RiverRun for Kids! (w/Keith Cantrell)

Each year the RiverRun International Film Festival features special screenings for the whole family to enjoy. This year Richard took all four of his junior Nerdhatters to experience the "Films with Class: Elementary School" screening at the Reynolds Place Theatre. Afterwards he sat down in the grass at a local park to talk with them about their favorite animated shorts from the program. 

Their selections? 

- "Blu's" (2025, RedGod Studios)

- "Sunspark" (2026, Neverthought Studios)

- "Something Greater than You" (2026, LePage Creatives)

- "The Cloud Herder" (2025, Daily Madness Productions)

    This episode also includes an interview with animator Keith Cantrell ( @keithcartoons ). Keith conceived, wrote, directed, and animated the short film "Monkey Gino," which was selected to be a part of the "Saturday Morning Cartoons" lineup at this year's festival. 

Learn more about "Monkey Gino" and Keith's other projects: 

https://www.keithcartoons.com/monkeygino

Learn more about "Blu's" & RedGod Studios' other projects: 

https://www.redgodstudios.com/projects

Learn more about "Sunspark" and Danny Barque's other work: 

https://sunsparkmovie.com/index.html

Learn more about "Something Great than You" and Gordon LePage's work: 

https://www.lepagecreatives.com/portfolio-collections/my-portfolio/something-greater-than-you

Learn more about "The Cloud Herder" and Daily Madness Productions' work: 

https://www.instagram.com/dailymadnessproductions?utm_source=ig_web_button_share_sheet&igsh=ZDNlZDc0MzIxNw==

*The views and opinions expressed by guests do not necessarily represent the views and opinions of the Nerdhat podcast or its hosts.*

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Transcript

SPEAKER_11 0:00

Who else do we have here?

SPEAKER_07 0:01

Sage.

SPEAKER_11 0:02

So, what girls were?

SPEAKER_07 0:04

I'm directing a movie.

SPEAKER_11 0:06

Oh.

SPEAKER_07 0:07

I'm making a movie to make my own movie theater.

SPEAKER_11 0:12

Okay. So she is getting ready to make a movie. Is is that related to something we did today? Like what did we do this afternoon?

SPEAKER_07 0:20

We went to a theater to see cartoons.

SPEAKER_11 0:23

That's right. And do you remember where the theater was?

SPEAKER_06 0:27

Yeah, it was at Sawtooth.

SPEAKER_11 0:29

Yeah, right in the same building as Sawtooth, right? So it was in the Milton Road Center. Yeah. The theater was called the Reynolds Place Theater.

SPEAKER_08 0:39

So that's where it has. Then someone wants them to have.

SPEAKER_09 0:45

So that was a mess it up.

SPEAKER_11 0:49

Let me put my head up. That's right. That's right.

SPEAKER_09 0:53

So five minutes.

SPEAKER_11 0:54

What did you girls what did you girls think of the movies? Did you have a favorite? Nerdy.

SPEAKER_10 1:00

Nostalgic.

SPEAKER_02 1:01

Madly inappropriate. This is nerd hat. Nerd hat. I'm with late. Why am I a robot?

Junior Nerdhatters' Reviews

SPEAKER_11 1:13

It's here, our first official family-friendly episode. So, this one is in particular for the kids, so I thought it best that we begin with the kids. So I took all four of my daughters to go and see the Films with Class elementary school screening at the River International Film Festival. It was the first thing I went to see in person myself, so it was really fun to get to bring all four of my daughters there, and they really enjoyed it. Afterwards, while we were playing at a park, we sat down out in the grass. I brought my trusty Zoom hand recorder with me, handed my girls mics, and we talked about what their favorite films were from the selection of shorts. So, in this very special episode, we're gonna begin with that, because I know my kids they want to hear other kids talk. I think that's exciting and that's fun for them. So we're gonna begin with that, and then we will transition into an interview that Will and I did with Keith Cantrell, who was the creator of Monkey Gino, one of the short animated films that was a part of the Saturday morning cartoons screening at the River Run International Film Festival. So that's what's coming up on this week's episode of the Nerd Hat Podcast. Hope you enjoyed. Now let's get to it. I am here with my daughters. Hello, daughters. Can you tell us your names?

SPEAKER_07 2:57

I'm Autumn.

SPEAKER_11 3:01

What's what's no, don't take it off. What's your name?

SPEAKER_08 3:03

Ulma.

SPEAKER_11 3:04

Here you gotta talk into the microphone. Ulma. Ulma. That's right. And we also have who else do we have here?

SPEAKER_08 3:11

Sage. Sagey.

SPEAKER_11 3:12

Seji's here. Seiji's here too. So what girls were directing a movie? Oh.

SPEAKER_07 3:19

I'm making a movie to make my own movie theater.

SPEAKER_11 3:24

Okay. So she is getting ready to make a movie. Is is that related to something we did today? Like what did we do this afternoon?

SPEAKER_07 3:32

We went to a theater to see cartoons.

SPEAKER_11 3:35

That's right. And do you remember where the theater was?

SPEAKER_06 3:39

Yeah, it was at Sawtooth.

SPEAKER_11 3:41

Yeah, right in the same building as Sawtooth, right? So it was in the Milton Road Center. Yeah. The theater was called the Reynolds Place Theater.

SPEAKER_08 3:51

Yeah, that's where. Then somebody wants something. So that one.

SPEAKER_09 4:01

Let me put my tune.

SPEAKER_11 4:04

That's right, that's right.

SPEAKER_09 4:05

So five minutes.

SPEAKER_11 4:06

What did you girls what did you girls think of the movies? Did you have a favorite?

SPEAKER_09 4:11

Yeah. Okay.

SPEAKER_11 4:12

Let's let Autumn go first. Alright, Autumn's gonna tell me her favorite. The one made by Red God Studios, the last one?

SPEAKER_07 4:20

Yes.

SPEAKER_11 4:21

Here, let's see. Let me look up the list so we have the right names of all the movies here. Do do do do do do do do do do. So the final one was called Blues.

SPEAKER_07 4:33

I thought it was called Red God.

SPEAKER_11 4:35

Well it was made by a company called Red God Studios, and it came from India. Alright, so Autumn, so your favorite was Blues. That was the final film. What was your what was your favorite part about it?

SPEAKER_07 4:47

My favorite part was maybe what my favorite part was um the blue. You gotta talk into the big page.

SPEAKER_11 4:59

There you go. What's the part? Your favorite part.

SPEAKER_07 5:03

Where when started getting destroyed.

SPEAKER_11 5:08

Autumn's talking, it'll be your turn next, okay?

SPEAKER_07 5:10

I like the end where the forest try to get destroyed. And then the little girl says.

SPEAKER_11 5:18

So who do you Hey Alma? Don't do that, okay? It's making too much noise. Okay, I'm gonna let Autumn finish.

SPEAKER_07 5:24

Mine is a ghost movie.

SPEAKER_11 5:26

Oh, hey. Alright. So, hold on. There you go. Alright, Autumn. So let's Do you wanna do you wanna start again? Tell me about your favorite part of blues.

