M. Zak Lee | Filmmaker, Professor of Film

Zak Lee is a professor of film in the communications department of Fitchburg State University. Zak is also a filmmaker, musician, and lover of bike riding. Zak sat down with us to discuss his process and the ins and outs of the film festival business.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:05

Hi! Welcome to the short event. Here we are. Here we are. Yeah, speaking of short, I'm Tony, and you are Richard, also short. We just add that that you're also short. Is that the title? Is that the isn't for the title? Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 0:24

It's too short people make me fly.

SPEAKER_00 0:25

We have short fuses, we have short ideas, it's just the whole thing. No, I mean the short of it is. The yellow one. Sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Um probably. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 0:40

But anyways, tools and buses.

SPEAKER_00 0:44

The short of it is we celebrate short films, short filmmakers, short content uh, not short content creators, because that's what we are. Um content creators with short projects. Um, and but today we're gonna do things a little bit differently because we have somebody who is more knowledgeable than I am about anything that has to do with filmmaking, because he is also, as is my co-host, um, a Fitchburg State University professor. Mac Lee, welcome to the show. Thank you. Yeah, Jack, are you scared?

SPEAKER_03 1:22

Not particularly, no.

SPEAKER_00 1:24

You will be. I'm scared. Um not yet. Not yet. So, um, first of all, just tell the audience who you are, what you do, and your love of film. That's a your open-ended question. It really is. It really is.

SPEAKER_02 1:41

Why do you love film, Zach? I know.

SPEAKER_00 1:43

Do you love film, Zach? Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:44

Or do you hate film?

unknown 1:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:46

Maybe we should start there. Yes and no. Do you like film?

SPEAKER_03 1:50

Oh, I'm gonna go with yes. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 1:53

Is there anything about film that you hate? That's not a yes or no. Okay, never mind. Tell us about yourself.

SPEAKER_03 1:58

Uh yeah. Um my name is Zach. I teach at Vitchburg State University, as has already been discussed. Um I don't know what else to say at this point in time.

SPEAKER_02 2:10

It's okay, we'll get to it.

SPEAKER_03 2:12

Yeah. Um tell you yeah, I mean, like that's a it's a rough question. Tell me about yourself.

SPEAKER_02 2:18

You know, um how how did you become a filmmaker?

SPEAKER_03 2:23

That that's that's a help that's a more helpful question, I think. Um It was I it's something I fell into, I think. Um as a kid, I always was drawn to art stuff. So I was always an RD kid, and I was definitely that kid that that drew and caused trouble when I should have been doing other things. And that then segued later, flashing forward many years, um to elementary school. I think my friend had a super eight camera that we try to make movies on, but failed catastrophically. And this was around the same time VHS stuff was popular. So a couple of my friends had cameras and we would just make very stupid short films, essentially. Um, and doing like linear, linear editing, um, meaning dual VCR style in real time cuts.

SPEAKER_00 3:11

And so L VC rolls, I remember them greatly.

SPEAKER_03 3:15

It's uh if you really want to appreciate editing, learn how to edit that way, and then everything after that's a miracle.

SPEAKER_00 3:21

Yes, oh my goodness.

SPEAKER_03 3:23

And so that then, you know, I in high school I ended up kind of gravitating again towards more art stuff, and I ended up in you know, doing a lot of things, ceramics, drawing, um, eventually photography. And one of the ways that we could get out of taking the English class our senior year was there was a film studies course essentially in my high school. And me and another friend of mine who I think were without throwing either of us under the bus, were underperforming in high school.

SPEAKER_00 3:49

And um I think I was too for some time. Yeah, and so uh Michelle was a straight-eyed student. Hopefully she'll talk about that later.

SPEAKER_03 3:58

Yeah, um, I was not, and so we kind of cajoled our junior English teacher because you had to have a certain grade point average to get into this film studies course, and we sort of had this brilliant idea that watching movies was more fun than writing papers, not realizing that of course we would do both. Um, and so we ended up taking this um film film appreciation film studies course that was really eye-opening. I'd always been drawn to films, I'd always, you know, I was a latchkey kid. And then so like I grew up, the TV raised me, you know. So like I was one of those kids also um and discovered things like Siskel and Ebert very young, and and so like that was sort of all that formative stuff. And then so in high school I finally took this sort of really official first film studies course where I kind of understood like, oh, like film can be an art thing, it's not just this entertainment thing, and there's like serious thought behind it, and there's a whole history, and look at these films from other countries, and this is amazing. And so it was really eye-opening. And fortuitously at that time, I was also working in a bookstore in my local town, and one of my co-workers was a bit older than me and had sort of been an academic burnout. He was in on the process of getting his PhD, kind of stopped, uh stepped out, and like a lot of people that work in bookstores was just really overeducated and erudite, but was extraordinarily brilliant when it came to film. And so, like, once he kind of found out I was interested in film, he just wanted to talk about it endlessly and said, You should watch this, you should watch this, you should watch this. And um, he had exceptional taste, and so like really kind of mentored me in that way, also. So, I really had these like sort of two people, um, kind of my senior in high school, sort of um teaching me about film. And and what's crazy is that not just there's actually three of us that came out of that. There's one guy ahead of me um named Nick Ravich, who went on to do a bunch of stuff for our PBS, he does on a famous art show out of Philadelphia, and so he took he was mentored by the same two people the year ahead of me, and then um my friend Mike and I, who Mike Mike later went on to produce um a bunch of films, including like American fiction and things like that, and or was one of the producers on that film, does a lot of commercial work. Um he was the guy that sort of ended up in that film class with me. So, like it was really, I think, for the three of us, um, because we all knew each other, um, really formative and sort of like changed the trajectory of our lives fairly dramatically. And so um sorry, I didn't know if that was like a cut. I was like, am I am I rambling?

