NOLA Film Scene Christmas Livestream

Imagine a holiday season brimming with nostalgia, laughter, and a few hilarious technical mishaps. Our latest episode takes you on a merry ride through the warm memories of childhood Christmas traditions, interspersed with tales from our hectic schedules juggling work, auditions, and podcasting. We sprinkle in discussions about some delightful yet lesser-known Christmas specials and reminisce about iconic toys that once topped our wish lists. All this, paired with a playful longing for a SAG contract as the ultimate holiday gift, sets the perfect tone for a festive adventure.

Voiced by Brian Plaideau

Have you been injured? New Orleans based actor, Jana McCaffery, has been practicing law in Louisiana since 1999, specializing in personal injury since 2008. She takes helping others very seriously.  If you have been injured, Jana is offering a free consultation AND a reduced fee for fellow members of the Lousiana film industry, and she will handle your case from start to finish. She can be reached at janamccaffery@gmail.com or 504-837-1234. Tell Her NOLA Film Scene sent you

Transcript

Speaker 2 0:12

We are live. We are live streaming on Facebook, youtube and Twitch.

Speaker 1 0:18

You'll see me looking down folks I'm just trying to share from his Facebook to my Facebook so we can get people to join us. But Merry Christmas.

Speaker 2 0:28

Merry Christmas and Happy Hol.

Speaker 1 0:30

Holidays, happy Hanukkah.

Speaker 2 0:34

Happy Hanukkah, happy Holidays. Yeah, and I'm not gonna do the Santa Claus, ho, ho, ho. I I had to do it in an audition this year and I don't know, still feeling it. Yeah, it's just kind of it's going to be hard to top that one. I left everything in the audition room on that one and I think I did one last year when we recorded.

Speaker 1 1:01

Yeah, I'm not seeing you on Facebook streaming.

Speaker 2 1:03

Okay, it says. It says that we're live. Let me see if it's on.

Speaker 1 1:10

While you're doing that Mic bump. Mic bump. Yesterday we did it. We were all looking down so I figured I'd just ramble while you do all the tech stuff, as usual.

Speaker 2 1:21

So okay, it says I'm live, but I guess I have to toggle it on like before. Let me see if it's going to show up live on it's not, we'll just share it later, folks, we will.

Speaker 1 1:35

We'll do the lives and then we'll drop them as regular episodes. That helps, makes it a little bit easier on us because we want to give you content every week, but it can be really challenging. You know regular schedule of work, auditions, when we're blessed to get booked on that, you know some kind of role and then go back into. I do part of the editing, tj does the other half. So that's one of our goals is to find some help and we've got a few leads More. Okay, I was going to I'm going to jump ahead. While you're doing that, I was going to talk about some Christmas specials Maybe people haven't heard about. I, while you're doing that, I was going to talk about some Christmas specials maybe people haven't heard about.

Speaker 2 2:11

I don't even know if we've talked about these. Is somebody chatting? It sounded like you reacted to somebody.

Speaker 1 2:15

No, no, no, that was just me. I looked at you to see if you were still finagling.

Speaker 2 2:21

Yeah, I'm trying to figure it out.

Speaker 1 2:23

So we did this yesterday and we were just practicing with the tech tech and there's about nine minutes of us doing this. Are we on? Are we on? So I was going to try to be a little more entertaining. And the first special I want to talk about is called A Wish for Wings that Work, and if you've ever read, you know it's Opus the Penguin. I just forgot the other thing Something County, blossom County. It was a comic strip and I just blanked on the regular name. But Opus and Bill Bill the Cat, and Opus is a penguin who wants to fly and Opus is voiced by Michael Bell, duke from GI Joe, and he was also one of my teachers. I took some Zoom classes with him, but I loved Opus growing up in the comic strips. Yeah, it's Bloom County. Okay, just definitely went in my head. You just show an old man moment there, just kind of everything Slow down. And then, uh, the nanny had a Christmas special. Did you ever see that one?

Speaker 2 3:18

No.