SPEAKER_07 5:37

My favorite part was the part where the forest was getting destroyed.

SPEAKER_11 5:44

So who do you think the girl was? Do you think she was supposed to be someone in particular?

SPEAKER_07 5:51

I think she was the girl of nature.

SPEAKER_11 5:57

Yeah, I think you're right. Yeah, I think I think she represented nature.

SPEAKER_07 6:03

I think she was born I think her parents ex left her in the forest and then she woke and then she woke up in the for and then she grew up in the forest.

SPEAKER_11 6:15

Hmm. That sounds cool. That would be interesting, wouldn't it?

SPEAKER_07 6:19

Well anything I see?

SPEAKER_11 6:21

Alright, so Alma's next. Alright, let me turn Alma's mic on. Alright, Alma. What? What was your favorite movie?

SPEAKER_07 6:31

Um green.

SPEAKER_11 6:33

The what?

SPEAKER_07 6:34

Green.

SPEAKER_11 6:35

So we got, so here are the different ones. We got blues, we had sunspark. With the rope with the robots.

SPEAKER_07 6:42

Sunspark.

SPEAKER_11 6:43

You like the robots? Yeah. So what did you like about the robots? Here, you got talking to the mic. Fun. Was it fun? Yeah. What what was the story about?

SPEAKER_07 6:56

Robots.

SPEAKER_11 6:57

Robots? So do you think the robots were in love? What do you think?

SPEAKER_06 7:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_11 7:05

Yeah? So what did they never say what his name was. Let's dig so girl. So let's say the one with the the green the green robot, we'll say she's the girl robot. And the boy robot is the gray robot. What did uh what did he do? Did you have a did you have a favorite part of the movie?

SPEAKER_04 7:26

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It was Whip or the Robot Doggy?

SPEAKER_11 7:33

Yeah. Oh, the robot doggy? Was there a robot doggy? No? I didn't see a doggy. Was there something that that he was growing at the beginning?

SPEAKER_01 7:44

Uh yeah.

SPEAKER_11 7:45

Yeah? What was it?

SPEAKER_01 7:48

A flower.

SPEAKER_11 7:49

Sunflowers, right? Sunflowers? And was the robot that he rescued from the junkyard was she able to grow flowers? Was she able to grow flowers too?

SPEAKER_05 8:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_11 8:04

Cool. Okay. Alright. Emma, do you want to go next or or Stagey? Emma? Okay. Alright, we'll finish with Saji. Say gets to tick. Alright. Hold on, hold on, Saji. Emma's gonna tell hers, and then you get to tell yours. Alright, so Emma, what was your favorite one? So we had line 12, which was about the train. Then we had something greater than you about the raccoons. Was that your favorite?

SPEAKER_10 8:32

Yes.

SPEAKER_11 8:33

Alright, so something greater than you. You wanna tell us what it was about?

SPEAKER_07 8:39

There were two raccoons. They were fighting. Um and then they heard this weird noise. Out the outside in front of the door.

SPEAKER_11 8:56

There was there was something happening outside too, wasn't there?

SPEAKER_07 8:59

Like they and then one raccoon opened the door, and there was a there was a bad storm outside, right?

SPEAKER_11 9:08

Oh you guys remember the chickadee. That's right. There was a chickadee.

SPEAKER_07 9:12

There was a chickadee outside. They opened the door. So they they're trying to make the bird w the chickadee warm. And then they fell asleep. They accidentally fell asleep. And then the chickadee was out of the suitcase.

SPEAKER_11 9:30

So they put him in there probably to help him keep him warm, right?

SPEAKER_07 9:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_11 9:35

Is there something else they did for the chickadee?

SPEAKER_07 9:38

They also played music.

SPEAKER_11 9:40

Yeah. Did they what were they the what were they using to play the music? So they're really old. They're as old as me. They're called cassette tapes.

SPEAKER_07 9:52

Cassette tapes?

SPEAKER_11 9:53

Yeah, cassette tapes.

SPEAKER_07 9:54

Like cassette tapes.

SPEAKER_11 9:56

Mm-hmm. And they they were trying to find one that did what that did what?

SPEAKER_07 10:00

That had chickadee noise in it.

SPEAKER_11 10:02

Yeah, chickadee sounds. They were trying to so that the chickadee would feel safe, I think, right?

SPEAKER_07 10:07

And they're farting.

SPEAKER_11 10:09

Farting? What? Was there farting in there? Yeah. Did one of the raccoons fart?

SPEAKER_07 10:14

Yeah. No.

SPEAKER_11 10:14

No? But they did make some funny faces, didn't they? Hey, no, don't do that.

SPEAKER_07 10:19

Yeah, they also look a little bit ugly. What the freak, dude? That's not right. Music.

SPEAKER_11 10:31

Oh yeah, he was like, what? He made it. Isn't that cool that you could understand kind of what they were thinking even without them saying words? Yeah, like gestures.

SPEAKER_07 10:49

Just a butt guy.

SPEAKER_11 10:54

Alright, hold on, Almond. Um, can you Alright? Alright, it's Stagey's turn.

SPEAKER_07 11:03

Um, my favorite was the lion.

SPEAKER_11 11:08

Hold on, Almond, it's Staji's turn.

SPEAKER_05 11:11

My favorite was the first one.

SPEAKER_11 11:14

Here, can she hold that one a few minutes? Yeah, let her hold that one a moment. Stage topic, please. Hold on, hold on, hold on, Stagey. Hold on. Alright, uh Staji, what was your favorite movie?

SPEAKER_07 11:28

Oh, that one.

SPEAKER_11 11:29

So, the cloud helper?

SPEAKER_07 11:31

So at first, she looked in a house. Yeah, just to house. And she's trying to help animals get water and she's trying to grow plants for the animals. And when they drink water, they turn they have plants all over them and they start to turn green. But when she put the corn was ate a baby's sleep and she tried to save the baby's teeth. Then she saved them. She saved the little one. But then her glider broke. Then she fell. Oh then the sheep then all the sheep catched her.

SPEAKER_11 12:31

Spoiler warning, folks. So she she didn't die. But Hank, do you think she was okay with dying? Like do you think she was happy that she had helped all the animals?

SPEAKER_07 12:45

Daddy, I said all the sheep, the the cloud sheep helped her.

SPEAKER_11 12:53

They did. That was really cool, wasn't it?

SPEAKER_07 12:55

And they were floating on the ground. So she landed safely.

SPEAKER_11 13:00

Nice and soft. Awesome. Well, thank you for telling me about your favorite movie, The Cloud Helper. Alright.

SPEAKER_07 13:07

What are we gonna do now?

SPEAKER_11 13:09

I think that wraps it up for our segment about hold on, let me make sure I got the name right. So this was come on. Films with class shorts program elementary school 2026. And there were, I think, a couple of other kids there, but then there was just the four of you. So yeah. Nerdheaders!

SPEAKER_02 13:36

Bye! Geeky Hat Posse. I've not heard that one before. I don't know what to say at this part of the show. We've been doing this for like five years or something, and I still don't know. So I thought I'd switch it up.

