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Imbibe Cinema
Dawn Dusk
When directing duo Jason & Blue initially met Chelli Look at her studio showcasing her latest handbag collection, they expected to create a simple maker documentary. What they discovered instead was a profound story of resilience, as Chelli channeled her grief into artistic expression while donating portions of her proceeds and time to a domestic violence shelter.
Co-hosts Jonathan C. Legat and Tricia Legat welcome the film's directors onto the show and discuss the nine year filmmaking journey that captures Chelli's evolution not just as an artist but as a person rebuilding her sense of purpose.
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Dawn Dusk was the closing night feature of the 2020-25.
Speaker 2:2020-2025. Shh.
Speaker 3:It's that cotton candy. It messes with the time.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's all that sugar. The space-time continuum yeah, greetings and or salutations, and welcome to the Imbibe Cinema Podcast. I'm Jonathan C Leggett, along with my co-host. Trisha Leggett as well as our producer, Michael Newens, and we've been really excited about this particular episode because things are going to be a little bit different. Unlike our previous editions, Today the episode will be spoiler-free-ish.
Speaker 4:Light.
Speaker 5:Spoiler-free light.
Speaker 1:Spoiler-free adjacent light spoiler free light spoiler free adjacent. We are thrilled to have two guests on the show, both partners in life and uh fantastic directing duo, who have just released their award-winning documentary dawn dusk on digital earlier this month. And if you have not seen dawn dusk yet, please find the link in our show notes to learn more about how and where you can see it. This film follows Shelley Look, an artist who specializes in designing handbags, and the overwhelming grief that she and her family experience after the murder of her sister In the years that follow Shelley's journey towards healing forces her to rediscover who she is as an artist, leading to an unexpected revelation. Now, dawn Dusk was the closing night feature presentation at the 2025 Blue Whiskey Independent Film Festival earlier this year, and it did win Best of Illinois. So we're going to be bringing our guests in just a few minutes and then break down our reaction to both the film as well as the interview after the break.
Speaker 1:But first let's talk about the drink that we have paired with this film. It's delicious, it is. It is quite tasty, the hit of sugar, and you get to actually, you know decide how much sugar or sweetness you want in it. The drink that we have paired with this episode is called Dusk Till Dawn. The cocktail contains blueberry vodka, orange juice, lemonade and blue cotton candy, and again you can rip off a larger or smaller hunk depending on your sweetness taste. Recipe as well as pictures are available on our website, imbibecinemacom. Let's get to it and welcome our guests.
Speaker 5:I'm Blue, I'm.
Speaker 1:Jason.
Speaker 5:We're the directors of Dawn Dusk and, yeah, we're happy to be here.
Speaker 1:Wonderful. In fact, I know somebody is very eager to get into said questions.
Speaker 4:Well, we're looking forward to it. Before we started recording, I had talked about marriage and that transition was going to be there, naturally but it's gone now.
Speaker 1:Did you want to re-pitch about marriage and how, now that you're married to me, you're just tired?
Speaker 3:No, obviously, we're so in sync. We can finish each other's sentences, but how did it come about? What is your origin story? I should say on working with your partner at home and at work. How did that work out for you guys?
Speaker 4:Yeah.
Speaker 5:We first started working together on a music video that we did basically right out of college.
Speaker 5:Yeah, which has never seemed to like me, it's bad, it wasn't very good but it was really fun to make. And I came on as a production designer for it actually, but then kind of ended up kind of co-directing it with Jason. And then he was like, well, why don't you help me with the edit? And then there was all of these moments where you know I'd show up to his house to edit and he's like, oh, do you want? I made tilapia and here's white wine, and you want to listen to this Bon Iver album? And I'm like what's happening?
Speaker 4:We called them accident.
Speaker 5:Yeah, so that continued for a while until he actually asked me out, and yeah.
Speaker 5:And then we dated and then, you know, for a while in the beginning we were kind of working mostly separately.
Speaker 5:I was doing production design and he was doing camera, but then on the side we were doing stuff together, because both of our dreams and our goals was always directing, um, and so kind of working in these other aspects of film was just like a means to work in film while building up our portfolios. And then we kind of launched ourselves as directors and, through a party, invited all the people that we had worked with before and said here's our portfolio as directors, please hire us. And I think we just wanted to do that because we didn't really want to compete against each other, and we also found that we had a lot that each of us was bringing to the table, that we were able to, you know, fill in the blanks for each other and collaborate together. We, I think, are moving into more of places where we're now more established in our own directing styles and are kind of starting to even direct, uh, separately a little bit more and but still like supporting each other in that okay and for this project, how long, how much footage like.