Speaker 1 3:19

Oh, so it was episode and it's all drawn like the opening titles, if you remember that. And so she visits the North pole, comes back and I think she wakes up kind of well. I won't say the ending. And the third one I was thinking of is a Maxine Christmas Carol Hallmark had a card with an old lady named Maxine and she was grumpy and you know acerbic and you know sarcastic, and then they made a Christmas special out of it. You can't find it. You got to look on YouTube to get it.

Speaker 2 3:51

Those three are some of my favorites and they're obscure. Yeah, I got to look something up.

Speaker 1 3:55

Okay, so I get more time to talk.

Speaker 2 3:58

You get more time. Entertain the people I've got to come up with something to say.

Speaker 1 4:03

Let me take a sip. So what else this Christmas? You know, when we were growing up there was Cabbage Patch. Later in the 90s there was Tickle Me Elmo. I don't know what the hot toy this is this year. Hmm, probably shouldn't have brought it up if I didn't know. I think it would be a SAG contract for me. Dear Santa, put me in the movies. Oh please, santa, I want some more. Wait, that's Oliver, that's not Tiny Tim. God bless us. Every studio.

Speaker 2 4:34

All right. So have you seen the Christmas Carol version with Guy Pearce? I have not. He played the bad guy, he played Killian in iron man 3 right. So there was a version that he was in and I think it was on fx. I have not been able to find it this year. Yeah, but that's also. That's a pretty good version. It's kind of long but you know, it's got the darker FX twist to it.

Speaker 1 5:10

And it was scary too, wasn't it Really intense.

Speaker 2 5:17

It was intense. Yeah, I mean scary is relative, Maybe a little more so than the other ones, as opposed to Mickey's Christmas Carol. Or Scrooged.

Speaker 1 5:26

Yeah, with Bill Murray. What's?

Speaker 2 5:27

the last one. Oh, bill Murray yeah.

Speaker 1 5:29

Scrooged with Bill Murray. What's the last one? Oh, Bill Murray.

Speaker 2 5:31

Yeah, scrooged Bill Murray.

Speaker 1 5:33

I heard you say Scrooged, I spoke. I couldn't hear you. When I heard you said Murray, I heard Mary. I was like Mary, who I like Patrick Stewart's audio book of A Christmas Carol. Have you ever heard that? He is such a phenomenal actor? Yeah, like he does Scrooge's snoring and it's even that's beautiful. You know what I?

Speaker 2 5:58

mean.

Speaker 1 5:58

Yeah, cause I like listening to audio books and podcasts while I'm doing my day job of cleaning.

Speaker 2 6:03

Sure.

Holiday Movies and LARPing Chats

Speaker 1 6:06

I guess it's a night job, night nighttime job anyway. Um, but it's just night job, night time job Anyway. But it's one man on stage and when he does the other voices, even of the ladies, it's not Over the top, it's just right. So you're not even thinking that's Patrick Stewart doing a lady's voice. You're able to lose yourself in a story and just hear Scrooge's ex I can't remember her name again, an old man moment. But I I was kind of toying with the idea for a Christmas Carol, like what if one of his descendants became a new scrooge but then had the ability to time travel and disrupt the original story? And then? But once they did, as all time travel stories do. Now you have a paradox.

Speaker 1 7:02

Now you have the world's in ruins even more so so you have to go back and recreate it, so they have to become the ghosts with special effects or whatever they have to do.

Speaker 2 7:13

Yeah.

Speaker 1 7:14

And then I remembered a real Ghostbusters Christmas Carol. Did you ever see that?

Speaker 2 7:20

No.

Speaker 1 7:21

Okay, so it was the cartoon and it was voiced by oh, I forget, I'm not going to go into that, but basically it was the same thing and I was just recreating it years later. I was like, oh, I can't do that.

Speaker 2 7:34

So it must have been buried in your mind somewhere that you thought of it.

Speaker 1 7:38

Yeah, and I love that one. But it's the same thing. They go through a time warp. They actually get hired by Scrooge. They disrupt the ghosts. Then they have to recreate it with them being the ghosts at the set, Everything right.