SPEAKER_11 13:49

Hey, that's cool. Yeah, we don't use the term geek around here too often, but that's a good question. Like, is nerd and geek are those interchangeable. Geek are not exactly.

SPEAKER_02 13:58

Geeks are cool nerds, except it's no longer the 90s, and nerd is now appropriate for all.

SPEAKER_11 14:06

This is true. I feel like nerd is the new geek or that they've somehow merged. Uh I guess we can have sort of guess what he thinks of that. We're here with animator, director, producer, etc. Uh Keith. All around cool guy. Yeah, Keith Cantrell. Cantrell, did I say that correctly, Keith? Cantrell or Cantrell.

SPEAKER_00 14:27

Even within my own family, some people say Cantrell and some people say cantrell, but uh I stand by Cantrell. I think it's only grandma that says cantrell. Is that French?

SPEAKER_11 14:40

It seems like it is French.

SPEAKER_00 14:41

No. I'm thinking it has like English roots, although I've never gone on any like ancestry.com or anything like that. But funny about the word geek, I actually when I first moved out to Washington where I'm currently living, I worked at Best Buy for a couple of years, and so I uh kind of brush shoulders with the geeks quite a lot. And so I kind of see it as a badge of like wisdom. Like, hey, you know about technology.

SPEAKER_11 15:10

There you go. There's an old um, I don't know if you know Ret and Link or Good Mythical Morning, if you're familiar with their work at all. But um like one of their older music videos, epic rap battle nerd versus geek. And uh it obviously plays off of the stereotypes, but it's it's fun.

SPEAKER_00 15:26

I'm gonna have to look that up after this. And I just have to start by saying thank you so much for having me on this podcast. I this is the first podcast I've ever been on, so I'm very honored. I've been, you know, kind of thinking for years about what I would say if I got on a podcast, and this is that day, so we're gonna see what happens.

SPEAKER_11 15:46

Well, we're honored to be the very first. Well, welcome. You met Will at the animated shorts. Well, actually, no, excuse me. Saturday morning cartoons. Yeah, right. That was day two of River Run. Will, do you want to talk a bit about that and how you guys met?

SPEAKER_02 16:01

Well my brain is firing up. I'm reading out all the information that the listener doesn't need to know. Okay, so I watched the shorts, and afterwards, you know, I had to meet all the people who actually were able to be there who had directed or animated the shorts, and I'm glad to have met you and the others, and I'm glad to have you on the podcast.

SPEAKER_00 16:26

I also have to say that this was a really cool venue uh for the Saturday morning cartoons. Is it pronounced Callidium? Is that how you say it? The Callideum? The children's colladium.

SPEAKER_11 16:36

Yeah, that's where it was. Nice. I have not been in their theater yet.

SPEAKER_00 16:43

There's a domed theater that's like a planetarium, and so they projected the films kind of towards the front part. It was it almost reminded me of like if you've ever gotten a trial of the Apple Vision Pro, how you can like watch a movie, but then you can turn on a setting where you're watching it in the woods or on the beach. It was kind of like that because the movie was in front of you, like a normal movie theater. But then, since it's in a planetarium, they had stars around the whole rest of the dome, which was really fun. And it was especially cool, I felt like for my film, because usually you would kind of zone out and forget they were there, but we'll get to more about Monkey Gino, my animated short film later. But there's this scene where there's where he kind of jumps up on the camper and he's looking at the night sky with all the stars, and so that was really cool for me because I felt like the venue enhanced and it expanded upon the frame, and so I was just like, oh, this is really cool.

SPEAKER_02 17:47

Yeah, I didn't realize that, but I know the scene you're talking about. That is really cool.

SPEAKER_11 17:52

No, and I I liked that scene. I I went to see it the following Saturday. Oh, okay. So I brought my kids to the Saturday morning cartoons the following Saturday. They really enjoyed it. That scene in particular stuck out to me. I thought it was really beautiful. But yeah, I always love a good stargazing scene in animated films, I have to say. Like that's me too.

SPEAKER_00 18:13

And I want to thank you, Richard, for sending a photo of that screening to me because what I learned, I haven't been to a film festival with my own work in a number of years now. There's benefits to coming at the beginning because it's like the kickoff of the film festival. Everyone's excited, like, hey, this is gonna be a great time. And so there's that energy. But the flip side of that that I learned was when if you're traveling, you have to go home, and then you're watching all of the updates and the social media posts about all the fun that's continuing. And I had a real sense of FOMO feeling missing out. So I was very thankful that I made some connections in Winston-Salem that were able to keep me updated and send me some pictures about how Monkey Gino was doing over there.

SPEAKER_11 19:01

Yeah, that was a packed house. And granted, tickets are free, and that's something they've done. When we did last year, they also did that just as a just a cool thing. They want to involve families and uh give them a chance. So it's like the special event with the Saturday morning cartoons.

SPEAKER_00 19:17

I have to tell you a really quick anecdote that I thought of when you mentioned that the tickets are free. Because when we got the information about the film festival, one of the perks of being a filmmaker is you do get a pass to go see any of the screenings that you want. I guess that's to make up for all the thousands of dollars in submission fees that we have to pay when we're you know submitting to all these film festivals. But anyway, it's a very nice uh gesture on the part of the film festival. And so I was looking through the program and seeing, like, hey, what other films do I want to see? And like my family was with me, so I was trying to take that into consideration because my parents aren't quite as big a movie people as I am, so I wanted to make sure that I still had some time to, you know, hang out with mom and dad and that kind of thing. But I found a couple that I bought tickets to, and then like a few days later, I had connected with some of the filmmakers on Instagram and talking about how excited we were. Like, hey, congratulations, Saturday morning cartoons is gonna be awesome. And one of them replied and said, Yeah, I couldn't believe it. I saw that tickets for the Saturday morning cartoons are already sold out, and I like had a I had a moment of panic because I'm like, oh my gosh, I spent all of this time looking at these other films that I wanted to see and planning that out. But I forgot to get tickets to my own film. And so I'm like, am I even gonna be able to see it? But fortunately, it was just a temporary glitch. And after I refreshed the page uh a few times, I was able to get tickets again. But I was just like freaking out because I, of course, had already made plans to make the trip, and my family was very excited about it too. But my mom was so sweet, she was like, Oh, if if there's only two spots left, you and Kimmy can go, like dad and I can set it out. And I'm like, No, no, no, mom, you guys are coming too. We're even if we have to stand in the back. So it all worked out though. They reserved some seats for us and we got those tickets.

SPEAKER_11 21:15

So oh, yeah, they they're not gonna turn away the filmmaker. Yeah, they're gonna let you in. I was not there for that. Did you get a chance to do a QA afterwards with uh some of the other Yes?

SPEAKER_00 21:26

I did. I did a QA with the filmmaker behind 33rd and Clover and the Dandelion. And I also had my family filming it, and I actually put it up on YouTube on my Keith Cartoons YouTube. Of course, the the audio is just from a camera, but if anyone is interested in seeing that, they can definitely check that out later.

