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BARRETT: Welcome back to SIFF TV. I'm Beth, SIFF’s Artistic Director, and I'm really thrilled to be joined by three filmmakers who have films in the festival this year Peggy Case, who is the executive producer of Baby Doe, Justin Robert Vinall, who is the writer/director/producer of Stargazer in the Spirit Cabinet shorts package, and Jason Reid, who is the producer of Suburban Fury, Robinson Devor’s documentary.
Thank you all so much for coming today. We're going to have a great conversation about filming in Washington, documentaries, shorts, all of it. We're just going to get into it.
So, what makes Seattle a good place for filmmakers?
REID: I guess I could start, I mean, you know, I was born and raised in Seattle, so, you know, for me, it's hometown. And it's the people that I've come up with in the film industry, collaborators, partners. I think there's a great sort of independent spirit here that is great for filmmaking.
You know, it's a little bit, like, segmented. It's not a huge industry, but the people that are here are doing really interesting projects oftentimes outside the box. And I just think it's a good place to create. As an editor, also it’s the rainy seasons – it's actually nice to have long-term editing projects to sort of keep you busy when things are rainy. But I mean, there's lots of reasons, lots of good people is the main one.
VINALL: Yeah, I would agree. Being born and raised near Seattle as well, it’s like the community is very intertwined and I feel people have come up with grown through the industry and like the last 10 years, I feel like there's a great sense of kind of building with one another, and, even with Seattle too, you get so much versatility. You know, I did a TV show a couple of years ago, and we had three company moves in a day, and you can go all the way down to like Georgetown and get a completely different vibe to what Greenwood would offer. So, there's so much kind of diversity and variety in terms of not only the people that are working here, but the locations, the settings moreso that is kind of provided within the area.
BARRETT: What makes it unique to be here? Is there anything specifically Seattle – the rain obviously – that brings out that creative spirit?
CASE: Well, I totally agree with what you guys both just said, but Seattle filmmakers have so much support. I mean, from the City of Seattle Film Office, which is now aptly called the Seattle Office of Economic Development, to Washington Filmworks to Seattle’s great post-production facilities – Lightpress and Bad Animals and Dubs, Inc.
They're all just such amazing people that will go out of their way for you. But also what filmmakers have is each other, like you guys have been saying. And I think that's really, really true, that you know you have these colleagues and you can call them and they'll call you back and they'll help you and try to support you and jump in.
Last fall I was talking with Jason Reid a whole bunch. I never saw you, but we were on the phone. You were in New York and I was I don’t know where, and we were just talking a whole bunch. I couldn't believe it because I knew how busy you were. And whenever I would leave you a message, you would call me back.
REID: Yeah. I mean, like, I cared about the project that Peggy was producing – Sweetheart Deal. I mean, it was like, I have such respect for these films that, like, takes so long to make. I mean, I've been involved in a whole slew of them in a row where I've come in later in the process. But to see through a documentary, especially when it's longitudinal over like a long period of time, as Sweetheart Deal was, or some of my films, such as Sam Now and and Dirtbag that were shot over a decade. I just wanted to help, you know, I believed in what they were trying to do. And, I believe that it was award-worthy and I had just gone through the process with Sam Now taking the film out on the award circuit, so I had a lot of information that I learned, and it was a huge learning process. So, coming into that cold, the way I learned was talking to other filmmakers. Now, there aren't that many people like in the Academy in Washington State, but the documentary community as a whole is very giving and very forthright with information if you are genuinely asking and I think locally people are like that too. So, I was just trying to help the best way I could.
BARRETT: That brings up sort of that documentary and shorts concept of you make these films and sometimes, you know, with a Sweetheart Deal it takes seven years. Short films hopefully take a little shorter period of time than seven years… not always. But then, it's created and hopefully there's a festival out there. You do the festival run. But, what happens after that? How do you continue to support films post the obvious exhibition?