Speaker 2 7:57

Tear in the fabric of time that has to be repaired, exactly, exactly. I mean there's nothing saying you couldn't do a live action reboot of that. It seems that we are in the decade of reboots. There's no reason why you couldn't, I don't think. I think it could end up being pretty good. It could. A sci-fi twist on a Christmas carol, yeah.

Speaker 1 8:27

And it still was original. Just happened to something that came up out of my subconscious, kind of like when we talked to Rick Overton. You try to say something funny and you realize later oh, I heard that then, so it's not really plagiarism.

Speaker 2 8:41

Right.

Speaker 1 8:42

But I'd still want to put more of a twist on it, but that would just take more work in the writing and this is my thoughts and I haven't sat down and wrote anything. Now are we live on Facebook?

Speaker 2 8:54

There it goes. Yeah, I think we are, we are. I had to toggle the switch the privacy switch to public.

Speaker 1 9:02

And you did it, so I just want to share that so people on my page can see it. So you go ahead Any specials or movies. Just want to share that so people can.

Speaker 2 9:10

uh on my page can see it, so you go ahead. Uh, any specials or movies you want to bring up. Yeah, Wait, are we talking Christmas movies or movies that we've been in that are now available? Just?

Speaker 1 9:18

Christmas movies. Then we can talk. We'll. We'll end with sharing some things, like we did yesterday, of stuff we've done, things we can talk about.

Speaker 2 9:26

Yeah, no, I, I was just sharing it, sharing it to the page. So I think we're gonna watch a christmas story tonight one day.

Speaker 1 9:36

You're gonna wait one day before the marathon uh, the marathon.

Speaker 2 9:43

Yeah, well, I have it. I have a copy of it me too.

Speaker 1 9:47

I have vhs, dvd, blu-ray and digital copy and streaming. Of course you can find on max, but I still watch the marathon and it's two channels now, tbs and tnt, and they're an hour set apart, so every hour you could watch the opening if you wanted, for 24 hours.

Speaker 2 10:08

And have you seen the sequel the 2022 or 2023, whenever it was sequel that came out?

Speaker 1 10:16

Two years ago. Yeah, I saw it. I like that.

Speaker 2 10:18

So I know, I mean, I know, they did another one, another Christmas story sequel. I'm not counting that one, I'm counting this one with um whatchamadoodle.

Speaker 1 10:30

Little Ralphie grownup.

Speaker 2 10:31

Yeah, I can't. I'm drawing a blank on his name Peter Billingsley. Yeah, peter Billingsley.

Speaker 1 10:38

Who I just saw in elf. Last night I was watching that.

Speaker 2 10:41

Yup, he was in something else too, he. He was the counter guy in four Christmases with Vince Vaughn and uh man, what is her name?

Speaker 1 11:01

Reese Witherspoon.

Speaker 2 11:02

Reese Witherspoon Yup, yeah, he was the airline counter guy when they were trying to check in there to their flight to go to Tahiti or wherever they were going.

Speaker 1 11:14

I know they're friends. Of course he and Favreau are friends, and Vince and Favreau they all could. But they did a comedy touring film like the wild West or something that was supposed to come to new orleans right as katrina hit, uh so and peter directed it, uh, so they delayed it and then finished it up. So it's all coming together, folks, mic bump playing coming together. We'll fix it in post. Oh, it does no post.

Speaker 2 12:25

We, we watched Hawkeye obviously, christmas movie theme right now. Yeah, we watched the Hawkeye series this weekend, me and the kids. And when you did that mic bump and I'm I made that sound, I'm it reminded me of the scene where they were, where he had to fight the larper, yeah, and the the larper got to kill him so he could get the suit. And when they were doing the sword moves, the guy in the background was going fling, fling. He was like doing sound effects. It was hysterical and it reminded. I thought of it just now when you bumped your mic. I'm like you remember the video fireball, fireball.

Speaker 1 13:08

LARPers, when they're a wizard, would throw the tennis ball like a spell.

Speaker 2 13:12

Okay, okay.

Speaker 1 13:13

I didn't LARP. I was in the SCA before LARPing was a thing. So the society for creative anachronisms? Okay, you dress up in armor and stuff.