SPEAKER_02 21:49

I thought about that, but I didn't know if it would be appropriate to video record or not. Yeah, I'm glad that uh you got it.

SPEAKER_00 21:56

Yeah, I wanted to. I uh was very, very tempted to plug. My camera during the video to like show mine playing up there, but I'm like, that is the number one rule of these film festivals, is you got to be really conscientious about that when the films are playing. Yeah.

SPEAKER_11 22:12

When I took the photos, normally I wouldn't do that in a theater at all, but I'm like, I'm press, I'm kind of allowed, I feel like. But we were also in the very back up at the top. No one so so yeah, it wasn't bothering, it wasn't bothering anyone behind us.

Keith's Early Influences

SPEAKER_00 22:26

You know, I was very thankful that you broke that rule for me. So thank you so much. And also, I think that the planetarium was a bit of a unique experience because the dome was a little more sensitive to like flash if a flash would happen to go off. So I think that was another factor as well. It would have really kind of been a distraction in the setting if that would have happened because of the dome theater. But fortunately, everything went without a hitch. It went really smoothly.

SPEAKER_11 22:53

Well, that's great. Before we get more into just animation and to the film itself, I thought we'd rewind a bit and talk about how you got here. I know animation is not currently your day job, but I'm assuming you've had an interest in it for quite a while. So something I always like to ask my guests is there a movie or a TV show, just something that you saw or watched when you grew up that just really grabbed you. Maybe it was a behind-the-scenes feature on how animation was done. Was there something that in particular that grabbed you and said, I want to do that. I want to make cartoons someday, I want to make an animated film someday, or was it more of a gradual process for you?

SPEAKER_02 23:30

Did it start with animation or did it start with some other art form?

SPEAKER_00 23:35

Those are great questions. I've always been captive by captivated by any type of art form, but animation does have a very special place in my heart because when it came to movies, we pretty much only had one Disney VHS tape, which was 101 Dalmatians. And I would constantly ask my parents to play that for us, for my sister and I. And they kind of got very tired of it. And like they would say, no, not today. And what my sister is younger than me by a few years, and I thought, hey, since I have a younger sibling now, I can kind of have them help me with this mission to watch 101 Dalmatians more. And so when my sister Julie went up to my mom one day and said, as a as a like two-year-old, can we watch 101 Dalmatians? My mom was like, Keith, there is no way your sister came up with that on her own. Like, you know, you have to cool it with this. But no, they were very supportive, and I didn't get to watch that movie a lot. And I think that what I loved about 101 Dalmatians specifically was, and Walt Disney hated this in some ways when he was seeing it being developed because a lot of the other Disney movies, the lines are very clean, and you know, you can see the ink and paint department hard at work. But with 101 Dalmatians, it was, yeah, it had that kind of pencil look, and it maybe was criticized uh by some because it made it look a little bit more sloppy. But from my perspective, it makes it look even more authentic and hand-drawn and hand-crafted. And so I think that that's maybe what drew me to that particular film. And of course, I loved dogs, so having 101 of them to participate in the story was another factor that made it one of my favorites. But that looking back was the early interest or the early seed that was planted for animation. So when I started getting older, I became interested in just any avenue for storytelling in general. And I got a hold of the family video camera. And for many years, that kind of took the form of telling short films with my sister, my neighborhood friends as actors in it, kind of getting the community and the neighborhood together to make a more traditional live-action short film. And I have so many good memories of that. And I don't really see that as different from the skills that I needed to develop to become an animator at all, because it's all about telling a story, and that those experiences taught me about storytelling. And I went to school to actually be maybe a film director because you know I had become interested in that with live action, and I focused more on live action filmmaking. And I do really like it, but I think that what brought me back to animation was I moved out to LA after graduating with my bachelor's in film and media production from a college called Taylor University. And what I learned about LA is it's different than a small liberal arts college where, you know, you have your built-in group project where you have your director, your editor, and your producer, and it's like very small team, and they're all excited to be there. It was a little bit different when I moved to LA because number one, everyone has their own projects that they're working on. There's a lot of cost involved with feeding the crew, a lot of a lot more costs than I was used to on these really small projects.

SPEAKER_02 27:34

And so for the art.

SPEAKER_00 27:37

Yeah, exactly. And so I kind of took a step back at one point and I said, okay, so making live action films is not quite as enjoyable as it used to be for me because of this. How can I get back to like what made me fall in love with storytelling in the beginning? And that's when I started thinking about some of these artistic experiences I'd had and some of these movies I'd love. And I said, let's try animation again. Let's get back into that a little bit. So I made an animated short film called Paddleball Hole, which is on my website. And it was kind of a little bit of dipping my toe in the water of animation because it was a combination of live action and animation. And I had that screen at a few film festivals. Probably one of my favorites for that was the Providence Children Film Festival in Rhode Island. But yeah, a few great film festivals that I got to go attend with that. And that kind of brings us up to what made me fall in love with making animated short films, because I don't have the resources right now to make feature-length films. And short films are kind of fun because you can almost probably go through the same process as you would making a feature, but as a solo animator, kind of going through the process of the character design and the storyboarding. And my sister, who I referenced earlier, is a musician, so she's my collaborator usually with the music. And so someday I would love to do an animated feature film, but for now I'm I've been really loving making these animated short films.

SPEAKER_11 29:19

What does it mean for something to be nerdy? When it comes to the realm of arts and entertainment, which is where we like to live with the Nerdhat podcast. What does it mean for something to be nerdy? Like nostalgia, you know, that's easy to explain, right? It's something like for us as the host that reminds us of our childhood. Or it might be something from our parents' childhood that they watched with us that reminds us of our relationship with our parents, you know, things like that. That's pretty easy to explain. Mildly inappropriate humor? It might be a little hard to define, but that could be a wacky comedy, that could be just us having fun with whatever topic we're covering. But what does it mean for something to be nerdy? Does it have to be Marvel or DC in the comic realm? Or you name your your fantasy property? Does it have to fit within those realms, or could it be the latest independent drama that you just are so excited about? Maybe it's a documentary that you watched that has got you excited to get out and make a difference in the world. Who knows? Does it bring out your inner nerd? Does it make you want to share it with other people? Does it inspire you to go and create something similar yourself? That to me is is really what it means to be nerdy. So, you've been listening for the better part of four years to what Laura, myself, and Will and our guests pull out of our nerd hats. We want to know what's in yours. So, picking back up on May 18th, we're gonna be going back to the hey, let's shake the hat up and pull a random topic out format. So, we need some contributions to the hat. We need to know what you would like us to cover. And maybe you'd be interested in coming on and talking about it with us. Either way, we'd love to know what your ideas are for topics to cover. So hit us up on Patreon, on Instagram, on Facebook, comments on Spotify, on our website. Let us know what you would like us to cover. What's in your node app?

SPEAKER_02 31:36

Now, uh on the QA, I just remembered you told us how much time I should say it took you to make Monkey Gino. Would you like to tell our listeners right now?