Speaker 1:I know documentaries.
Speaker 3:The story kind of comes to you at, but how much of it is guided? Yeah, it's like 800 questions in one.
Speaker 4:Oh, I can answer them all, I'll just let you.
Speaker 3:What is documentary to you? How do you Wow? What does it mean? Can you tell me a little bit about your process?
Speaker 4:Yeah, well, start to finish. Finish being the movie that was just released, it's not finished. We still have a lot of work to do, but let's just call that the finish Start to Finish, the movie's been released. Nine years, more or less from start to finish.
Speaker 4:We started filming with Shelley in late 2016. We met her actually at an open studio. We were kind of running in parallel circles and, through some friends of friends, we met, uh her at an open studio that she was throwing um for her latest collection, which was the dawn dust collection, and we uh went to this event to go check it out. We didn't know much about it at the time. Vimeo was popular and little maker documentaries were popular and everyone was like aiming for a staff pick. So we were in that. We were also like caught up in that trend and hype and we also were getting asks from commercial agencies. You know like, hey, we're looking for this kind of like high end docu style work and in order to get that kind of work, you need to kind of have it on your portfolio. So we were looking for some kind of project to fill in that gap and when we walked into her studio, it was kind of mesmerizing. It was very minimal but beautiful.
Speaker 4:Shelly was a really magnetic person and we said to ourselves, maybe Shelly would let us film a little like five minute maker documentary about her. So we asked her. She said, yeah, let's do it, let's talk about it, let's get coffee and we can chat about next steps. So a few days later, over coffee, we asked her like how did you get started? You know doing what you're doing?
Speaker 4:And she told us the story of her sister who had been murdered and how she was now donating 10% of her proceeds to WINGS and also donating 10% of her time to WINGS as a domestic violence shelter in Chicago. And it was like a very surprising answer to hear the story of what she had gone through and where she was at. And we started to feel like there might be something deeper but we didn't know in that moment that we had a feature-length film on our hands be something deeper, but we didn't know in that moment that we had a feature-length film on our hands. But we started filming and over time, you know, we popped in for some B-roll here and popped in for some B-roll there and asked to you know, have a long interview with her and maybe after there's like maybe four or five days of filming over the course of a month, we were like I think there's something more here.
Speaker 5:Let's let the story be as long as it needs to be, uh, and then wind it up with a 90 minute feature film on her hands yeah, I, I think another part of that that was like really, I think why it was so intriguing was when she answered our question with the story of her sister. She answered it like, not in like a uh, this really hard thing happened to me and like what was me? Kind of way. She said it almost like this really hard thing happened, but like there's power in sharing, like this story and like now I'm turning it into good and that was like what was so yeah turning it into good and that was like what was.
Speaker 5:So, yeah, like that's a really good way really kind of jaw dropping to us.
Speaker 4:Yeah, uh, you asked how much footage. We had about 80 hours of footage, yeah wow, michael, you're the resident editor.
Speaker 5:It's a lot of footage yeah, we, we thought, we thought we, we thought we had won the footage amount. And then we went and saw the documentary Wildcat and they had a thousand hours of footage. And we were like okay, I guess it's not that much.
Speaker 4:We'll never brag about how much footage we had again, but it was for us, I think, as an independently funded documentary.
Speaker 4:For a very small film With just us and one editor and an assistant editor for a short stint and well, we had an editing intern who helped. Becca was great too. So just over that, over those time we had about three and a half, four years of post-production. You know, we trimmed that 80 hours down to like a four hour assembly and then took that to a three and a half hour assembly and then two and a half hour rough cut and then, you know, a hour in like eight, like you know, 50 minute fine cut and then around 100 minutes. We did some test screenings and were able to trim that last 10 minutes off and really nail it down.
Speaker 3:yeah, yeah, well, I mean for me, uh, I am not technologically savvy in any way, and they can speak to this, but technology changes so quickly. Cameras have come so far, so it's like nine years of footage, and how much technology changes over that time is just kind of one of those like oh my God, and yet the film is beautiful.
Speaker 3:And the way that it's edited is amazing. I I am a sucker for symbolism and I love the use of light throughout the film. I love the way how you move light across the room and and and speeding it up and uh, the the shots that were at dawn or dusk, um, but um. I think one of my um favorites was how the light in her studio would move in these slits across, and that was. That was pretty awesome. Another thing is like there was a point where she was talking about getting through the anger of what she'd gone through and at the same time, you're watching her get a tattoo and how it's like.
Speaker 3:oh, this is just imprinted literally on your skin as you're talking about getting rid of this pain and carry it with you and all that, and it was just like, oh, I love it. These are two things like right here at the same time. So that then leads me down this other red. Yeah my train of my train of thought has no track.