Speaker 2 13:24

Yeah.

Speaker 1 13:24

So my friend had gotten me into that. It was late 70s and we also played D&D, but they're separate, you know, one's kind of more historical. It's changed a bit, I guess. And so you would go play football after school, we would go sword fight, so you'd have a shield, you have a bonker tube, so that's what you ship, ship golf clubs in yeah yeah, we call that a bonker tube.

Speaker 1 13:53

I don't know if that's what everybody else does. And if you get hit below the shoulder, in the arm now, you can't use that arm for the rest of the fight a bonker tube like bonk.

Speaker 2 14:02

That's the sound it makes, bonk tube like bonk. Oh yeah, that's the sound it makes.

Speaker 1 14:09

Bonk, exactly bonk like a long plastic paper towel. Yeah, I'm seeing it. Yeah, so you lose your arm. Uh, below your thigh, you lose your leg.

Speaker 1 14:15

You'd have to go to one leg and chest and head you're dead yeah so then rent fair would come around every year, and the jefferson I'm having so much trouble talking today the jefferson performing arts society would hire the sca okay, to wear their armor and do their stuff, and so then the kids like they had this field there, and this was at lafayette park, which is in metairie, where I'm at right and now I think, uh, renaissance festival is on the north shore multiple weekends and a totally different animal, but you'd have the guys in armor and they'd fight with rattan swords.

Speaker 1 14:51

So you needed that armor, same rules about arms and legs and stuff, but they had helmets and you know heavy, heavy armor. So when they finished doing their part and they go take a break, we would get on the field Six of us who do this every day and fight the kids who showed up for with their parents. It was six of us against 20 to 25 of them. Yeah, beat the shit out of them, yeah.

Speaker 2 15:20

So I never. I never did any of that. I have been to a few Ren Fairs. I never did any of that. I have been to a few Ren Fairs. I had a friend he's a few years older than me that used to compete in the strongman stuff like the caber toss, where they're throwing basically a telephone pole and throwing big bales of hay up over a thing thing. There's I don't know four, four or five different things of feats of strength, but they would have that going on at the same time that the, the renaissance fair was going on. I always had a good time going. I just never, I don't know I. I just didn't know people that were into it enough to be able to get into it.

Speaker 1 16:02

All right right, hey, nothing wrong with that, yeah, or is there something really wrong with that?

Speaker 2 16:09

I'm just kidding you know they make it out to to be nerdy, but they're, I mean they're, they're still they're performing. You know they are, they're, they're, I mean they're not doing anything different than we did as kids playing.

Speaker 1 16:24

You know all kinds of different stuff which is just like what we're trying to do for a living now.

Speaker 2 16:29

That's right. Well, hmm, all right, what? What are the movies you have left?

Speaker 1 16:38

that I need to watch.

Speaker 2 16:39

Yeah.

Speaker 1 16:41

Well, we tried to start Die Hard and my wife and. I both fell asleep.

Speaker 2 16:45

Yeah.

Speaker 1 16:46

Not that there was anything wrong with the movie I'll put on Mystery Science Theater 3000.

Speaker 2 16:52

Yeah.

Speaker 1 16:52

Well, it's on Tubi, so when I start getting tired I'll put one on, and lately, of course, it's been Santa Claus Conquers the Martians. Santa Claus, which was a Mexican movie brought to America and it's crazy, and a few others. But I can close my eyes and listen and I don't need to see it anymore and the guy's jokes are the same. So that's comfort food for sleeping? I guess it's not food, but you know what I mean. You know what I'm trying to say. But the same thing with Die Hard it's that I do have a Die Hard story. I don't think I've ever told you this before I'm intrigued.

Holiday Preparations and Event Promotions

Speaker 1 17:32

Let's hear it movie came out in 89, yeah, and I had seen it at the theater and then a couple of my friends wanted to go see it. I was like, all right, fine, and we were middle back, not all the way back, second third row from the end, and I got up to use the bathroom. I came back in and I'm watching the screen and I see a couple of people and I scoot in and I sit down. I don't want to mess it up for my friends, so I don't even say anything. And something happened. I go hey, look at that.