VINALL: In regards to short films, I've looked at them as kind of like… what do you do with them afterwards? Because, yeah, they kind of go into a bit of a vacuum, like with YouTube or Vimeo. So for me, it's making sure you have a developed website where it's showcasing all your work and making it more act as a business card at this point. I've had shorts that played at SIFF a couple years ago that attracted some interest from folks. I was able to get funding from them for Stargazer, and was able to kind of go from there and have it act as a business card. So for me, it's trying to hone in skills that I'm still figuring out and developing and solidifying, in some respects too, because the type of films that I make are very genre-driven. I'm always trying to be mindful of like, I want the film to do well and play well and react based on how I see the last film has done and how I implement improvements from that. And so it's just a matter of if you're able to get on a platform like Alter or DUST to help further exposure, that's great, but also I think building a social media presence too helps build an audience as well over time.
REID: I think the difficult part about feature films – feature documentaries in particular – is figuring out what you do afterwards. With festivals, it's relatively straightforward. You submit your film out, you go around and you take it, but then what? Do you have a sale? Is there a streaming platform that wants to pick it up? Is there somebody who wants to do a theatrical release of your film? And really, this is the hard part of the process for me. I mean, I’m also good at it because I've done it over and over again, but every film is different. Every path to getting to your audience probably is different. It takes a lot of work, and after working on the film for a long tim, to enter into that next phase requires a little bit of a different gear, and it's not something every filmmaker has or even wants to do. It’'s a lot of work and sometimes there's compromises that have to be made. But, the main thing is figuring out how to get your film out there.
And, you know, every film has been different for me. Like with Dirtbag, we had Patagonia as our title sponsor. They took it out to stores, and we had this huge demand after Fred Beckey passed away from climbing communities all over the world and we – me and Adam Brown and and the director, Dave O'Leske – spent a year of our lives booking screenings and and on any given night, there could be one to our screenings anywhere in the world, and it was crazy. But man, it's a lot of work and it’s kind of thankless work in some ways. It's rewarding once you actually get it out there. Like with Sam Now, once it aired on PBS and once we're streaming on the Criterion Channel, it that's amazing to be able to tell people, “hey, just go to the PBS app or the Criterion Channel,” but the legal and all of those things that go into like getting your film out there is the hard part.
BARRETT: Yeah and self-distribution. Peggy, with Sweetheart Deal, you had a distributor, but yet you did a lot of the work yourself also.
CASE: Yeah, we sort of partnered with Abramorama, and that went really well. We did a week in New York and a week in Seattle, which was wonderful, and a week in LA, and then 10 special events screenings around the country, and then we came back to Seattle. It was just such a great experience. We were at the SIFF Film Center for a week, and we just had two official Q&A screenings, but we were so excited to talk to people. You never knew who was going to come to the screening. I went to every single screening – and we had two a day for a week. We just kind of hung out down there, and the staff at the theater were so nice because they let us just run down at the beginning and say, “Well, we don't have an official Q&A today, but we're going to be over in the corner afterwards if you just have any questions you want to come ask us.” And everyone would come out to the lobby and it was just amazing to see. I mean, some people are crying, and people come up and ask all these questions. And I think the main thing is you learn so much about your film in that process that you wouldn't learn if you weren't there talking with these people.
It was just really rewarding. And then, I think the most wonderful thing is that you get to see that the film actually works. You don't doubt it anymore. You have this experience and week of audiences and think, “Oh, this film actually does work.”
BARRETT: Is it different from doing festival screenings?
CASE: That's a really good question. Well, there was something about the week-long screenings that... I don't know what the answer to that would be. What do you think, Jason?
REID: I guess maybe a little bit. I mean, festival audiences are probably a little bit different than your theater-going audiences. Usually by the time you're doing a theatrical run, there's more information about the film out there. At festivals, there's a lot of times when people are going in totally cold. If it's a world premiere at SIFF, there aren't a whole bunch of reviews to read – or any reviews. Maybe the film has a website, maybe they don't. So I think that's kind of the exciting part about festivals – the discovery process. I was just down at the Ashland Independent Film Festival a couple weeks ago and totally went into movies cold, not even like reading the description. Our executive producer on Suburban Fury and Sam Now, D.D. Wigley was there and she's well researched on everything. So she was like, “Oh, we’ve got to go see this one.” But I didn't have time to, like, read the program. I'm kind of one of those people that likes to go in cold without reading a review or watching a trailer. Yeah. But I think that once you're at a theatrical release, you pretty much have to have a trailer, there’s gotta be the key art, there's gotta be some press because you screened at festivals and so there's just more visibility with the film.
