we have a health side of it, we talked to some health experts, we talked to a therapist, we talked to just people who live here and who drink it, and um, we talked to like both extremes of like drinking a lot of soda every day. We talked to someone who hadn't drank soda for 13 years. So just trying to for me, it was it was a big growing experience for me trying to figure out like what is the story here, like what's the thread that connects all of these, like what's important to tell. So, and a lot of it was making edits and sending them out and having to like deconstruct what you made and rebuild it. And so, yeah, so it kind of this one took a while. Um, we had a lot of pieces to it, and it was a big learning experience. So this one, yeah, like a year and a half, but but then sometimes we put documentaries out

What is the process of setting up interviews?

Madison Pope 24:50

in like four months.

Scott Brandley 24:51

So, what all is involved in setting it up to do an interview?

Madison Pope 24:56

Yeah, actually, it's like a lot of work, a lot of like pre-planning goes into it. Um, and as like doing documentary, you're working with real people, and you have to make sure, like, okay, are you comfortable um being a part of our documentary? Are you comfortable talking on this subject? And we're also, you know, we're not paying people. Um, we're getting real people, and it's not like paid actors saying exactly what you want to say. And we kind of will have an idea of what we want to talk about, and I'll come up with a list of questions. I'll usually send it to um the subject so that they can think about them and and know. I know some filmmakers probably don't do that. Some like there's different approaches. You can just show up and ask questions, or you can like send questions beforehand. Um, so yeah, we do think about that. And then, but the fun thing about documentary too is people will say things that totally surprise you, and you'll think you'll have an idea about something or how it will go. And in the interview, you'll learn new information from them and just be totally surprised. And so sometimes it will just change like the direction you were going in. And that's I think that's one thing I love about documentary because a lot of it you can't really plan for, and then you get a different story than the one you had originally thought you were going to get.

Darla Brandley 26:29

Yeah, that can be fun, like you know, you'll get something different, totally different.

Madison Pope 26:35

Yeah, yeah. So it's kind of crazy. And then as far as like we bring in all of our equipment, we bring in all of our lighting, um, we try to use like people's homes or their offices and just kind of have them in their natural environments. So like when you're when you're doing uh narrative work, you know, you can create like oh, we we will rent us this house and you can come here. And we do a little bit of that, but we try to capture people like where they are and try to stay as true to that as we can. Because it just kind of gives an authenticity and realness.

About Madison’s other documentary, “Born for This”

Madison Pope 27:20

Yeah. Awesome. What are some of the other documentaries that you've done? Um, so when I first got here, um came to Trademark, I worked on a documentary about a woman named Tia B. Stokes. I don't know if you're familiar with her. Um she's a Utah, she's a Utah, she's from Utah. She she lived in Orem and St. George, and so she was she was a really, really inspiring, incredible woman. She had, she got diagnosed with like a really aggressive blood cancer uh at 2020 and had five kids, had to go into the hospital, um, into isolation, and just fight, fight cancer really on her own in this hospital room. And she was a dancer, and she'd actually spent a lot of time raising money for people with cancer through her dance, uh dance crew that she had. They would do all these fundraisers for people with cancer. Then she finds out she has cancer, she's alone in the hospital. She um TikTok had just become a popular thing, and the doctor had said, like, you need to like move for 15 minutes every day. So she thought, okay, I'm I'll do a I'll dance. And so she started posting dances on TikTok every day, and she got a huge following, and she just took everyone through her journey. And um, when we met with up with her, she was in remission and um got to tell her story. And this past year, she's now a survivor. She hit her five-year mark, and so yeah, she she just had a beautiful story. Um, and it's a really it's really cool. She's a Latter-day Saint, and she's she really shares about like her faith and um and how like that helped her get through these those things and feeling like God had a plan for her and her family. And so it's really cool. And if you're interested in watching it, you can um it's on Tubi right now, which is like uh you can watch it for free on Tubi and a couple other places. It's called Born for This, the Tia B. Stokes story. So if you Google that, you can actually watch it. That's out right now. So it's kind of fun.

Darla Brandley 29:49

And we uh we also did what sorry, I was writing it down so I can remember. Okay, yeah, that's awesome.

About Madison’s tabletop film, “The Grim & The Dark”

Madison Pope 30:00

Yeah, and uh our company also made a a film about it's called The Grim and the Dark, which is uh sounds a little scary, but it's not. And um, it's about a genre, an art genre inside the world of like tabletop gaming. If you're familiar with like Dungeons and Dragons, Warhammer, kind of that, those types of games.

Darla Brandley 30:27

But our funny who are very into that kind of thing. Oh, cool, yes, yeah.

Madison Pope 30:33

So, and our fun, our fun fact about that doc is we um John Heater is in it, who played Napoleon Jack White, and he's kind of the guide. So we follow John Heater through the the world of uh tabletop games, and so that's kind of fun.

Darla Brandley 30:54

That is so fun. That's another one I want to watch. Yeah, Grim and what?

Madison Pope 31:00

Grim and The Grim and the Dark. The Grim and the Dark. You can see that it's on Apple TV, it's on Amazon Prime right now.

Scott Brandley 31:10

Awesome, awesome, and and so when does Saints and Oh, it's coming out in this summer. So you've got you've got it all done. You're just waiting for somebody to pick it up.