Speaker 2 18:04

Oh, say anything and something happened. I go, hey, look at that. Oh, it was a good time, did I did? Did I ever tell you the story that I've worked in a movie theater as my first job? Yeah, so we, we hired this guy after I had been working there for several years. To this day I can't remember his real name, but we called him randy. I think his real name was rusty, but we called him right. Do you remember mtv had randy of the redwoods?

Speaker 2 18:45

He would do like crazy stuff and he would talk and point. He kind of reminded us of that guy because he was just out there. Funny, like that he did. He was college roommates are in the same dorm as the um, how, what, what's that group? They used to do crank calls and they would record it. He was friends, college friends, with the Jerky Boys when they were doing this stuff before they became famous. So that just gives you a little bit of the mindset of this kid. So a big group of us from work were watching a movie one night. He's's like watch this and he, the movie was something scary, maybe a little bit gross, and he does this heaving sound and then he pours a soda with ice on the floor and it sounded like he was up even and it was hysterical and that kid did stuff like that all the time. It was like living or working with a live comic. He was crazy hysterical. I don't think he meant to be most of the time, yeah, that kid was.

Speaker 2 20:01

Wait what.

Speaker 1 20:06

He grew up to run Star Wars.

Speaker 2 20:10

I think, honestly, I think he got into some type of animation. That was the path he was taking.

Speaker 1 20:18

One of the Jerky Boys plays Mort Goldman on Family Guy.

Speaker 2 20:24

Oh, interesting, interesting. Sorry, I can't remember your name, sir. Oh interesting, interesting.

Speaker 1 20:27

Sorry, I can't remember your name, sir. Please forgive me.

Speaker 2 20:32

Hmm, all right Well.

Speaker 1 20:36

We just wanted to jump on say hi again like yesterday, test the equipment so we can learn how to do this better and share. Annoy you people more, I mean entertain you people more.

Speaker 2 20:46

I almost wish I should have had you narrate. We should take turns narrating the night before Christmas.

Speaker 1 20:54

Well, our good friend Hick Jeremy just did the Cajun night before Christmas. I had an audition, we did this yesterday, and when we finished it was time for Hick to be on Uncle Jackie's gumbo show.

Speaker 2 21:10

Yeah, I think that's right.

Speaker 1 21:12

And so I clicked it on while I was prepping an audition and they were interviewing someone else and it was a simple audition I didn't even need a reader. So I said, okay, let me get rid of this, I'll do my stuff. I didn't rush to get it done, I just I did what I did and I was happy with it.

Speaker 2 21:29

Yeah, you know what I mean.

Speaker 1 21:30

I did my best, but I didn't obsess and like each thing. They gave you five or six lines to do and you would say it and then you could say it again pause and then go on to the next line. You know what I mean. It pause and then go on to the next line. You know what I mean. It was as instructions go. It was simple.

Speaker 2 21:47

Yeah.

Speaker 1 21:48

I just had fun with it. I played voices, finished it up, went to my other computer, started editing, turned on the show and they said and that was Hick Jeremy narrating Nightmare Before Christmas, a Cajun Night Before Christmas. So I missed it, so hopefully they'll release it as a podcast. Christmas so I missed it, so hopefully they'll release it as a podcast. I think they should just do it, just as him reading that that could be a yearly tradition. But hey, that's me. But last year we did the Christmas cards.

Speaker 1 22:15

Some people have seen them. Those were a lot of fun. And Hicks, Jeremy, I got to say that was my favorite.

Speaker 2 22:19

Yeah.

Speaker 1 22:20

Just cause I. He did it where, like he was being interrupted, and I timed the music to stop with him. It was a lot of fun.

Speaker 2 22:26

Yeah, his was good and funny.

Speaker 1 22:33

We could start now getting people saying things or even planning a story time. So where this would be a group effort, brand new Christmas story. We've got a year to plan it and that might not be enough time.

Speaker 2 22:48

It might not, if we get on it, maybe.