BARRETT: Yeah. Some of those films that I go into because it fits on my time table are my favorite films. I'm like, “well, I don't have any idea what this is about. I don't know if it's narrative or documentary, experimental” and I’m just like “it fits in my schedule.” Which can be that amazing sense of discovery that you can only get within a festival.
REID: Yeah. Well, speaking of SIFF this year, it has a wonderful film called Seeds. I'd heard about Seeds from when it premiered at Sundance. And also, we share the same lawyer. And so he's like, “Oh, have you got a chance to see Seeds? You should.” But I really didn't know anything about it. I knew that the premise, that it was about Black farmers, but I didn't know anything about the style and when I saw it – oh man, what a gorgeously shot film. It was very different. I was picturing maybe a more nuts-and-bolts documentary. It's a PBS ITVS documentary. Not that they can't be artful – Sam Now is a PBS documentary – but sometimes they're more straightforward. And this was not straightforward. It was really beautiful. Highly recommend.
BARRETT: Yeah. Plays the first weekend. It's a gorgeous, gorgeous film.
Where do you hope Seattle is within the film industry in, like, 10 years?
CASE: Well, I would hope that it still retains that independent spirit that both of you talked about and still making special independent films. But at the same time, also growing commercially, with more commercial and corporate experiences and opportunities for filmmakers.
But I just think that, to echo what you guys were saying, that being here is kind of like being in the Wild West or something. And that's the thing I like. We don't have this, like, huge structure that New York or LA have. But we have more freedom to be creative, not only in the way the stories that we tell but in the way we put together crews and the way we decide to even arrange our budgets, you know? Everything isn't so boilerplate. And I think that's a real plus. So I would hope Seattle doesn't lose that wonderful independent spirit that it has, but that it also grows commercially and in other ways.
VINALL: I think the infrastructure is great. What you're saying is kind of retaining the independent process, but like, I do think that the infrastructure here I hope improves over time. We have like a lot of red tape to get through and projects that we're still trying to draw here and make here on our own, but hopefully we're able to continue to build our studio here and build more of reliable sources to pull and have the ability to create more dynamically, as opposed to kind of feeling like we’re slowing behind because of being between Vancouver and Portland. So, still having that independent draw, but still finding a way to continue to grow over time, because between what we're going through post-Covid and post strikes, there's a lot that the industry is facing globally. It’s also just affecting our state in particular, just trying to develop more and more over time. Hopefully the way that we can continue to build is faster over this period of time.
REID: Yeah,I think that the scale could grow. But like Peggy said, we don't want to lose our independent spirit. All the films that I've made have been pretty independently produced, not that much like oversight. I mean, even with like ITVS – which is who helped fund Sam Now – they gave us feedback and stuff, but it was still our film to make and still independent. And I think the more money or the more bigger businesses that come in, the less that independent Seattle filmmakers will be able to retain their voice potentially. But then at the same time, if we want to grow the industry, we have to bring some of these larger forces in there.
And, funding is a big deal. Funding is really hard. Especially for independent documentaries. So if there is a way to bring in more funding to this region, I think that that would help as well.
VINALL: Yeah, I don't disagree with that at all. It's just a matter of having more resources for independent filmmakers, I think. And I think we're getting there. It's just a slow process for that. Finding these things take time and whatnot. But no, I 100% agree, having more opportunities for grants and resources is critical.
BARRETT: So, a little selfishly as we're looking at the festival starting in less than a week – What was your first SIFF experience?
VINALL: Gosh, when was it? I remember going to a midnight screening of Trollhunter. That was like 2010 or something, and I think it might have been up at the Egyptian or Neptune, I can't remember. But, I remember just the crowd going crazy for that one when me and my friend went to go see it. It's one of my most cherished memories from SIFF, and I remember just getting the Blu-ray afterwards and being so happy to be like, “Okay, cool. I'm glad I sought out this film rather than finding it on streaming later and got to experience it with an audience.” I really enjoyed watching that.
REID: I remember going to a special screening of Battle Royale at the Cinerama. I remember just being lined all the way around the block and, once again going in a little bit more cold, and seeing that film on the big screen with a full audience gasping.
BARRETT: You didn’t know what Battle Royale was gonna be?
REID: I mean, I knew a little bit about it, but you know.
BARRETT: That’s quite a film to jump into cold, which is awesome.