SPEAKER_00 6:19

Okay, um, like Oliver no attention to anyone except for those at the table. Well, Oliver's in my eye line, so um come on, Ollie.

SPEAKER_03 6:29

First rule, Oliver, don't make eye contact. So um I from there kind of took some time off of high again, underperformed in high school, and took some time and just basically worked full-time in the bookstore learning more about film and sort of was really self-taught at that point. And so I read um everything I could on film, every film history book, everything about anything, and watched as much stuff like as I could. And fortuitously, again, next to the door to the bookstore was a video store, and I was good friends with people that worked there, and so I would get there kind of the same. I was getting a lot of people recommending stuff to me. And so I just um watched um a prodigious amount of films, I think is what I could say.

SPEAKER_00 7:12

And and let me just tell our audience video stores, that's where you actually get in your car and you go to a store, and there are like boxes of films everywhere, and if you don't rewind, you get paid with an extra fee. This is for the generation that doesn't understand the power of blockbuster video. Okay, sorry. Yeah, no, it's all good.

SPEAKER_03 7:33

And and and I would argue to this day that video stores are superior to to any streaming service. Um just for the curatorial, just like having conversations with people and like seeing like I don't know, seeing things next to each other and like making decisions off cover art and things like that. I thought that all stuff has been unfortunately lost. But um anyway, it was a well-stocked video store. You know, it was like a lot of video stores like the blockbusters didn't necessarily have big foreign sections. This video store happened to be um a bit more independent, it was a video Smith, and it had um Oh yeah, love video stores. Had just uh a really a good eclectic mix of films, and so I was able to watch again like independent films and a lot of foreign films and not just American mainstream stuff. And again, that was sort of what people were feeding me at that time, anyways. And so I I kind of just like a that's what I did for for essentially three years is I watched movies and read about movies and just sort of taught myself as much as I could, and again, was being mentored by this this exceptional guy, Bill McAndrews, uh, who um sadly passed away a few years ago, but um was again like critically important to I I think me and some people studying film at that time. And so um I decided I was living in Massachusetts at this time, sort of having grown up on both coasts, more or less. That's a long story, which we don't need to get into today because we don't have time for that one.

SPEAKER_02 8:52

Um we have time. East coast, west coast. Which one's your preference?

SPEAKER_03 8:58

West Coast. I can answer that for you. Totally. Um on a humid day, the answer is obvious. So um I moved back to California at that point for like the third time or something, um, with the idea that I would go to, I was gonna go to college at this point and had to sort of make up for my again lackluster performance in high school. And so moved to California where I still had a parent. I was able to have them claim me on their tax forms, which made me back into a California resident, which means I could go to California schools on the California tuition, which is um this is pre-Arnold Schwarzenegger destroying it. Yes. Um, but the California, for those of you who don't know, the California University system was spectacular and had just incredibly good schools for like dirt cheap. Like um, so my first um I had to go to community college for a couple years to make up for my um high school performance. I never took the SATs and I was never gonna blacklusters were I was never gonna get into I was never gonna get into a good college given the GP. I never I never took the SATs, and my GP, I think, was out of high school like maybe a one.

SPEAKER_02 10:03

Damn. Um I don't believe that.

SPEAKER_03 10:06

So oh damn believe me. Um because I decided at one point that high schools were just meant to keep people like me off the street during the day and that I shouldn't take anything they say seriously, and I did no homework and basically was a pain in everyone's rear end, except for my art teachers, God bless them, who um gave me a place to be creative and encourage me. So, anyway, so I moved back to California um and immediately started going to uh community college, which was Foothill Community College, which is in lovely Los Altos, California. It's a really, really beautiful campus, and it just so happened I started taking film studies again because that's what I do. Um, and weirdly enough, the guy that because this is how California is, um, the guy who taught my film history courses at Foothill was Bart De Palma, who was Brian De Palma's brother, and who did all the art department stuff on all of Brian De Palma's films.

SPEAKER_02 10:56

Wow, because that's just California, because everyone wants to be there, you know.

SPEAKER_03 11:02

And so that's just sort of what happened. So, like I learned a lot from him. He was he was an interesting guy, um, had a lot of you know, like this crazy stories about you know, he would like half his class would be like, Okay, here's this film history thing, and then you go, and then I remember this we were playing trivial pursuit at Don Johnson's house, and you're just like, what is going on here? And then like, you know, so it was a lot of that.

unknown 11:22

Don Johnson.

SPEAKER_03 11:23

Yeah, it was it's a whole thing, apparently. Anyway, so that was cool. And so I kind of from there was able to eventually like get into film school and started actually like making stuff again. I was making little things here and there, um, but um, once I got I transferred in New C Santa Cruz, which had just um basically took their films program away from the theater department. So like I was one of the first years there it was actually a standalone film program, and it was a production program, and you know, and so like I just went in there and I was just so like again at that point, super excited to be there. And it was really kind of a cutthroat competitive film school um at the time, at least in my opinion, and there's people laughing out there somewhere, I'm sure. But to get into a film production course at UC Santa Cruz at that time, you could not pre-register for the course. What would happen is you would show like a hundred people literally would show up and they would give you two hours to write something, and I forget if there was parameters that they gave you or not, and then based on the quality of your writing in that two hours, you got into the class or you didn't. So it was like and it would wheel it down from like 100 to like maybe like 16 people, you know. Wow. And so, like just getting into the production courses was like you had to really want it, you know, you had and you had to have thankfully, um you know, side note here. Um, before working in that bookstore, I worked in library. And so I've been in um further backstory, my mother was an adjunct English college professor for a long time. So I I was pretty well read um by the time I got into college, even with my crappy grades. Like I had I knew how to write at that point well enough. And so when I when I was sort of in these um the situation where I had to like do these writing to get into the class, I I was I was fairly confident at that point. And and again, and I did really want to be there and spent a lot of time kind of working up to getting there. So um I ended up like yeah, just started making making films and then and doing production, and this is all basically on 60 millimeter stuff. And what I found is that a lot of people were sort of afraid of the camera. Um, I think you got like kids today um often complain that like somehow Gen X automatically knew how to use analog equipment. We did not, right? That's right. Uh, and then we certainly and loading cameras was as obtuse then and abstract as it is today, but um, I had some, I think, mechanical affinity uh uh for very various reasons. Again, another more side stories we don't need to get into. I used to take apart everything as a child and put it back together again. I come from a family of engineers, and so this was encouraged.