Speaker 1 22:50

Or we could do it in installments, like Tolkien did for his Christmas. He did his Christmas letters to his kids. Break it up, hmm. Interesting T-shirts out of it. T-shirts will be coming out in 2025, folks, I promise you, because I want you to get those T-shirts.

Speaker 2 23:13

They'll be out.

Speaker 1 23:14

Put it back in the show and hire some engineers so we can do more shows.

Speaker 2 23:18

That's right. Editors, we need editors.

Speaker 1 23:22

Yep, and we've got, I think, about eight shows in the can already, if we want to say that. So we're going to start this year off with a bang. Yeah, should we say who our first guest is for January 1st for next year? You want to wait?

Speaker 2 23:39

Yeah, yeah, I mean we might as well promo it. Oh, yeah, yeah, totally For sure, I mean we might as well promo it?

Speaker 1 23:47

Oh yeah, yeah, totally For sure. Just checking the message real quick so we have Fiona McQuinn, and not only is she a great local actress, she's a friend of ours, but she is one of the heads of the Abita Springs International Film Festival. Yep, and on January, the weekend of January 10th, that's when her, that's when the festival comes out. So we're going to tell you how to get tickets, how to go see the films and have a great time.

Speaker 2 24:19

Yeah, and her episode comes out January 1st. That's our new episode. We sat down and talked to her about the film festival. We did a film that was entered in that. It's a Western, a period piece. A lot of our friends were in it and it's called A man from Bandera and it will be shown at the Abita Springs International Film Festival the weekend of January 10th. I don't know if we're going to be there, it depends on what day they play it. We also are attending Fan Expo New Orleans the same weekend, january 10th, new Orleans, the same weekend, january 10th. On January 10th at 2 pm we will be on a panel discussing films with the host of the 90 for Chill podcast.

Speaker 1 25:20

I'm glad you said 90 for Chill. My brain was going 90 for something, 90 for Chill. Cat Bus Russ.

Speaker 2 25:24

Cat Bus Russ, that's right.

Speaker 1 25:26

A couple of promos we're going to drop and we just got our press passes or approved for press passes, so we're hoping to get a few interviews. Last year we did them. Uh, I talked from the friends and being live is different from being in our own little studios. There's a lot of background, noise, background noise, yeah A lot of it we couldn't share. We shared them as videos, but we couldn't turn them into episodes.

Speaker 2 25:46

Right.

Speaker 1 25:49

But I get to annoy more people. What are you?

Speaker 2 25:51

doing? What are you doing? We might use some different mics this year so we can get a little bit better quality interviews.

Festive Wishes and Sci-Fi References

Speaker 1 25:59

I bought some new live mics with the fur on it. You know what I mean. I don't know if it's super better. You know, blocking out sound, Of course. Uh, with Rachel Pizzolatto, we were right in front of a speaker and a stage, yeah, Recording with us. So that was. We were just blown up.

Speaker 2 26:19

Yeah.

Speaker 1 26:20

One day, Rachel, we're going to have you on the show.

Speaker 2 26:23

I think I have you on the show, I think I think the dji lab mics should do pretty good and I'm planning to take the the gimbal, so I think we'll get. We'll get some decent footage.

Speaker 1 26:36

I hope we'll see and I've got two of my photo ops planned out another lord of the rings, one andy Serkis and Dr who. Dat is coming back. So for those who know, and I'm bringing Tuesday the Adipose, and Adipose was a creature in Dr who. He's made of fat. So Tuesday the fat Fat, tuesday Dr who, dat's companion, but a new version, interesting interesting, alright folks.

Speaker 2 27:05

Well, we hope you have a Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays. Who that's companion? But a new version Interesting, Interesting, All right folks. Well, we hope you have a Merry Christmas, happy holidays, happy Hanukkah happy Kwanzaa.

Speaker 1 27:14

I don't know if you say Merry Ramadan or happy Ramadan. Whatever you celebrate to the atheists. Have a good Wednesday whatever. Whatever you want to do, take a break, enjoy your friends and family, enjoy your time off. We will see you here next week.