SPEAKER_00 31:46

I started A Night with Monkey Gino in 2018. September of 2018, and I finished it in 2025. So it was about seven years, and there were a lot of life things that happened during that time, like moving to new states. I got married, obviously, COVID happened, that was definitely a factor. There's a lot of things that went into that. Another thing that happened was I worked on it for a couple of years and I was experimenting with some new software, like I was learning Adobe Animates and that kind of thing. And I kind of talked with some people, got some feedback about what I had done so far, and kind of felt like I should start over because I I had a different direction of where I wanted to take it. So I was able to save some stuff, but I kind of start started back to square one with the style and everything. And that definitely cut into my time. But there was a point where my wife Kimmy said, You're not starting ever, you have to finish this. And then, you know, smart. Exactly. And I'm very thankful that she told me that because it it's you can keep working on these projects forever. I have a podcast, another podcast that I listen to a lot called Creative Pep Talk. And one of the things that he says, it might be a quote for somebody else, but he says, as artists and as filmmakers, we can always want to make the project that we're working on now be like the best one ever, be perfection. But a great mindset is this project is the one I'm going to finish. The next project is going to be the one that's perfect. Because you know, it it's just this mentality of always moving forward and using the skills that you learn on this project to enhance the quality of what's coming later.

SPEAKER_02 33:43

Yeah, I definitely get what you're talking about. That's also reminds me of what us comic artist cartoonists say about Marvel in DC, or at least we used to say it. I don't know if things have changed in all the years, but but you can either have really good artwork but make people wait forever.

SPEAKER_00 34:00

Yeah, just roughing off of what you were saying there. Well, there's a saying where it's like when it comes to movies, you can you can Future Richard here jumping in to explain.

SPEAKER_11 34:11

Uh, we had some technical difficulties and we had to restart the recording. So there's a bit of a jump here, but we tried to pick back up where we left off. So here we go.

SPEAKER_02 34:22

Well, I guess I'll just jump right back in. Yeah, I absolutely agree. I mean, we just gotta keep moving forward. The art will never be perfect. You know, we can work on it forever, but if we do that, you know, we won't move on to any other projects. No one will see. I mean, not for a long time anyway. Uh that's why I reference Marvel DC. Marvel used to be known for putting out really great artwork, but they missed all their deadlines. Well, and DC would keep the deadlines, but the artwork wouldn't be nearly as good. And you want it to look great, but sometimes you just have to keep moving forward. Just gotta get it.

SPEAKER_00 34:55

And I think that what was yeah, what was especially challenging for me since I had worked on this for like seven years is script two, yeah. Yeah, when I got towards the end, that's what that was the hardest part for me because I'm like, okay, I have this, I have been on a journey with this character and this film, but and it's almost tied to my identity now. What does that mean to have this project come to an end? Not for the project, but for me. And what was interesting about this and almost providential is my dad was retiring at the same time that I was finishing this up. And so I actually had a lot of conversations with my dad because we were both in a similar chapter of life in in terms of finishing a big project. In my case, it was a film, in his case, it was his career uh that he was gonna be celebrating retirement. So we kind of leaned on each other during that time, and he was able to provide a lot of helpful feedback for me of like, it's about looking forward to what's next for you, Keith.

SPEAKER_02 35:59

Right. I was gonna say something and it left my brain.

SPEAKER_00 36:02

That's okay.

SPEAKER_02 36:03

Oh, I was gonna say, yeah, it sounds like you and your dad both had a loss or disruption of continuity.

SPEAKER_00 36:08

Exactly. That's a good way to put it. And so sometimes after those moments in life, you kind of have to take a few months to recalibrate.

SPEAKER_02 36:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 36:18

Which is funny because I thought that when I finished A Night with Monkey Gino, I would have all this free time. But what I've learned from these books about productivity is really coming true because I'm learning that when you checked one thing off the to-do list, it's just more things that get added to it that you have to spend your time on. And so I'm I've jumped to you know, marketing monkey geno, which I think is important after you've spent so much time on things, but also like thinking about what projects I want to work on next, you know, working, doing some work for a few clients. And I'm like, okay, I need to take a little bit of time to make sure that I'm taking care of myself through all of this too. Absolutely. Because I'm sure you have experienced this working in art as well, is that sometimes it can you can kind of forget that sleep is important, and you know, nighttime's the only time I can work. And that's why Monkey G was kind of autobiographical for me a little bit, was because I have these experiences where I know to go to sleep. I need to get my arrest.

SPEAKER_02 37:28

But hit me. I should have realized that it's true for both of us.

SPEAKER_00 37:33

For me to share like an overview of the short film for those who have maybe not seen it. I compare the main character to kind of like a curious George type of character. It's about a little monkey who sometimes gets into some mischief. And he is by day monkey at the circus or at the fair where he has this little show that he does. Um, and at night he lives in a camper with his owner, and he needs to be getting some sleep because as you can see from his calendar on the wall at the beginning of the short film, every day is very busy for him. His his life is full of work and he has a lot of these commitments in the spotlight. But he he his eyes pop open and he looks out of bed, and that video game controller on the floor is kind of beckoning him. So he sneaks out of bed, and of course, video games leads to movies, leads to all sorts of hobbies like painting, and uh before too long, it looks like the sun is starting to come up and he has gotten no sleep. So you can kind of guess how that impacts his show the next day. So that's kind of the idea of a night with Monkey Gino.

SPEAKER_02 38:46

Yeah, I thought it was hilarious. The look on the uh Monkey Gino's face the next uh well, not the next morning, B morning, but but yeah, the entire time I was watching your short, I kept thinking to myself, this monkey gets more done in one night than I do in my entire life.

SPEAKER_00 39:01

And that was part of the joke of it too, that I wanted to convey is like whenever I have like a holiday weekend or something, I think, oh my gosh, I am I am gonna get every creative project I've ever wanted to do done this weekend. And of course, you sometimes get half a thing checked off, but in Monkey Gino, I wanted to explore like, what if you could? What if you really could get all of these things done in one night?

SPEAKER_02 39:30

So that is the wish I will make to the Eternal Dragon one day, the ultimate all-nighter.

SPEAKER_00 39:35

Yeah, Richard, you had to step away for a second there, but I was just kind of giving an overview of a night with Monkey Gino, maybe for those who haven't seen it, just a little bit of yeah, the background of it.

SPEAKER_11 39:47

Yeah. No, it's sorry, my mind drew a blanket. Yeah, I was gonna ask some about the the history of it. And did you all talk about was there any particular characters that inspired some of the characters there? Did you all discuss that?

SPEAKER_00 39:58

Or I have different answers for this depending on who I'm talking to. But since I'm talking with uh film lovers, maybe I could kind of go into that a little bit. Um, a lot of family comedies in the early 2000s were kind of mediocre, but there's one there's one movie that even though it does not get good reviews on like Rotten Tomatoes, I stand by it being an excellent movie.

SPEAKER_02 40:23

And that is I have terrible taste. I love Super Mario Bros.

SPEAKER_00 40:26

The original that is the live action. Yeah, that one's that one's so fun. But this one is RV with Robin Williams.