Speaker 4:I apologize oh, I love it, let's follow it okay.
Speaker 3:so at what point do you get comfortable being in the room while things that are uh, happening, that like, for instance, when, um, she's talking to her mother, uh, and going over things and and this is very vulnerable, very intimate, emotional moment and it's done very respectfully but I mean, I can only imagine like being in the room. How is that from a filmmaker's point of?
Speaker 5:view, because all throughout filming with Shelly and all throughout the process, we always made sure to ask consent and we always gave her a heads up of like hey, we want to talk to you about the murder.
Speaker 5:So, just so you know, we're not catching you off guard and that's not always how some docs are made.
Speaker 5:But I think it's interesting because even as we're going through our festival run and submitting to some festivals, we were getting some questions like what is your relationship to your subject?
Speaker 5:People wanted to know do you have consent to tell this story, which I think is really, um, like, actually really good, because you know the it just it keeps, um, the person in mind, like care for the person, and that was what we wanted to extend to shelly, was we wanted to, you know, make sure that she wasn't being taken advantage of throughout it. But so that moment that you brought up of when you know her mom starts crying in there in the room, I think that was a really interesting moment because I think my gut reaction was like to give them space. But then it was like well, no, like this is what you know they have. They have given us permission to enter into the, into this vulnerable space with them, and so you know, we stayed and just just allowed whatever needed to happen to happen and then, I think, afterwards just checked in with them and was that OK that we were there.
Speaker 4:We were strategic. Uh, we spent a lot of time with shelly before we approached her about talking to her parents or doing a home visit, and when we did that, we wanted to have have earned the trust of shelly to advocate on behalf of us, to be there, you know, and to connect with her family, because you know, she was our point of contact. And but I remember that moment very distinctly because we kind of had we were just filming some B-roll. There wasn't, we weren't, I had almost put the camera down and we only had one camera up which was just me and you had, like gone around the hallway.
Speaker 5:Oh yeah.
Speaker 4:And the scene sort of started to shift and I started to lock in and I just tried to not breathe and to not make myself known at all. And you'll see, there's a moment actually where I'm up high and I don't really like it. I didn't want to be up high, I actually wanted to be at my hips so I could be eye level, wanted to be at my hip so I could be eye level and I, um, as as shelly reaches for these paper towels in the scene to like give to her mother to help wipe her eyes. I have to move out of the way because I'm like over the paper towels and I use that moment to sort of shift low and get to eye level. But there's no cuts because there's no other camera running and any sound, any getting a b camera up, anything like that. You know blue's right around the corner and I'm looking and making eye contact.
Speaker 4:We didn't want to ruin this moment, not only for our sake for being able to film it, but we wanted to let them have this moment. I think there's kind of a duality in a documentary like this, where we're trying to get what we need but we also are trying to let things naturally transpire. And so much later we talked to them and they said I didn't even remember you being in the room. And I think that's an interesting thing because I just, you know, was I'd made myself very small and you weren't even really in the room, you were just monitoring audio next door. You don't even have a monitor up at the time because we weren't really in go mode. It just sort of happened and we just had to get that moment, and I'm glad we did, because I think it was a powerful and intimate moment.
Speaker 5:Yeah, yeah, and I will say there wasn't ever moments where we were getting shelly's like edits or eyes or anything like she's she when she saw the film. She saw the completed film like as is, and you know, and we were like hope you like it.
Speaker 4:Yeah um, she had no creative involvement in the making of it. Consent just means like hey, is it okay that we're here while we're filming?
Speaker 3:Yeah, exactly, and I could see that, because we know that she has other siblings and we know that her sister lived out of state and so if you were to follow that story and as many documentaries then become about that incident or give all this background on it, and that's not there and I've I.
Speaker 3:Uh, that's where you kind of expect it to go as a viewer, at least in my experience you expect, oh, we're going to hear all about this other woman's life, and we didn't. And I really liked that because it's really. It is her story, it is her point of view and she's taking control of how her life moves forward and, like the film is shaped around that goal and the spirituality. That's the other thing. She talks about her faith and we don't see her at church, even though she's talked about church. We don't need a church to have faith, right. So in the beginning you have these moments where she just talks about church. We don't need a church to have faith, right.