SPEAKER_00 13:57

My dad was an engineer, I did the same thing. You know what I'm talking about? Yes, like this is how cool was that?

SPEAKER_03 14:03

It's the best, right? Yeah, and so you and you get obviously you know, you get a lot of confidence in your hands. And so um, when I saw the 60 millimeter camera for the first time, it was like, oh, I I got this, right? I'm not scared of this thing at all. This is awesome. I get it. Light meter, yeah, we're we're on, it's on. And because other people in my class were so terrified of it, I ended up shooting stuff for everybody, which was awesome. That's how I kind of became a cinematographer, was just start, I started just um because I was not afraid to load a camera, um, anybody would let me shoot their film, regardless of what was gonna come out of it, you know. And it's just you're you're experimenting on everyone's film, and it's like it's great because it's not your money. Um and so I and again, like I had a background in art, so like I kind of knew how to frame stuff, even if I didn't understand anything else, and um, I at least had an eye for composition at that point or good enough to kind of get by. And um, yeah, I did that. Where am I was that question? How did I become a filmmaker?

SPEAKER_02 15:00

Yeah, it was like how did you how did you become a filmmaker? I I I actually want to highlight really an important point, which is that you took a class in high school to get out of English, yes, which you then needed desperately in order to get into your film classes in college, and you were actually good at writing. So, why the hate on the English?

SPEAKER_03 15:24

Yeah, um that that's a good question, also.

SPEAKER_00 15:28

I think it's a great question. I think it is too. Yeah, congratulations. Thank you. Thank you. I think um You deserve to get off the yellow bus. Nice.

SPEAKER_03 15:37

Um I've never been particularly good at doing what is expected of me or what I should be doing. Like that that was always a problem. So I liked writing, I liked reading, I liked it, and I always wrote, and um, but I didn't really like being told what to write or what to read. I kind of wanted to do my own thing. And I think um, like in English class, I think I sort of felt, and this is gonna come across kind of jerky, and I I don't have a better way of phrasing it. Um despite my lackluster performance in high school, it wasn't because I wasn't capable of doing it, it was really I made a conscious decision not to do it because um for a lot of complicated reasons we don't need to get into. Um but again, if you present yourself as an authority to me, I'm I'm going to reject you. That that's just the way it is.

SPEAKER_02 16:28

And I think that's a really a fundamental principle by which we should all live.

SPEAKER_00 16:33

If you present yourself as an authority, you both are professors now. Yes, so that's why. Neither of us are authorities. Ask either one of us.

SPEAKER_03 16:42

Um so I I think like I just sort of wanted to do what I wanted to do in my own terms, and and like I yeah, so it wasn't necessarily that I hated on English, it just seemed like watching movies seemed more fun at that point in my life, and um and I hadn't been doing pretty, I hadn't been doing well in my English class through my junior year in high school. I think I just didn't want to read the books they wanted to read. I probably read like you know a hundred books that semester, and none of them, none of them were the ones that that they wanted me to, you know. And I tended to write kind of um essays that were uh I think in retrospect I would find them funny now, but like clearly we're always about like you know, like um how much smarter I thought I was than everybody else.

SPEAKER_02 17:27

Those are the best. Do you have any like remnants of any of the films that you made or any of the writing that you did?

SPEAKER_03 17:37

I have stuff going back to college, but the all the high school stuff I think um you know, VHS tapes die after a while. And so like, and I don't have so I don't really have any of that stuff.

SPEAKER_00 17:45

And and I think it's probably for the No, no, I want to see those be kind, rewind.

SPEAKER_03 17:51

It was not good. Um it was objectively not good, but it's sort of like you have to learn somehow, you know, and I think it was just like one of those things, and and so whatever.

SPEAKER_00 18:02

Yeah, it's almost like an instrument, right? Like, you know, in I know many parents who are going through this, their their kids decide that I'm gonna be a musician, I don't need to know math and you know, and that whole thing. And um, but it's it's it's really fascinating that you had this love from such an early age, or at least that you you know you saw it from such an early age. Um but you have a favorite film of Zach's.

SPEAKER_02 18:33

Oh, I don't I don't know if I have a favorite film because Zach doesn't share his work really. Uh yeah, notoriously. Notoriously. As is evidenced by the fact that we Zach was too busy to provide a clip. That's right.

SPEAKER_00 18:46

We're gonna have to put it in after the the show.

SPEAKER_02 18:50

The short of it. So the short of it. Yeah, the show of it. So since Zach did not provide a clip of that's correct, I mentioned that I had seen Ghostbike and uh that we could possibly show a clip of that. But I also remember this other thing that you did, which I thought was really cool, and you you actually did show this. Um you have a friend who sends you objects that he makes, and then you make films out of them. And so I actually would rather hear about that than I mean I I'm happy to talk about Ghostbike because it's a brilliant, brilliant avant-garde film that really did not get it to do. Thank you. You know, yeah. I felt the same way. Yeah, absolutely. It's it's but I am interested in the in that sort of collaborative work that you do.

SPEAKER_03 19:35

Yeah, so that the film you're talking about is called The Game. It's on a Vimeo page somewhere.

SPEAKER_00 19:41

Um, we'll find it.