SPEAKER_02 40:34

I want to see that. I haven't yet. I don't understand how that could be bad. It has Robin Williams in it, he's in an RV.

SPEAKER_00 40:42

Yeah, it's it's kind of like I'm gonna give a very brief summary of that movie. So Robin Williams and his family have planned a vacation to Hawaii, but he has this assignment from his boss, Will Arnett, that is in Colorado. And so he wants to sneakily get to Colorado without uh letting his family know that the reason for this cancellation of their Hawaii plans is to go to this work presentation, and so he kind of covers himself by renting a huge RV that he loads everyone up in to go to Colorado, and no one is happy about this. But what ties it into Monkey Gino is the fact that he has these presentations that he's needing to send to Will Arnett's character, and the only time that he can find to do that is at night when everyone's asleep, and he's typing it out on his cell phone and like standing up on top of the camper to try to get cell service to uh send it to him. And so what happens at one point in the movie is he kind of goes back into the camper after it's sent, and he like lays down on the bed, and the moment his head hits the pillow, the wife goes, Good, you're up. Can you make the coffee? And he Ramunion just just like, yeah, and he's just like it's like Monkey Gino when the curtain opens, he has all these bags under his eyes and drool coming down his cheek. And that was a little fun inspiration that I wanted to share with you.

SPEAKER_02 42:18

Well, I guess when Batman tells you to do something, you gotta do it.

SPEAKER_11 42:22

I was thinking Jove when because that that would probably have been around the time of arrested development. So, like when Jove, when Jove tells you something to do something, maybe you shouldn't.

SPEAKER_02 42:30

We both have a joke.

SPEAKER_11 42:32

Yeah. Well, cool. So RV was one inspiration, like in terms of design style, was there was there anything that you drew inspiration from in terms of either animation or maybe comic books, etc.

Creating Comics

SPEAKER_00 42:45

When I was starting a night with Monkey Geno, I was using an app called Procreate to do all of the frames on, and I quickly learned that this was before Procreate Dreams came out, which by the way is like my favorite animation app now. It's so awesome. Oh yeah. But I was just drawing all the frames in Procreate, and I have I kind of in between my two short films, you know, it takes so long to come up with a new idea. I was like, what can I do in the meanwhile to continue getting my work out there? And so I kind of went on a little side quest where I started doing single panel comics, kind of like Gary Larson and Far Side. And uh I was doing those in Procreate, and I would kind of, you know, I found the pen that I liked, I would use that to draw it, and then I would kind of drop in the color. Um, it was almost kind of like a you know, one of those coloring book apps.

SPEAKER_02 43:42

So Whatcom, iPad, what were you using?

SPEAKER_00 43:46

So in those early days, it was on just an iPad with Procreate. Okay. But I quickly learned that drawing all of the frames for an animated short film on its own separate layer and trying to like toggle on and off the layers to Kind of like check your motion was not the most efficient way to do this. So then I started learning Adobe Animate. Used to be called Flash, but when I went into Adobe Animate, I was trying to, I had already done some of those designs in Procreate. And so I was kind of trying to have some continuity and carry that same design over into Adobe Animate. And so that meant I was still kind of doing those thicker lines with dropping in the color. And when I was working with that, it was pretty intuitive just because of how that software is set up. But now that Procreate Dreams has come out, I'm thinking that I might want to go back to the 101 Dalmatians inspiration and maybe try a feature project with more like the pencil sketch look because that's one of the things that I love about all of the Procreate apps, is you have all these different choices for brushes that you can use. Do you, Will, do you use that for some of your comics or what do you use?

SPEAKER_02 45:01

Well, I used to do well, I'm not going to tell you my entire history, but I will say I started with uh Microsoft Paint. That was bad. So I've always drawn pencil and then ink and then scan it to the computer. It wasn't until just the end of last year that I started doing straight digital. But uh I it was expensive. But uh long story short, I I always colored on the computer with a Walcom until I started drawing. It was just very difficult when when you don't have a Cintique or something to you're drawing down here, you're looking up here, and it's just not how is this working? This is not working. So uh Adobe Photoshop after obviously paint, and then I set it on Clip Studio Paint because Adobe wants me to like buy a subscription every month. And you know if I was like making bookovies of money, yeah, sure, but I'm not. But I haven't tried a lot of anything else in animation college, uh, digital effects animation technology major, actually. Uh so so I had different classes. I had some filmmaking classes, but but we had animation classes, and they taught me Toon Boom, and that was a long time ago.

SPEAKER_11 46:13

That was that's been over a decade ago, I think, right?

SPEAKER_02 46:16

2007 and 2010, Toon Boom. I'm sure it's had a lot of updates since then. And Adobe Premiere. I I animated both of those. I am curious, you know, what what is out there that is better than these?

Physical Art vs. Digital

SPEAKER_00 46:30

Because I have to tell you about another little project that I did after Monkey, right when Monkey Gina was over, because like I said, this project was tied so closely to me because I had been working on it for so long, I felt a little bit aimless, like I was kind of lost in space when it was over because this is what had become so much a part of my routine. What's really cool was I followed this YouTuber named Andy Mation. Have you ever heard of Andy Mation? He makes these flipbooks. I mean so. Yeah, every year he does this flipbook challenge, and I've never participated in them, but he switched it up this year and made it so it's one project. He's taking the whole movie of the Fellowship of the Ring and divided it up into clips, and then animators can claim one of those clips and make a flip book out of that clip, and then we send him our flip books and he's gonna put them all together, and essentially it's gonna be one three-hour long flip book of The Lord of the Rings, the Fellowship with the Ring. So I claimed a clip, and I actually claimed two clips at first because I'm like, oh, I'm I'll be able to get this done pretty fast. But it took a lot, oh hey, yeah, there it is. Yeah, I've got it. It took a lot more than I thought that looked like a hobbit than I was expecting. It was really fun though, after all the digital artwork that I had done for a night with Monkey Gino, to like get back to the very basics of animation and do it on paper. So you can kind of just imagine that dining room table with pieces of flipbook paper and the paper that I was tracing just all over the room. But after having a project that I had worked on so long where not to toot my own horn, but I had kept everything very organized in these little folders and subfolders on my hard drive, it was kind of nice to have a project where I could just be a little bit messy and do it very analog.

SPEAKER_11 48:33

No, I I hear that. Even just uh doing like the the editing and things for for podcast world while I when I get into it, when I am able to like dive into it and and focus, I I do really enjoy that. I'm finding after doing it for several years now, and prior to that working in jobs that involved a decent amount of computer work, maybe some of it too is having young kids. Uh I'm just finding myself coming to a stage of life where I really want to do more hands-on creations or uh yeah, I just I I miss that. I've never been big into creating art myself, but I have a wife who's a professional artist and obviously a best friend who's a artist as well. And I'm not professional.

SPEAKER_02 49:14

That implies I'm semi-pro.