Speaker 3:So in the beginning you have these moments where she just talks about being an artist and creating and how. She's like, oh, I can't articulate, I have a hard time finding the right words. I'm like you are so articulate, that is so well said. I couldn't say anything close to what she says. And I'm like but I completely understand what you're saying and I agree to what she says. And I'm like but I completely understand what you're saying and I agree, and all of that. And then it makes me go well, gee, I know she didn't just sit down and go. Well, I'm gonna tell you all about art, especially considering, in my process, considering, I have a hard time verbalizing it. So how do you lead into questions to and then be and get those questions to expound without going you know, oh, yes, no, how do you? How do you get that out of a subject? Because obviously I suck at asking questions.
Speaker 5:Not at all.
Speaker 4:Oh, that's a great question. That's a good question.
Speaker 5:Yeah, I mean we started pretty so I think in the beginning we we just had so much that we wanted to know about her and we had so many. In the beginning it was kind of like we were wondering what we were going to focus on specifically. And to your observation of what you just said about how, you know, we didn't follow her to church, we didn't follow her sister. The focus really is on her as an artist and that is what you know. We ended up kind of honing in on and leaning into in our interviews with her. But in the beginning we would just have these.
Speaker 5:She was such a good sport. We'd have these very long interviews. We had like three hour long interviews with her where we just sat and chatted for a long time and in the beginning we were asking her these kind of broad questions like what is quality to you? You know, what does it mean to you to have a quality? You, you know, to make quality art? I think at one point, you know, jason asked her about art and what is like the meaning of art.
Speaker 4:I asked her what is good taste? And she rolled her eyes yeah, because they're very broad. I mean, we also asked her a lot of just background questions, but they were.
Speaker 5:We were building up a layer of, like, uh, trust and conversation and rapport between the three of us and just getting her comfortable and you know she felt comfortable enough to like laugh at some of her questions, which was great, um and so but yeah, we those things led to sort of like you, you, you joking say like what is the meaning of art, you know, like, and and then she laughs, she laughs, and then she tells you, and then she thinks about it, and it may not be the exact answer, because I don't think you can really define that, I don't think you can truly answer that, but you can answer it for yourself in some way.
Speaker 4:And then that goes somewhere and that leads to these deep thoughts, things that you think and feel but you maybe don't always articulate. And I think that being willing to sort of be open to big concepts but also like being able to sort of dive and follow threads, like very much like you're doing with sort of like taking your train of thought, but then you get somewhere where you kind of like needle into a specific point and it gives us a really good space to answer. That's like a great question. I love that question.
Speaker 5:So so those questions, you know, became more and more um, thoughtful and intentional and specific as time went on. And I think a great example is the walk and talk that we do with her by the lake side. In the film that was, that interview came after having some other conversations you know with her from the other interviews where and actually you do see this in the film there's like another interview with when she has the shaved head, where she's um in her studio, where she's saying she's talking about the inspiration behind the bags and she's talking about how she's super inspired by sunrise and sunset. And after that interview we were like, okay, yeah, yeah, you're inspired by sunrise and sunset. It's very pretty, like it's great.
Speaker 5:But you know we were kind of like, but why? But why you're inspired by sunrise and sunset. It's very pretty, like it's great. But you know we were kind of like, but why, but why are you inspired by sunrise and sunset? And so then we took her to the lakeside and we said can you talk to us about what dawn and dusk actually mean to you? And that's where the chat about like how it was the most faithful thing for her during such a dark time of her grieving the loss of her sister. Going through the trial, you know dealing with all the anger and the questions and you know so. Then we saw, like that, that deeper part of it come out, knowing what it's like to shoot on the water.
Speaker 3:Uh, the wind factor. Uh, I'm impressed like you don't. You don't hear uh what? Yeah, michael's like oh, the wind when it's off the lake.
Speaker 2:I've shot on lake michigan several times and and all adr always, always, every, every time.
Speaker 5:I think it was just a really quiet day.
Speaker 4:It was a quiet day on a lob mic.
Speaker 5:It was also like six in the morning.
Speaker 4:Yeah, it was six in the morning.
Speaker 3:Yeah, when you talk about consent and permission, there are places I don't know if you necessarily knew you were going, like Italy, yeah, and filming at the school or filming at the airport or filming on a plane. Like, did you run into any issues where you were able to film A couple of things?
Speaker 4:So for Italy. If it feels abrupt in the film, it's because it was for us too, and I think it was for Shelley too. She was like you know what? I'm going to enhance my craft in Italy and we were like, oh okay. And so we were like, well, maybe we should go. And so we went and we just called the school ahead of time. We actually let Shelly go for a few months before and then over that time, once she got a little more comfortable, it just gave us the contact and we were able to sort of arrange school is very excited, very excited.
Speaker 5:They were like yeah, pumped so that was easy.