SPEAKER_03 19:43

I sent I sent V everything. So V I sent V. It was on the link I sent V, so you have access to it's all there. Okay. Um so yeah, so that is a collaboration with my my good friend Mike LeBenz, who's uh also, I think, an art very much an artist, more probably more so than me. Um and he and I are really um I'm losing the words all of a sudden, um sympathetic to each other's work. I think we collaborate sort of well with each other, and we have a collaboration going back like many, many, many years. So he's a friend of mine. I met him in 1996, I want to say, um, working in yet another bookstore. And so, which that's my my other career path, right? Um so he and I were working in the bookstore together, and he had I thought looks like a really like he looked cool. He's he's taller than me, and he had like just really amazing hair, like just giant, giant hair. And I was just I was super stoked on that. And he and I both like this band, the Melvins, which was a stoner metal class slash doom metal band. Um and so we kind of started talking about that and then found we had a lot of things in common, including I think like um an appreciation and draw towards um knowledge on the fringe, I think is what I would say it's like sort of like the more like esoteric a philosopher was, sort of the more like forbidden knowledge was like that was the stuff we were kind of really into. And and he had this jaw-droppingly good record collection. I think he had well over a thousand record LPs vinyl.

SPEAKER_00 21:20

And vinyl records are things that are round that you actually had to physically put on a machine, and then you take a needle and then you put it on, and somehow the sound appears. Magic. It's called magic.

SPEAKER_03 21:32

And and I will argue here again that they sound significantly better than any MP3, and I could prove that empirically, because there's just more information and bandwidth, but whatever. We don't need to go there right now. So um so he and I were really kind of bonded over music, and he kind of turned me on a lot of music, and he was really, really knowledgeable about art, and so we just sort of um just did a bunch of random, crazy things together, and including like trying to like write these like weird um uh grant proposals and stuff that made absolutely zero sense. Like, you know, so like we were both sort of on that avant-garde wavelength for sure. And both again have an appropriate appreciation for avant-garde art um in all forms. And and he really again I think like opened my eyes to a lot of stuff as well. So it was really cool to kind of um have those conversations with him. So we just we've been doing stuff literally since 1996 off and on. And then um in different forms. And so um we were both living in Santa Cruz at the time I ended up moving back to Boston. He ended up coming and living out in Northampton for a while around 2001. So we continued to kind of do some stuff when he was out here including making films together and that kind of thing. He's actually been in a lot of my films.

SPEAKER_00 22:42

And does he still have the big hair?

SPEAKER_03 22:45

No, it's I haven't seen him in a while but I think he grew it long and sort of more straight for a while. So I'm not I'm not sure where it's at right now. I think last time I saw him was a bit shorter. And he had a handlebar mustache also like a rally finger style mustache and giant hair. So it was and he's like he's slighter than I am and taller. So he just like looked like it was just like you just looked at that guy and you're like I want to be friends with that guy. And I am um and so where was I oh yeah so we were making films North like so he weirdly enough so um side note um a guy who's in Ghostbike and sort of there's a group scene there um this dude Benno Chapman and Benno Mike LeBenz and I all worked in the same bookstore in Santa Cruz California. And so Benno and Mike have been in like basically all of my films at one point or another going back from my very first films in college. So um and Benno and I of course both live in like a mile from each other now. So anyway so Mike was out in Northampton for a while we were kind of collaborating on stuff here and there. Then he ended up moving back to Santa Cruz and then eventually up to Portland. So like and then COVID happened and everything fell off the earth and so kind of post COVID or during part of the COVID thing he at one point was like hey here's a proposal for you I'm gonna send you some some art and he does a lot of art that's um collecting found objects um and he's been doing that forever. He has an impressive collection of road metal and like you know like just things you find on the street that have been changed and altered and decayed and like he's and he's also just a phenomenal painter. You've actually seen one of his paintings in my house is the woman holding the egg tray that that's one of his paintings.

SPEAKER_02 24:22

And so you don't have a picture of that I I never took any pictures at Zach's house. Yeah so I would have been great for our audience I know it would have been awesome.

SPEAKER_03 24:31

Maybe Zach will snap one maybe because he doesn't want to share on that we need a picture of the I'll promote my friend Mike yeah I think I think he should be promoted. And so he was like I'm gonna send you one of my you know sort of found object artworks and I want you to make a film about it and that was it. And and so I took it and looked at it and like just was inspired by what was there and I and I um as Rochelle knows I'm a cyclist and so one of the things I do when I'm cycling is I look at the world a lot. Like that's one of the things I like to do walking and cycling are the best ways for me to to find ideas for films because it's a place to kind of empty your mind and and meditate a little bit.

SPEAKER_00 25:13

I do canoeing. Canoeing's good yeah same deal. I love canoeing 100% same deal right and or is it kayaking I have a kayak I don't know what I have is a kayak okay regardless of the type of boat as long as it's not motorized.

SPEAKER_03 25:29

There's a motor changes changes everything right um you have to be a lot more attentive in motorized vehicles you know you have to be attentive on a bicycle you gotta worry about hitting something if you have a motor we're way off track. So yeah so I spent like a summer just kind of cycling around um and looking at the world and sort of asked what did what all my location scouting for that film was and so then I went when I was ready to shoot um I went and shot this film just based on things I've been looking at for a couple of months and was just sort of watching them change and when they kind of got to where I thought they would look cool I I shot them. So a lot of it's some of it's my backyard. But a lot of it's sort of just my neighborhood and around my neighborhood and and and then I um as part of the deal I scored that film also. Because on top of making films like Rochelle I'll call her out also on this moment I'm also a musician. Rochelle's much much better than I am.

SPEAKER_00 26:23

Wait wait wait wait well how do you figure I can just tell um what you know he's right I can tell a lot of things just by looking at you too that's right.