SPEAKER_11 49:17

Oh, you we'll call you semi-pro. But just two two artists that are close to me that like to create physical art. So I was like, I need to dabble in this a little bit more. There's just something satisfying about the the physicality of that, and maybe getting in touch with your body in a way that you I feel like digital sometimes leads you to dissociate a little bit from bodily sensations, like you get in your mind almost. I don't know if you experience that, Keith.

SPEAKER_00 49:39

Yeah, and what I learned too is that there's a whole new set of struggles that come when you're working analog as opposed to digital. Like when you're working digital, you have to make sure you're backing up your hard drives and that kind of thing. But then when I was working on this animation project with animation with the flipbooks, I had the problem of my pen is running out of ink. I need to go to Hobby Lobby or whatever.

SPEAKER_02 50:03

Yep, yep.

SPEAKER_00 50:03

Control undo and stop working. Yeah, it was kind of like a relief, honestly, because it kind of felt like a little bit more of a problem that grounded me back in like the tangible world of things that I could touch and feel and observe with my five senses as opposed to the digital world. Will, do you like to kind of get back into paper as well, paper and pen as well sometimes?

SPEAKER_02 50:27

Yeah, I mean, I'm still sketching in a sketchbook, although just this past week I started sketching digitally just to see.

SPEAKER_11 50:36

Sorry, my daughter's my daughter's invading the space. Hi there. Oh, Sadie. Hold on, hold on.

SPEAKER_00 50:43

Did you like the movie? Did you like actually actually hold on?

SPEAKER_11 50:46

Oh, she's hold on a second. Oh, we got our headphones off. She can't. You want to say hi for a minute? Here, hold on. So so it's that guy over there here.

SPEAKER_00 50:59

Hi. Hey, we're talking about we're talking about animated short films. I made the film about I made the monkey. I made the about the monkey. Did you like that one?

SPEAKER_11 51:15

That's not sweet, right?

SPEAKER_00 51:17

No, no, I actually chose this shirt today because this is kind of my favorite color right here. It's kind of like an aqua green. I love that color. What's your favorite color? That's awesome because you have a lot of colors to choose from with the rainbow. I like that yellow color that you're wearing though. Don't make the bright yellow. Bye.

SPEAKER_11 51:38

Yeah, I actually recorded um reviews uh with my daughters immediately following the Saturday morning cartoons. Oh, yeah. So that's gonna be yeah, it's gonna be part of the audio episode. Like we don't post, we don't post any video or or pictures of their faces online, but uh, but we have they have appeared on the podcast a few times. Most of my youngest, because she wakes up when we're recording. Usually we record late at night.

SPEAKER_02 52:00

I think your youngest child pretty much grew up on the podcast.

SPEAKER_11 52:05

Yeah, yeah, basically, grew up on the podcast.

SPEAKER_00 52:07

So I'd love to hear about you guys' experience at River Run because it seems to me like you're like the pod the River Run podcast because you're right there in Winston-Salem. Is this something where you try to see as many films as you can every year?

SPEAKER_02 52:20

Yeah, I mean, I took uh the week off work uh this time. Uh this is our second year of being invited by Riverrun to come as press. And so I was trying to take it more seriously. I uh, you know, especially for Richard, I admit that the week did not go as I expected, but uh I I did what I could.

SPEAKER_11 52:39

Yeah, we have Tiffany Jones, who is, I believe, now the I'm gonna get this wrong development director. Uh, I'm sure you had to interact with her in in the process. Like she um reached out to us, I think, via Instagram last year leading up to the festival and just asked initially, would you be interested in doing a river run themed episode of your podcast? And that kind of morphed into collaborating, and then we became a part of the press and got to go to the screenings and some of the parties, and then we didn't mess it up, so they invited us back this year.

SPEAKER_00 53:09

Awesome. And do you guys have any favorite kind of favorite screenings or anything that you went to this year that was especially kind of a standout? Oh, sorry.

SPEAKER_02 53:19

Hold on just a second. Okay, my favorites of course were the all the animations. That's just my wheelhouse. That that's down my alley. I enjoyed yours and all the other Saturday morning shorts. I enjoyed the uh the two animated programs. Uh did see a couple of movies. Those were good. Those were good. I'm just crazy about animation though.

SPEAKER_11 53:39

I have to say that's that's probably that was one of the things I enjoyed, I think, the most last year was the short films, uh both animated and live action. And that's not something you get to see very often. Sadly, short films do not get a lot of exposure, at least in mainstream avenues. You might see them pop up in collections, maybe occasionally on a Netflix or an Amazon Prime. Getting to see them in person, in many cases, with the some of the filmmakers there and getting to meet them or talk or hear from them afterwards, which is a really cool experience. And this year, sadly, I just had so much going on. My wife and I, you know, run small business together, and this was just a crazy busy month for us, much busier than last year. So I wasn't able to go to as much in person this year. But we did get to go to Over Your Dead Body. Will and I went to that together. That was kind of the centerpiece. And that was fun. It was a fun communal experience, I think. And then they had a QA with one of the actors afterwards, which was cool. I think my favorite is like seeing the short films. I think it's probably uh it's probably my favorite experience overall. And uh I agree. Yeah, I just some of that is just bite-sized, and I love the variety, just that they select you know, there's so many different styles and approaches and innovative approaches to cinema that you don't see every day when you're when you're watching your normal streaming, you know, because they they feel almost cookie cutter sometimes in approaches, whether it be plot or whether it be cinematography, digital effects, and to see innovation sometimes at the nest as of necessity, you know, because of budget. But necessity is often the mother of innovation, right? So yeah. So I think that's just it's been really cool. I know watching the films with my kids this year, um, which I last year I only was able to do that virtually. So this year taking them in person was a really special experience. And there was a couple that just as a parent really got me. I think the piano is one. I know you've mentioned that some in your social media like that one. And that one deals almost more with with grief and the seasons of life and just uh carrying on traditions generation to generation. And I think the dandelion, uh I like poetry, I dabble in it a little bit myself, so I loved seeing poetry put to film. I think those are the ones like being a parent now, those that deal with whether it be the brevity of life, like uh Jar of Memories, I think Memory Jar, I think was another I just saw today, uh watching through some of them virtually. And those are the ones I think that just really grab me and or those that deal with with conflict in a very meaningful way. I remember one from last year that ended up getting, I think, nominated at the Oscars afterwards. Now it's it was done by Cartoon Saloon, so not a surprise there. Like the people that did Secret of the Kells and all that. I think I'm saying that right, Cartoon Saloon.

SPEAKER_02 56:22

Like I think so.

SPEAKER_11 56:23

Yeah. So afterwards I found that out afterwards, I was like, oh, okay. Well, that's not a surprise that they made something awesome. But anyway, uh it's so I think it's those that deal with themes of loss and grief. I lost my father last year, right before the festival last year. So the films that dealt with that I think really grabbed me. And then similarly this year, those that deal with grief or the passage of time or parenting, like those were particularly poignant, I think, for me. So me too. Yeah, so I think like I said, I know I'm saying this wrong, but yeah, memory jar, I think, really grabbed me, and then the piano, just beautiful meditation on on love and and death and the passage of time. And uh yeah, I think those are some of my favorites, I think.