Darla Brandley 31:20

Yeah.

Scott Brandley 31:20

Okay.

Darla Brandley 31:21

That one sounds really good. I'm excited for that one too.

The process of getting a film on streaming

Scott Brandley 31:26

How does that process typically go? Like, how do you get it out and try to get someone to pick it up? What does that process typically look like?

Madison Pope 31:35

Yeah, so I I'm not really a big part of that. Um, but a lot of people are curious about that. Um, so I mean, as far as I know, like our team will reach out to contacts that they have. And another resource we use, we have like a website where we submit our films and they kind of shop it around for you and it gets picked up. So that's that's what we've used. I can't think of the name of it. Um, but that's how our films are like on the platforms that they are right now. So

On film festivals

Madison Pope 32:10

yeah, it's kind of it's kind of interesting.

Scott Brandley 32:13

What about film festivals? Is that something that you guys do too?

Madison Pope 32:17

Yeah, we've had a lot of fun with film festivals this year. We got to go to the Utah International Film Festival in January, which was super fun. A ton of like local filmmakers, local actors. They go to these film festivals. So if you're interested in film, it's such a great place to network with people because there's a all the locals are there. It's a very collaborative experience. They do like panels, and everyone is trying to get to know each other. So it's like a great place to see independent film and also make connections. We went to there's a the Zions Independent Film Festival, which is an Orim. Uh, we went to that one this year, and that was super fun. Um, again, like same vibe, like a lot of Utah filmmakers are there. Um, that one's kind of fun. I think it used to be called like so it's the Zions Film Festival now. It used to be called like the the like Mormon Film Festival back in the day or something. So it has like a connection, it's like so very faith-based, and like Living Scriptures has like a block of movies. There's a lot of like Angel Studios stuff there, so um, yeah, you could there's a lot of like faith-based films being made, and it then you can see them all there, and a lot of those films end up on Angel Studios or Living Scriptures, so that's kind of like a fun Utah thing, and then we've been to like there was a really fun film festival in Pocatello that we were a part of this year, so it's kind of yeah, that's been fun.

Darla Brandley 34:07

That's amazing. I didn't realize that like that there would be some in some of the smaller places like that. That's kind of really cool, really cool.

Madison Pope 34:15

Yeah, yeah.

Darla Brandley 34:16

Because Pocatello is not that big, you know.

Madison Pope 34:18

It's no and it was their first time, yeah. Yeah, you wouldn't you wouldn't expect it, but they they it was their first year, and so yeah, I mean look out for that film festival because hopefully they'll keep doing it. They had our team had a lot of fun up there, so that's very cool.

Scott Brandley 34:39

So,

Trademark Film’s future plans

Scott Brandley 34:40

what do you see next? Do you have do you have future plans?

Madison Pope 34:45

We uh no, I'm not totally sure. We're we're making one right now about a bladesmith that lives in um he lives in Utah, I think he's in Utah County, and it's kind of amazing. He's been on like TV shows about bladesmithing. He's very successful. Um I I can only think of his I can only think of his Instagram handle right now, which is Nate the Blade Maker, but he's making these incredible works of art of you know, knives and other things, and he does it out of his garage and has a beautiful studio there. So we're doing like a short dock on him. I mean, there's so many interesting people, just um it's funny, like you know, just our neighbors, it can be like these huge award-winning, you just never know who who you're talking to. So amazing. I love that. Yeah, so we we have that one um in post-production right now, and then we're trying to think of our next big idea. So if you have any ideas, reach out. I wish I knew some really cool people.

Scott Brandley 36:06

I have I have one that I think you might be interested in talking to, but I'll talk to you about it after.

Madison Pope 36:13

Oh, okay.

Scott Brandley 36:17

Um, yeah, so that's awesome. Um well, this has been super fun. Um we really appreciate you coming on and sharing some of the fun things you're working

Final thoughts

Scott Brandley 36:30

on. Um, is there anything you'd like to share? Kind of final thoughts before we kind of wrap things up.

Madison Pope 36:36

Um, yeah, well, thanks for having me. And it's been super fun. Um, yeah, it's been a cool experience. I think it's fun to take a look at our unique culture that we have here. I think there's we're in the media a lot right now, and there's a lot of over-generalizations about our church, and there's a lot of misinformation, and there's a lot of you know, funny things that that go around. So I think making this film was a fun chance to kind of just talk about more of the nuance of things, and also we have a lot of fun with it too. You know, we can kind of poke fun at ourselves and but also I feel I feel proud, proud to be part of you know, this family. And and so I I just hope that it's just a fun way for people to connect and kind of get some some context. And so, yeah, it's been a good journey. But it's been a lot of fun, yeah. Yeah, it has.

Scott Brandley 37:44

Well, thanks,

Outro

Scott Brandley 37:45

thanks again for coming on, Madison. We really appreciate your time.

Madison Pope 37:49

Yeah, it was great for beauty, guys.

Scott Brandley 37:51

Uh thanks everyone for tuning in to another episode of Latterday Lights. If you have a story that you'd like to share, um, you can go to latterdaylights.com or email us at latterdaylights at email.com. Thanks again, man. Thanks again, tuning in everybody, and we'll see you in the next video.