SPEAKER_03 26:34

So oh Peggy liked that one of course of course so I I I composed is a generous term for what I did. I made music for that film um also I think I played four four instruments on that score. So um it's really simple I guess you get to learn a lot about people when you start a podcast yeah so yeah so I did that and that that was that was the whole the whole thing with that.

SPEAKER_00 26:58

Wow so we're I'm sorry we're we're getting a little bit we're heading towards the welcome to my world of being off track um the other reason what we the other reason the other thing we wanted to talk to you about today is the whole kind of business or work around film festivals because we understand that you've had a lot of work in film festivals and um as a person who has entered film festivals I've I've done well with some and others like Boston does not love me at all.

SPEAKER_02 27:31

I'm not sure why anyways um but wait isn't that the festival that you used to run aren't you friends with Jack Rebney? No lies just lies didn't you meet Jack Rebney?

SPEAKER_03 27:46

No no the film festival like I was Did you meet Oprah? I I've never met Oprah um just to ask yeah no I think it's just you've been everywhere it's worth yeah I mean I would first I would say I haven't been in a lot of festivals I've been in some festivals um a lot's a big word um uh the the for full disclosure and just for trying to be honest and keep myself on task here um I sort of started with I used to work for a nonprofit film arts organization called Central Productions Incorporated that was started by Nick Ravich and Mike Bose I mentioned earlier who took the same film classes together and Bill McAndrew was one of the founding members of that also. And part of what we did was we started at this at some point this thing called the Boston Cinema Census which was a um a juried um one night film festival for New England produced short so that I started that in like 2000 actually before that 99. And then when I was still being in California when I moved back to Massachusetts for like the 105th time um we started formally doing this sort of film festival thing we ran for about a decade doing that and then sort of through that um I also did a lot of work with the independent film festival of Boston. So um for them I've I've juried um their short film competition before I did a lot of um QAs and introductions for films at the festival just because I could work the bridal theater which sort of freed up some of the bridal staff to do that. I did some other stuff at the Centerville theater for them and then I also did um I moderated um QA's with with filmmakers and and and moderated some panel discussions for them. So that's sort of my official um tie to the the festival world and then of course I've done as you said I've had films and festivals and entered festivals and I used to always go to um South by Southwest out in Austin Texas also just because that was sort of one of the premier independent film festivals for a long time and would just sort of watch the short film packages primarily because that was sort of what I was doing at that time. And so I really try to just develop a a base of knowledge around short films and how um programming worked during that period of time. So I don't know if I answered the question or not I sort of gave a general overview I feel there's a real there's a specific question there somewhere.

SPEAKER_00 29:58

As a juror like if you could talk to our audience about what what are film festivals looking for like you know what works what doesn't work what have you said like what the hell and then oh this needs to like talk a little bit about the jury part of it.

SPEAKER_03 30:15

Yeah um it's it it depends like also uh I think the the the broadest and answer that maybe the most helpful um thank you is Rochelle I know um sorry all all festivals are programming for what they believe their audience is which means that every festival has a unique audience that they're trying to cater to so you know some festivals might be more quote unquote family friendly some might be a little bit more on the edge and a bit more cutting some might be more indie focused some might be more you know focused for like a more mainstream audience like it really depends on what the festival is going for. And so what's crazy about the festival and what you kind of think what I always try to think about from the programming and jury point of view is that when you are running a festival you have no films right when you start and what you have is a theater or group of theaters booked for a day or a week or three weeks or however long your festival happens to run you have to have and you have so many screens and you have a lot of money invested in and this might not also be public knowledge but a lot of festivals are nonprofit and certainly all the ones that I dealt with were nonprofits. So they're not raking in money no one's getting huge paychecks most of the festivals that I dealt with were volunteer run primarily you might have a couple programs like big festivals like Sundance and Southwest obviously have people on payroll but a lot of festivals are just people doing it for the love of doing it. And so you have all this all this sort of money laid out for theater rentals and potentially you made deals with hotels and potentially made deals with transportation and potentially you've made deals with caters. And so you now have to entice an audience to your festival but you don't have any films. Right? So like this is where you start. And so you're kind of I don't want desperate sort of the wrong word um but you really want to make sure that you're selecting films that are going to reward the audience that comes and so you have to again sort of imagine what your audience is and say I need to make make sure the films I choose are the films that my audience is expecting. Now when you're an emerging festival that's different right like if it's the first time you've ever had your festival and you don't really have a voice yet or you really don't have a style of thing that you're doing you might have a thing that you want to be doing but you haven't proven any success yet those festivals are easier to get into as a filmmaker because they they're drawing less films because they're not as established and they're trying to figure out what they want to do so they're they're gonna be a lot more open to what kind of films they're accepting. When you get to sort of the tip of the spear festivals like South by Southwest, I mean just mathematically as a filmmaker you're not you're not getting in. Right? They're gonna accept maybe maybe 1% of the films that are submitted and they're gonna reject 99% of it because they everyone submits to South by Southwest. And everyone submits to Sundance and everyone submits to con which is free by the way if you're a short filmmaker. And so the competition for those festivals is really really tough. And and so um again back to the jury question what you're looking for really is is this film once you're established once you sort of feel you have an audience is this film going to be sort of in line with kind of the stuff we were playing last year because I I want my audience to come back because I want to make sure that I can rent this theater again or I want to make sure that whatever you know people I've partnered with are going to like I need to I need to be successful to do that. I you know I need to pack the theater um right if I have really good films and no one comes and no one makes any money off of it and the theater loses money and you lose money like obviously you're not gonna go on the next year. So there really is this kind of this pressure to to have the right kind of film. And and so a lot of programmers I um talk to each other you know and like they all it's a small world. You know I remember like once being at South by Southwest and I was like um at a table I happen to know the the lead programmer for Independent Film Festival Boston who's a a good a friend of mine he's not doing that work anymore but um the people run independent film festival Boston are still very nice people um shout out Brian and Nancy and Nancy um so they've done phenomenal work there. So I I was at this you know random table like you know in between panels or something in Southwest Southwest and it was like okay so that that's person's lead program for Independent Film Festival Boston that's lead programmer for Tennessee that's a lead program it was it was like oh okay like this is this world is very very tiny. Yeah um and so back to the jury question sorry I'm kind of skipping around a little bit um trying to keep keep focused here but like as a jury like you're watching a film um what I can say is that you know typically when you're watching a film within about I hate to say this and it's gonna break a lot of people's hearts you know in about 10 seconds whether or not the film's worth watching the next 10 seconds of really yeah um and I think like if you can get a minute into a film like that's usually a a pretty good thing. And like you try to watch everything um as much as you can you really want to give films a chance but like sometimes it's just really really obvious that like this film is not for us or this film is not for the festival or this film is it's just so beyond terrible that it's not worth watching. It's not worth wasting any more of my time on um and you know typically like for our process for the the Boston Cinema census we made three piles there was the A pile the B pile and the C pile and the A pile was the films that we thought was exceptional. And we knew we knew we wanted um for that show we wanted about two hours um and so you would the A list films were definitely going to get in and then if you wanted to build up to that two hours you would go to the B pile and sort of look at the best of the the B the B plus films if you will like films that were also they were they were good that you wanted to mix in. And then in the C films like there was no chance those films just they didn't make the cut and you weren't going to show that to your you're they might be appropriate for another festival that but you knew they weren't appropriate for your audience. And so you would kind of dismiss those the other part of it um with programming is that especially like when you're doing a short film package or you're you're grouping films together is you really want to think about how are these films going to play next to each other. Right. And um and Rochelle's heard my my spiel on this probably a number of times like the way that I think of like you know a two hour block of short films for instance it's called the short of it so I'll talk about short films specifically is that you really want to put the audience on an emotional journey and you want to start them in a place and you want to end them on a place and you're using those films as the building blocks for doing that thing, right? So like if you have let's say like three really heavy films that are kind of long like you're not going to have those back to back at the end because that's going to like be kind of a gnarly way to end your show. You really want to people to kind of end um typically I would say uplifted not always sometimes you want to make a nice serious point at the end that had that has some gravity and weight to it. But I think if you want to like really sort of make people feel uplifted, you sort of want to end with that film, right? And I think you want to have you know something funny in there and you want to have something kind of serious in there and you want to have something a little bit weird in there and you want to have something that kind of is sort of maybe eases the audience to know what you're doing. And so you're really kind of thinking about it like that. And that informs a lot of the decisions on how you're gonna program and what films you're gonna choose right like it's one of those things like um I explain to people in class a lot let's say like let's say you make a film about a bike and um the kid's brother gets killed on a bike accident that's off screen somewhere for instance and um you submit that film a festival and they've already like say selected a film that's very similar to that or they played that film very similar really similar film to that last year. Like your chances of getting at that point are are basically nil because it's they already have that right or they've already done that.