Speaker 4:That was easy. The um airport was just taking the camera and stripping it down to its smallest shape and just looking like a tourist, and um blue had a little bag with a wireless audio recorder very small and we had a mic on her and we just tried to look like we weren't doing anything. Um and I like popped out a little monopod and when we were in the um the terminal just threw it down and just sat there quietly and just we just talked and it just looked like I had a camera and no one bothered us Popping onto the plane. I think this is okay to say the one fake thing in this whole movie. It's okay, the one fake thing in the whole movie.
Speaker 4:We couldn't fly to Florence with Shelley, but we wanted to get on a plane, we wanted to go through that whole experience. So like maybe three or four days or maybe a week before she was going to leave for Florence, we booked a flight to Cincinnati and back in the same day together and just flew to Cincinnati together and talked all day and then flew back and talked in the terminals and on the plane and then got what we needed to represent her leaving for Italy.
Speaker 5:Yeah, and it wasn't, like you know, so far removed. It was like she was getting ready to leave. So when we asked her you know, talk about where you're going, what you're about to do it was still like authentic.
Speaker 4:It was imminent.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yes, yeah, right, and then you have all that footage that you can find what you need, because otherwise it's like the plane and the map and the dots and Exactly what is it Like Sleepless in Seattle? Where they're just like do you know this, oh yeah. Sleepless City.
Speaker 2:I was thinking of the Muppets, but oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, travel by map, travel by map.
Speaker 3:Yeah, no, yeah. No. Michael and john have their own uh history of uh airports and filming, and was the the shock mount was the shock mount.
Speaker 1:We're going through the you know tsa and this tsa agent waves us over. Uh, we were.
Speaker 2:We're flying out to la, to uh one shot it was the other half of a phone call.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we had somebody in LA but we're flying out there and this TSA agent waves Michael over and he's like is this your bag? And we're like, yeah, and he goes, what the fuck is in here?
Speaker 5:And we're like I'm sorry what.
Speaker 1:And he's like what is this? And he pulls out and it's like you know, you know it's the handle and it's like a sennheiser shock mount right and and we're like, oh, it's a shock mount. He's like what is? That what is, and we're like okay so you, you put the microphone in there and that way it doesn't you know. And he's like, oh good, because I'm like these guys are not bringing a crossbow on here and i'm'm like oh okay, I can see that.
Speaker 3:No, it's like no sorry sorry.
Speaker 5:I mean in that TSA agent's defense. A shock mount does sound very scary.
Speaker 2:I mean, doesn't it?
Speaker 4:Everything that we bring. We have a boom pole, we have a shotgun microphone. There was a red camera called the weapon for a while and I was bringing a red weapon through security once and they opened it up and it's a square box labeled weapon right on top and there's nothing you can do about it. It's big branding and they're like what is this? And I'm like it's a camera and they're like why does it say weapon on it?
Speaker 5:You're like I don't know. Talk to red. This is not me.
Speaker 3:Oh, man, yep, you're like I don't know, this is not yeah, yeah, you know, oh man yep, that's great I love how everything got revealed in a um, in a layered way, where it you know it kept you wanting to know more, but without like, not holding it back and being like I'm not gonna tell until yeah, we really have to credit our editor, slash co-producer, meredith Mantic, with that executing it, you know, in this very technical way, where she just like knew exactly what pacing we needed and like where things needed to go when we ditched our chronological cut and decided we've literally called it like we've edited based on themes.
Speaker 4:that's literally what we were doing and I'm glad that came across. That is what gave us this freedom to sort of start ditching stuff and, you know, like as interesting, as interesting as, like some of Shelley's, like family background and like journey from college and different things were when we started that theme, we kind of were able to sort of hone in on the things that we felt like made the most sense for this story Because, like you said, there's so many ways we could have taken this and we really wanted to be about an artist, um processing her grief through her work and that's how you know you see the structure.
Speaker 5:then, um, reflect that kind of grief process, because grief is very non-linear and you know you're not going from point a to point b, just like creation sometimes, like the creating process is also nonlinear at times, um, and so in a way, the structure of the film reflects both her creative process and her grief journey through that. So, yeah, so that that was kind of like the thematic motivation for editing it that way, I think. I think when we went from through the test screening, what actually ended up happening was we've reordered a few things, like we, we, there was still some stuff that needed to be even reordered even more, and then we, then we trimmed down a little bit here and there, um, but the last 10 minutes was really like a minute here, a few minutes off this section yeah here, yeah, I'm trying to remember if I don't remember, if there was anything that any like big chunk that got lost, yeah, I think in that four hour version it was just sort of everything.