SPEAKER_00 57:03

Nice. Yeah, I totally agree about anim the animated short films because I feel like the last time that I can really remember animated short films being center stage in like pop culture is just when they would be the Pixar shorts before the Pixar movie in the theater. Right. And besides that, like we don't really get to see them in the spotlight that much. So as an independent filmmaker, that's what I love about these film festivals, and that's why it's worth it to me, the amount of you know, rejection emails that you have to go through and keeping a spreadsheet of what the premiere requirements are for all of them. That's why it's worth it because when you see your short film on the big screen with an audience, whether they're you know crying, having some sniffles, or whether they're giggling and laughing, it's just it fills a filmmaker with such an incredible sense of gratitude. So that's why I'm just so thankful that I got to experience that at River End.

What's in Keith's Nerdhat?

SPEAKER_11 58:03

Well, Keith, uh, I think we're coming up on time here, might have gone a little over, but that's that's okay because we're just having a great time talking and just enjoying this conversation with you. Um, thank you so much for for coming on the Nerd Hat podcast. Uh, we do have one final question that we'd like to ask our guests um too. Did you have one before we asked the final?

SPEAKER_02 58:22

No, go ahead.

SPEAKER_11 58:23

No?

SPEAKER_02 58:23

Yeah, yeah. Okay. We're already over time. We me and him could talk a while about shop, but oh yeah, don't get us going.

SPEAKER_11 58:29

I mean, we have there's a reason we have a podcast.

SPEAKER_00 58:32

I hope this is my first visit of many on the nerd hat uh podcast. So hopefully I'll be back again sometime.

SPEAKER_11 58:38

Well, in in keeping with that, we've been asking our guests at the end of each interview what's in your nerd hat? You know, is there something that whether it's a TV show, a film, maybe a comic book, a novel, maybe it's even a live performance that you've seen recently that you're just really nerding out about and maybe would like to come back on the podcast someday to talk about it. Should we pull it out of the nerd hat?

SPEAKER_00 59:00

I do have a recommendation that I would love to put in the nerd hat. I do have to clarify that I have like 10 minutes left of this movie because oftentimes when we watch movies, it's like during dinner, and you know, then you have to pick it back up next time. But it's a movie on Netflix called Secret Mall Apartment. Have you heard of this movie?

SPEAKER_11 59:18

Is it a documentary?

SPEAKER_00 59:19

Documentary.

SPEAKER_11 59:20

I think I've heard of it.

SPEAKER_00 59:21

Okay, so it's about one of the cities I was talking about earlier, actually, with the Providence Children's Film Festival, Providence, Rhode Island. My mom and I went there for that short film when I had it in that festival, and we stayed at this hotel that was attached to this mall that's like a huge mall in Providence, Rhode Island. And uh I won't give too much about it uh too much away, but essentially, you know, some of the locals weren't the happiest when it was built. And so there was this group of artists that were kind of watching it being constructed and kind of seeing where there might be a little gap in the architecture, and they were able to kind of move some furniture in there after they found out how to get access to it and they kind of set up an apartment. But it's also been very cool because it's about the role of art in a community because they do these little art installations and art activities that kind of spread joy to their community and other parts of the country. So it's been a very wholesome and redeeming film that I would be happy to recommend. Nice.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:25

I I heard about that. I watched something about that. That was pretty crazy. They they were just living there. I'm sad they got caught.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:36

But then we probably wouldn't have a documentary about it today if they didn't, because they would still be there. So I guess there's two sides to it.

SPEAKER_11 1:00:44

And that makes me think, I can't think of the title of it right now, but uh and I don't know if there's it wouldn't surprise me at all if they drew some inspiration from that real life story, but there's a horror movie that's either has come out or is getting ready to come out, I believe Chuata or Leophor, I think, isn't it? And it's about obviously it gets more into like fantasy realms, but you these people that find their way into that in-between space in a mall, and yeah, just like crazy, like horrible, suspenseful things into and like you know, it messes with reality and and things like that. But it made me think of that, and uh, I'm hoping to see that when it comes out, if it hasn't already.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:22

That I'll have to add that to my list too. That sounds really interesting.

SPEAKER_11 1:01:25

I think it's too I may be getting the actor wrong. I I sometimes get him mixed up with another actor who looks similar.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:33

I think malls in general are just such a fascinating setting as well, because like they're in many places they're not quite as popular as they used to be. So it makes for some really interesting stories to take place there.

SPEAKER_11 1:01:46

Come visit this museum, monument to capitalism. Well, Will, did you have any final questions for Keith before we sign off?

SPEAKER_00 1:01:56

Do you mind if I do uh I was just gonna ask if I could maybe do a little shameless plug and just say that people can people can find me at Keith Cartoons on everything. And when it comes to future projects, I'm still kind of like thinking about what I want to do next. But in the meanwhile, I'm trying to what even if it's maybe going a little bit too strong sometimes, just trying to ride out Monkey Gina, share some behind the scenes content, some QAs, and some commentary from screenings and festivals, just because it's something that I've worked so hard on, and that's a skill that I'm trying to develop for myself is when I'm done with a project, not jumping right away to the next one, but taking a moment to kind of uh tell people about why a night with Monkey Gino is important to me and uh you know, celebrating it as a win.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:49

I think you're doing the right thing because unfortunately I don't do that. I just jump right to the next project. There's no marketing, there's nothing. It's just like I'm done here, internet, have it, and then I just jump to something else. I'm like, the internet doesn't like my thing, no one knows it exists. See, that's how I usually don't get rest either.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:06

Yeah, well, that's usually exactly where I'm at. But right now I'm just like, I need to just take a deep breath, enjoy a pop tart, and kind of watch some uh some of the likes come in and and just not that it's all about that, but it feels good to actually have con have it out there in the world in some form or fashion now instead of just working at it at my desk. Feels great to share it with people. So thanks again for having me on the podcast.

SPEAKER_11 1:03:35

You're very welcome. The Nerdhat Podcast was produced in partnership with Nerdhat Productions, which is owned by me, Richard Best. So it's produced by me. Wait, what is this music? Hold on just a second. Let me see if I can find my normal music.

unknown 1:03:58

Hmm.

SPEAKER_11 1:04:00

There we go. Okay, so the Nerdhat Podcast is produced by Nerdhat Productions. Uh, I want to give a big thank you to my co-hosts Will Boyer and Laura Morales. They have been such a big part of the success of this podcast. It would not be possible without them. I mean that sincerely. I would have quit a long damn time ago. Uh, thanks also to all of our many collaborators and guests over the years, and most recently Elijah Miller for giving us a new logo. While I was involved in creating it, I did not do the artwork. He did it, and it was amazing. So, the Nerd Podcast was recorded by me, Richard Best, and edited by me, Richard Best, with a little bit of assistance from Riverside.fm. I appreciate that program. It has been very helpful for virtual recordings like on snow days, you know, things like that. You name it. Anyway, I digress. Until next time, nerds, nerdhatters, nerdhats, assorted nerd persons. Live long and prosper.