SPEAKER_00 37:49

And so you kind of just a cut so it it it is more about so film festivals are more about programming the film festival and what's working in the fist film festival and that 10 seconds is really scary but um it's not it's not so much that your film is horrible or great it's just what works with that particular festival. So we gotta do as filmmakers we have to do our homework and find out like what they're okay 100%.

SPEAKER_03 38:22

You know like the more informed you are about the festival and what they play the better. Like I I I've never submitted to a festival without reading their mission statement, without looking through what kind of films they programmed in the past you know like I haven't done as much of that. Just to see like if it's worth it. Yeah um you know and there's like other things like um like I like every film I've ever made pretty much I submit to South by knowing I'm not gonna get in. Just because I I I want to force them to watch my movies quite frankly I want them I want them to know who I am and and like maybe someday I don't think so but it's like you know they they they will watch your films like what I can say you know is the the programmers at South by Southwest have had have been forced to watch at least 10 seconds of all of my films right I can say that um and clearly like it didn't make the cut which is fine and and like um like I said with that festival specifically the math is just against you. But yeah Tony in answer to your question it's not just whether your film's good or bad. Like if it's bad it's it's you're kind of screwed right honestly.

SPEAKER_00 39:19

And hopefully someone has told you that before you go spend your money at film festivals.

SPEAKER_03 39:23

Yeah and and I think though but the film not only has to be good it has to be good it has to speak I think to the zeitgeist it has to be um new in some way especially short films like where you can be a lot more playful features are a whole different ballgame but like um shorts are often made by new or emerging filmmakers right like big establishment like Barnesquarts is not submitting short films to to South by Southwest. You know like that's just not how it is and and so I I think that you yeah you want to be sort of good uh right baseline but then like also like I said um innovative in some way doing something that's maybe a little bit different like something that says here's my voice and that my voice is different than other people's voice like I I'm not just imitating what was cool two years ago right like um I'm I'm doing something fresh and exciting and interesting and you should program my film and also I think you know like it's part of what your festival does and therefore it would be a good fit. Like that's really kind of what you're trying to do as a as a filmmaker.

SPEAKER_00 40:20

I have to give a shout out to Roxbury International Film Festival Lisa Simmons woohoo um but she has um that the film festival has shown so much love for Hull Bay production so I just kind of wanted to say that and we have another short film that we're shooting this summer Hold This and we are going to put that in their film festival but I I think in time because I've been doing this with them for quite some time that we have developed a relationship. They keep taps on what we're doing. I've actually even gotten an email like are you submitting anything this year and it's like but um so that's also another way to do it like you know I I think that once you get into a film festival and if you do well just stay in communication and you know they all have their emails up on the page and everything and just say hey you know thank you for this that and the other and um yeah schmoos.