Speaker 5:It was like her whole life and I think we were able to sort of focus it but one thing that um was kind of sad to lose or that we ended up not having time for in the end was actually more of Dave, her husband's, interview, where he actually talked more about like his process of forgiveness and how you know, after the murder he had a lot of anger, you know come up and at the time, like they were only engaged and, yeah, he talked about how you know he kind of reverted into like social justice.
Speaker 5:Like my, the people that I love are being harmed, like I'm I'm upset and I'm pissed. And so when they went down to see her parents, you know he was kind of coming in with that energy, coming in with that energy and he said that shelly's dad, um, just like bear, hugged him and just was like son, like no, this is like we need you here, we need you to like be present with us, and he and they just like broke down and wept and as he's telling us this story, he's like crying and I'm crying and jason's crying and we're all crying and I mean rightly so.
Speaker 4:It's such a profound moment, even third party, and I think that those were sad. There were some things that were sad, like that to lose, but it was, you know, shelley's story and that's where we tried to focus it in on.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's a powerful story and also it's kind of interesting that, like the company, how you see how like this was her passion, this was her thing, she knew already what the name was going to be and that this was all. And then, all of a sudden, after Italy, it's just, it's so perfect, how, all of the how it all worked out that you would think you planned it. It was so well done. So next question you spent nine years with this subject. How do you go from being following somebody around all the time to like and goodbye?
Speaker 5:Yeah, that that's a really good question. I think you know it was. It was interesting as filmmakers to spend so much time with someone. But I think then also reflect on and process, you know, the needing to also respect that person's time. And you know it is strange to sit in here here's someone you know. It is strange to sit and hear someone you know share so much with you and then feel like you maybe want to share back but that's not what the role is. You know that's not what it is. And like Shelley likes to joke that it was three years of free therapy and so you know, and and in some ways I mean that really is kind of what our roles reflect as documentary directors is you do, kind of it is similar to the role of a therapist, where you are mostly there to listen and point out observations, but ultimately you, you know you're letting the other person figure things out for themselves. You know not all therapies like that, but in in some like talk therapy cases. So you know it was, it was like interesting in that sense.
Speaker 5:But you know we are still we're still friends with Shelly and and have a sweet connection to her. And you know, obviously right now, as we're promoting the film, she she's been speaking here and there about the film on different places and you know we're giving her a heads up about things that we're doing in case she wants to reshare them and stuff like that. Um, she also when, when we finished the film, she gave us these little bracelets that say dawn and dusk on them and yeah, that's awesome and it was. It was really just really sweet, and so she's been. It's been very special to have her champion us as filmmakers as we are telling her story. So she's yeah, she's just she's a big fan of us as artists as much as we are fans of her as artists yeah, there was a time where we weren't really talking very much, especially over the pandemic.
Speaker 4:I actually remember when we sent her an update she was like, oh, I didn't know if this was still happening not really anything because of her, but just just because we were.
Speaker 5:You know, it was the pandemic and we were trying to figure stuff out on our end.
Speaker 4:It both delayed us and gave us the bandwidth to really hone in on the edit. So it was both good and bad during that time, but it was. It maybe was all a little longer than we anticipated. You know we were working with our editor remotely and it was hard but it was good. But then, you know, once we were able to kind of get back in person and once we actually got out to LA and we could really hone in with Meredith in person, that's when we started making real progress.
Speaker 5:And then Silas. Yeah, we brought Silas as our composer which was also a really fun part of the process.
Speaker 2:I listen to the soundtrack quite often.
Speaker 5:Oh, that's so sweet, it is my go-to.
Speaker 2:It is my go-to especially when I've had a really stressful day and I go for a walk and it just kind of gets me in the right frame of mind and then I want to watch the movie again.
Speaker 5:Oh my goodness, Wow, that frame of mind. And then I want to watch the movie again. Oh my goodness, wow, we're gonna.
Speaker 3:I'm definitely gonna tell us that, yes, I was gonna love that I love that, oh, when you're working on something, you kind of have an idea, or you come up with an idea like, oh, this is my next, this is, this is what's coming up next did you have anything that came in? Uh, while you were working on this project, you're like, okay, we're gonna, we're gonna put this aside because this is something on the horizon for us.
Speaker 4:We are commercial film directors by trade, so Dawn Desk was primarily self-funded. We didn't have the luxury of working on it full time, so we had to make work and make a living. So we were making commercials corporate video and commercials for brands all throughout that time, because that's how we made money and that's how we still make money. So that that. But those projects are short. They they come and they go in a within a month to three months. Um, and we could. It was always so nice to be able to pop back over and film at shelly studio or do something with the doc in between or when we could during those types of projects, because it was our own project. I think that commercials are filled with deadlines and a lot of voices and while we are directors and we get to have a lot of creative say, they aren't necessarily our babies. We're there to execute somebody else's baby and to make sure that sounds bad.