SPEAKER_03 41:19

Yeah and I I would I I'd say 100% that right and I would even go as far as yeah I mean obviously like the programmers stick around for a while. So if they know you and they're already willing to support you they're probably willing to continue to support you. They they they have a vested interest in your growth and development at that point and they want you to to succeed so they'll they'll typically help you. So the more people you know the better obviously that's how this whole industry works. But even like when I'm in the submission process if I'm if I've gone into a festival and there's one downstream I haven't heard back from yet I'll always write to them and be like hey by the way I just I just got accepted into this festival. With shorts you can kind of get away with that. With features they always want to be premieres you know and the big festivals they don't want to show like if you've already shown your film like they they're sort of more hesitant because they want premieres also but with shorts so like the more buzz you have the better. And especially when you're dealing with like tier two and and tier three festivals so like not not tell you ride not south by southwest not Sundance like you know not not Tribeca. But like a lot of the other festivals um they're still very very good like if your film has gotten some traction and played in these other festivals then you say and they don't know you and you're like oh by the way I just want to let you know that this film got in this festival that sort of says oh okay maybe we should pay attention to this filmmaker because these other people have thought right that the the film was good enough to put in so maybe we should pay some attention to it.

SPEAKER_02 42:34

Yeah what about a length?

SPEAKER_03 42:37

Yeah the ideal length of a short film I'm gonna I want to say some really brutal things about short films. And this is just my opinion again having all the things I said about my involvement in short films over the last two decades. So take it or leave it. I used to run open screen or co-host open screen also by the way so um so I've seen a lot of short films a lot of short films in my life did open screen um and so here's what I think a short film should be and this is gonna be really dogmatic and of course I go against this all the time um a short film should take place more or less in real time and be less than 10 minutes. That's the ideal short film. And it should also be a one act um that's what I think a short film should be. And I think that if you look at like very successful short films that play a lot of festival circuit most of them mostly adhere to that which is why I came up with that formula. If you're once you go past 10 minutes um you better be really really solid to get up to 15. And if you go past 15 like you better be like I don't know like um pick your favorite genius filmmaker person um that like it's really really hard once you go past fifteen like it's like short film. They don't want to they don't want to program that. Um ten and twelve is kind of the sweet spot. I think it like if if you wanted to get into every festival out there, make a really funny sharp four-minute film. Like and that will play. Because short, funny films are great padding in programs and everyone likes to laugh.

SPEAKER_00 44:17

I'm pretty funny.

SPEAKER_03 44:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 44:20

Most of the time. I make you laugh all the time. What are you talking about? I rarely laugh. Um, do are we how are we on time?

SPEAKER_02 44:29

We definitely pushed the line. Okay. I thought we were saying some pretty valuable things. No, we were. We were.

SPEAKER_00 44:35

I don't know. Yeah, they will. Or give me a lot of hate. It's 50-50 nowadays. Um, wait, wait, wait, can I can I'm going to do that? Yeah, do what you want. What's what's too long for a short film? If you say 20 minutes, I'm gonna cry. Do it.

SPEAKER_03 44:51

Yeah, I I I I really think once like 15 is is kind of it. And again, like I'm being hypocritical, so of course I've I push this boundary myself. And and I I wouldn't think any of my films would be described as funny, or you know, like um they're either weird or very, very depressing, and um, or some mixture of both. And and so like end of the day, I think you kinda ha as a filmmaker, um, you gotta do your thing, right? Like you gotta do you gotta make the film that you wanna make. And I think just think like why I'm saying what I'm saying right now is understand what you're up against, you know. Like if you if you go against my my little opinion over here, like that's fine, but understand what you're where you're treading when you do that. Like that that's really it for me. And so I think like, you know, like again, so back to math, right? Like, if I'm a festival programmer and I have a 60-minute short film block, how many 20-minute films can I program in there? Right, how many four-minute funny films can I program in there, right? And filmmakers bring their friends and family, and filmmakers push their films on social media and everything else and get help bring an audience into the film. And if you have a bunch of 20-minute films, like that just limits what your audience can be automatically, unfortunately. I mean, that's again, that's just the reality of what's happening. Um, that being said, I mean I remember one time at South by Southwest, they had specifically a block of films that were longer than the 15. They had like it was like the long, short block or something, and there was like four really, really good films there. Um, so they like in again, incredibly innovative, wonderful, strange, amazing films. Um, and one of which was a musical that I can still kind of vaguely remember, like it all took place in a parking lot, and it was like this dev, it was devastating and amazing and a musical, and was 20 minutes long. So, like, but it had you know, like those films were all incredible, not like like if you went to like everything else was sort of like normal, really good, like those were like, oh my god, like how did they even come up? Like, how did that even happen? You know? Um, so and and of course, like I we haven't even mentioned like things like budgets and stuff like that, which are also gonna make people cry. So I'm gonna back away from it.

SPEAKER_00 47:04

Um I'm still paying for the do you remember me?

SPEAKER_03 47:07

But yeah, I I went into I made a feature in 2003 that took me, I think, a decade and a half to pay off my credit cards because I went full in a credit card debt on it, and that film went nowhere.

SPEAKER_02 47:18

So, you know, when can we see that film?

SPEAKER_03 47:20

Oh, that film is buried for a reason.

SPEAKER_02 47:24

Films you need to see. That's my the first one I need to show. No one needs to see that film. Come on, come on.

SPEAKER_03 47:30

Oh, no.

SPEAKER_00 47:32

So in in terms of a filmmaker, um, because we we want to l leave on an encouraging note, an uplifting note. That wasn't encouraging something that's gonna make you feel nice. Yeah. Um film festival wins, you know, whether it's semifinalists, finalists, or winners, what how does that um manifest in terms of the success of a filmmaker? I feel like I've I've I've done pretty well, damn well with film festivals, and I think that that's uh helping the success of what what I'm doing, but what does that look like? And then the the flip side to that is like not winning film festivals, what does that say about I I would say honestly, I think just getting in as a win is the is the first thing.

SPEAKER_03 48:25

I mean, that's a jury selected show, jury selected, and if and if you get in anything like amazing, like that's so huge. And I think getting an award on top of that all the better. And I think obviously, you know, like it it depends on the festival. Like, you know, winning best short film at Sundance is different than winning, you know, best short film at Joe Bob's barbecue and film festival, right? Like so like there's there's there's I want to submit to that.

SPEAKER_00 48:52

Me too.

SPEAKER_03 48:53

There's there's levels, there's levels that that's you know, some festivals matter more than others, but I I think that um yeah, like winning, like I said, it's a huge accolade, and it's one of those things like when you can as far as like how it translates to set success, I I think you know, like let's not kid ourselves. Like we've already talked about it. Um, filmmaking is about scrounging for money and about asking people for favors. I I sometimes like compare it like like some don't say, Hey man, you want to work on my film? And it's like that's sort of like the equivalent of saying, Hey man, you want to help me move right this weekend? And you're like, not really, but you're my friend, so I guess I'll help you out.

SPEAKER_02 49:28

Oh, actually, that reminds me. I was gonna ask you something. Do you want to work on my film?

SPEAKER_00 49:36

Great question. Great question. I'm working on it. You might as well come on board.

SPEAKER_03 49:39

So, like asking, you know, you're oh so filmmaking, you're you're always asking people for money and you're always asking people for favors. And I and I think that, and that's just part of the gig. I mean, it you do it because you love it, and and hopefully you can kind of if you're but if you're successful, I think it makes it it's an easier ask, right? And I think like, especially if you're trying to get um funding for a project saying, like, hey, um none of my films ermate into a festival, you've never heard of me. Um, I have no social media presence, I'm not on Vimeo. Will you give me two million dollars to make my dream project? And it's like that's not gonna happen unless that's your uncle who wants to give you two million dollars for some reason.

SPEAKER_00 50:13

Or if your last name is Winfrey. Yeah, or Coppola, right?

SPEAKER_03 50:18

Coppola. But as as someone who doesn't have that nepotistic advantage, um, if you're like, hey, you know, like I've gotten my film in the X, Y, and Z film festival, I was a finalist and this, this, and that, I won these awards, I got these accolades, like I'm trying to like, you know, raise, you know, trying to get resources for my next film, like that's a much easier ask at that point because you have a proven track record of success. It shows that you're serious, it shows that you get things done, it shows that you have a festival history. Like, you're now much, much more viable as a filmmaker, I think. You know, like that's just the reality of it. So I think even getting in gets you that. Um, and I think that beyond that, like anything on top of that, all the better. And like and the more festivals you get in, the better. Like, it's just again, sort of proof that you know what you're doing is quote unquote real. You know, like um, I've often describe filmmaking as sort of like an act of insanity, if we can still say that. But it's like no one's asked you to do it, right? Like you've chosen for some reason to like lose all your money and annoy all your friends in order to make a piece of art that you you for some reason have a dying reason to do, but there's like no really good reason to do it, right? Um, but you do it because you love it and because you want to make the film a reality, and you're willing to kind of go through this process of doing it, and yeah, and and and do the festival thing, which means getting rejected, and that's part of it also. And like, yeah, it's filmmaking. You're gonna get rejected, get used to it. It's like a lot, like hell yeah, it's it's good for you, it builds character, and like something. And when you but when you get rejected, rejected, rejected, and you finally get into a festival, that is like the best feeling in the world, and it's and like going for those of you never done it, like 10,000, 100,000 million hits on Vimeo, YouTube, awesome. Like, until you sat in a theater, like a darkened theater in some state you don't live in, yeah, and they have no idea who you are, yeah. They don't even know that you're the filmmaker, and you're watching people react in real time to your work.

SPEAKER_00 52:12

Best feeling every unreal. It is that we went to Minnesota where we showed it's the best, right? More than our skin. Yeah. Right?

SPEAKER_03 52:20

Like it's like it's like that's like the chills on the back of the spine moment. Because it's like not your friends and family, like going, yeah, good job. Yeah, exactly. It's a stranger laughing in the right place or crying in the right place or reacting or applauding in a meaningful way, and you're saying you know that you got them, and like, yeah, okay, I I I guess I'm okay at this, right?

SPEAKER_02 52:37

Yeah, no, for sure. That's awesome.

SPEAKER_00 52:40

You need a little validation or Mr.

SPEAKER_02 52:42

Walker.

SPEAKER_00 52:44

Oh my gosh. So much information, great information. Zach, thank you so much for coming on the short of it. Um and you know, I I think that filmmakers out there, you all can be very, very optimistic. Um, and I would say just don't give up. If it's your passion, if it's your dream, it's what you want to do, just don't give up. Just keep doing it.

SPEAKER_02 53:09

I'm unless you're bad at it, then stop. Well just stop it. Stop making us watch the stop it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 53:18

Stop being competition to me in festivals. I guess to everyone, stop.

SPEAKER_02 53:22

Stop. Not good at it, stop it. Send me your money.

SPEAKER_03 53:27

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 53:28

Alright. Anyways, thank you for being here. Um I'm Tony McGraths. Uh I'm Rochelle. Yes, you are. Oh, is this government name? No, you don't have to. Okay. I didn't do mine, though. Exactly. Thank you. And thank you all for tuning in. This is the short of it. The short of it is brought to you by the Den Beauty Lounge. Visit the Den Beauty Lounge.glossgenious.com for more information and book your appointment today. Hey, we hope you enjoyed the short of it. You can listen to the short of it each Saturday right here on BroncoIRadio.com. Want to stay in touch with the shortties? Follow us on Instagram at underscore the short of it.