Speaker 4:We're there to deliver somebody else's baby.
Speaker 5:Yes, we'll reframe that.
Speaker 4:We're there to deliver. We like to say that we're midwives for commercials.
Speaker 5:We deliver someone else's baby.
Speaker 4:So we're there to execute on a vision. But Dawn Dusk was one of our big personal creative projects during that time and we got to return to it and hone in our own voice during that time. And then we've had fun side projects. We did a short film called Otis Dream in the middle of all that right around the election.
Speaker 5:Yeah, I don't know if that was quite a side project. That was something we did, let's see, post-production was happening at that time, so it was kind of in Meredith's hands during that time, so we were able to really like yeah, focus.
Speaker 4:Focus in on our stream.
Speaker 5:But Otis' stream was also really fast. It was like a couple months and then it was done, even though it was a pretty major, hefty, hefty undertaking.
Speaker 4:But I think Dawn Desk really informed a lot of our creative growth during that time. A lot of things we got to do and in it we see manifest in a lot of other skills and ways that we operate creatively in our professional lives.
Speaker 5:Yeah, yeah. So I don't know if there is like a specific project idea that came out of making Dawn Dusk, but there was a lot of things that we learned during it, Even to this day. Like I just I directed this campaign called Women's Planning for Walgreens earlier this year and it was interview-based, interviewing real women about the different things that they've gone through in the different stages of life like medically, like hormonally, with their bodies and one of the clients on the job actually said wow, I could listen to you interview people all day. And I was like, well, that's probably because of Dawn Dust, because I literally interviewed Shelly for hours on end and learned a lot about how to interview people and how to ask questions, how to make people feel comfortable.
Speaker 4:And how to ask questions with a story in mind too.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, I feel I totally hogged this whole thing. No, no.
Speaker 1:You had amazing questions.
Speaker 3:I'll pay you later.
Speaker 1:Thank you, Blue and Jason, for taking the time to join us on this show.
Speaker 5:Thank you.
Speaker 1:Yeah, thanks for having us. Great, we're going to take a few minutes to fill our glasses and get ready to imbibe more after this. The Blue Whiskey Independent Film Festival exhibits short and feature-length motion pictures that utilize story elements in a new and exciting way. Our official selections are a carefully assembled blend of imaginative, sophisticated and full-bodied stories. This is what our name represents BWIF. Audiences expect to experience character-driven, independent cinema that is fueled by the filmmakers' passion for the art of visual storytelling. Filmmakers can expect an intimate festival experience where their personal story is valued as much as the one projected on the big screen. I'm Jonathan Sealeck and I'm here along with Trisha Leggett and.
Speaker 5:Michael.
Speaker 2:Nguyen.
Speaker 1:We are discussing Dawn Dusk, enjoying this podcast. Please subscribe or follow us on all of your favorite podcast providers to get new episodes as soon as we release them. Rate and leave us a review to help the show reach that larger audience. And you can also follow Ibibe cinema on facebook, instagrams and the threads. So we, we just had our first filmmakers. Uh on, uh, the, the cast uh so the cast I know yeah, right, they're on the show.
Speaker 1:They're on the show. I want to be in the show. Um, I, I, I think that blue and jason were were absolutely fantastic.
Speaker 3:Uh, individuals to have, uh, what a wonderful they've already spoiled us and now we're like, oh, this is easy I wonder how much of that was because, as documentary, uh filmmakers they understand uh what.
Speaker 1:What is a good question and what is a answer?
Speaker 3:Or how to find an answer to a question that you were like. But what was the question?
Speaker 2:Well, I do think and, listeners, I'm sure you would agree too, I think that Trisha is much harsher on herself as an interviewer. I think you asked fantastic questions.
Speaker 3:Just as her interview portion that she's hard on herself, for I think if there was a movie made about me, People think it was a canadian film because it would just be sorry question mark. Sorry, I am like one eighth canadian.
Speaker 2:So well you know it's it's, you know it's strong the canadian is strong in this one okay, and I'm so glad that they talked about this uh, which was guided by by one of your questions, trisha when uh shelly goes out to lake michigan and beautiful, beautiful it was like six o'clock in the morning, which makes sense uh, they're asking like these more pointed questions to like why, why, you know why is is dawn and dusk so important to you and all of that when we were discussing in the interview.
Speaker 2:It reminded me of this interview with Tom Hanks with a bunch of actors I think it was like an actor's round table and he's talking about how, when you, when you think that things are not going well, things are bad. When you think that things are not going well, things are bad, just remember that this, too shall pass. You think things are going really awesome. You think you're doing a really great job you think you're on top of the world.
Speaker 2:Just remember this too shall pass, and it just reminded me of this thought process. To get you through hard times is just knowing that time is always going to march forward and this moment will pass. It may not be overnight, but it was a very clear answer to that question that the filmmakers were asking, while at the same time giving you such a beautiful visual representation of that, she does such an amazing job of sharing her spirituality.
Speaker 3:Yes, her faith. Her faith in that moment that you are drawn in and can empathize immediately and it's probably something we've heard before, but you can hear something so many times and it doesn't click or it's a different way, but I love the way she said God's love is consistent, right?
Speaker 3:He's going to say over and over he's always there, god is always there, and part of proving that to us is he put it into the design, right? So the reminder that you will get through this is the dawn, and I brought out like this goofy book earlier because it reminded me of something that I had noted in here I don't know who said this and it's faith is the bird that feels the light and sings when the dawn is still dark. And I immediately thought of that when she's talking about her faith, and I also love that. It wasn't specific, it wasn't like this religion and denomination or anything like that. And then there are so many different shots of the sky, and so this is a visual of how we see that, of that presence of faith, especially like at the point where you know you get everything in silhouette and it almost looks like charcoal against the sky. It's just beautiful.
Speaker 2:Like it doesn't even silhouette and it almost looks like charcoal against the sky. It's just beautiful. It doesn't even look, real it looks like a painting, but it's real To that point.
Speaker 2:I think the first time that I saw it I was surprised by how we propelled into discussing faith, but what I loved about it so much is I never felt like it was pushing any sort of agenda or anything like that. It was just this is part of this person's life. This is something that's very, very important to them. It's one of the things that guides them. Like a lot of people, it felt like anybody who's agnostic, I still feel, could very much relate to everything that she was saying. They could apply it to their own lives in a different way, I think, very easily.
Speaker 3:Well, and I love how she was such an authentic individual to be that vulnerable and that authentic. But it's the unapologetic authenticity. This is just who she is. She doesn't shy away from talking about her faith, and then the same with her art, and when she talks about how she's creating these things, she does such an amazing job of explaining the process.
Speaker 2:Like a teacher.
Speaker 3:The artist in me was just like. I love listening to her talk about it. It's a religious experience, Right?
Speaker 4:Yeah.
Speaker 3:And so that the two are next to each other. It was, it was. It was very beautiful.
Speaker 2:I really like the scene when she is taking a look at her first bag, when she's taking that out. And like she flat out says you know, this is bad, this is ridiculous. I don't know why I did this, this is and I'm looking at it and I'm going looks like a cool bag. You know, like I don't know what she sees, but I can apply that as an artist in other ways. I can totally see how I would pick apart something that others wouldn't notice.
Speaker 3:Then, like how she started out with cardboard she had to make everything out of cardboard and how, like her mother would like Shawshank it out of the closet, which is like we're just going to take a little bit out and nobody will know and just get rid of it. And just get rid of it because otherwise it will take over the house, right? And I was like, oh my God, that's Elizabeth, like my kid. We have a cardboard kid and she is constantly like building things out of apartments for stuffed animals. They have their own studio apartments, but uh yeah, studio apartments, but uh, yeah. When she talked about all the the cardboard, I was like, oh, I get it, I feel for her mom.
Speaker 2:I'm like yes, I do that as documentary filmmakers them coming into shelly's life, the comparison that they made to being free therapy yes, shelly years of free therapy super fascinated by that. It's like free therapy without the.
Speaker 1:I'm sorry, our time is up it's the we're good, we can keep going.
Speaker 3:Are you good, I got more it made me think like man, if that's not already an idea somewhere documentary therapy that should be like a company therapy you get free therapy, but then everybody else gets to see your journey and that is that is how you pay for it. That's very cathartic. Let's see. You said you're feeling this way.
Speaker 1:But let's refer back to this tape, the game tape at the same time like, oh my god, the NDAs for that whole situation oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, that would be whole situation. Yeah, no, maybe not doc therapy doc, doc, doc, doc, doc, docs yeah, we need to, like I need to mail myself something for doc docs oh boy, mental health is a fragile thing. We've lost ours long ago.
Speaker 2:Can you tell listeners? Yes.
Speaker 1:Dawn Dusk is now available to stream worldwide on a variety of platforms, including Amazon Prime, tubi and Hoopla, among others. Visit dawnduskfilmcom using the link in our show notes to learn more about how and where you can stream the film. Cheers.