REID: Yeah, it was shocking. But yeah, different films over the years. I probably went to SIFF for the first time maybe in high school or for sure in college. Just being able to like, get a 6-pack or even get a pass. The years that I've had a pass as a filmmaker, I always enjoy the parties. I've had a lot of great Opening Nights and Closing Nights, and when there used to be the Centerpiece at the DAR Hall on Capitol Hill. It’s fun to just be with the people that you created your project with and be kind of celebrated.
BARRETT: Yeah. Mine was seeing To Die For, the Gus Van Sant film really early on – it must’ve been like, ‘94, becauseI moved here in ‘93 – and sitting alone in the Egyptian. And then afterwards, Gus Van Sant came out and I was like, “Wait, what? You can meet directors? They come to these things?” It was a changing event. I watched, you know, a lot of films in college, but they never had directors or cast or anything like that there. So it was very exciting.
VINALL: Were you a volunteer at that point or did you just go because you just love movies?
BARRETT: No, I just love movies and I was a 6-pack buyer and then I was a 20-pack buyer and then I was 20-pack for a long time, and then I got a pass, and then I could never go back because then you're like, “Oh, wait, I can just go to whatever I want to? Great. Yeah, I'm going to do that one.”
CASE: Well, it's funny you mentioned, did you show Drugstore Cowboy? You must have.
BARRETT: I believe we did. It would not surprise me if we did.
CASE: Yeah, I just have a distinct memory of seeing that film. I don't know, it just came when you were just talking about Gus Van Sant. There's a scene in that film where they say, “if you ever see a hat on a bed”… do you remember the scene?
Anyway,
REID: What happened?
CASE: Some moment that comes up in the film and then that moment happens in the film and I like, let out this huge gasp in the movie theater, I just always remember that.
BARRETT: Being in the cinema and having those experiences, It's unlike being at home. While I love streaming and I watch a lot of TV on streaming, I find it really hard to stream movies because I don't want I don't want that experience. I want the experience of being in the cinema. So, it makes it a little challenging. TV has always been TV and that's fine.
CASE: Well, it's a completely different experience. I almost feel like it's like an ancient experience now going into the cinema that we still have nowadays, that we're lucky enough, like no one has noticed… it could just totally go away.
BARRETT: It absolutely could.
CASE: I know. But we’re so lucky to have a place like SIFF here in Seattle that has these gorgeous theaters and that is still celebrating and honoring cinema. That experience of going into the theater and then you turn your phone off – that's unusual enough, right? Everyone turns their phones off for two hours. My god. And then you have this experience and you're all transported through this film in the dark, and then you come out and kind of wake up and you've all had this shared experience together in time.
BARRETT: Yeah.
VINALL: I agree completely. Growing up through where there used to be midnight screenings and theaters, I remember seeing Inception and just how jam packed that was and the reaction to the ending of the movie and just kind of seeing over time, just like how certain movies will draw huge crowds, like like Barbenheimer, or Sinners as of late. It's nice when you do go to the cinema and like, get to like being with a crowd of people and get varying reactions and be just locked into the film. Whether you like it or not, it's still like it's still an experience that everyone is sharing in that moment, and it's the discussions afterwards that are the most fun for me, and yeah, I love the experience so much and I feel like it's great to just be in a space where everyone's just kind of like, in this, in the same kind of realm together.
REID: Yeah. You have to. You commit. When you buy a ticket and go to a movie, you sit down – not to say you can't get up and leave; I usually don't get up and leave – but, you know, when you're streaming something, it’s so easy to be like, “Yeah, not feeling it, gonna watch a show now.” For a movie theater, you have to decide where you're going to go. You have to get there. You have to go in there and see it. Going to festivals is really great when you're taking your film out, when there's time to go see other films. It’s really nice; you don’t get the opportunity especially for documentaries to see them in the theater that much, or shorts. So, that's a really special thing to be able to see them in a theater and experience them with an audience. So rather than streaming it – like, shorts, you often stream online on YouTube or on the New Yorker website or whatever. To have the opportunity to see those – that’s even more rare than a feature.
VINALL: Just to hop on that, too – shorts and documentaries, as you're mentioning, having people talk to you afterwards when the movie’s done screening. It’s the reactions that you're getting into, discussions that you're having, just being in the presence of and hearing certain reactions, versus just kind of like, “Okay, cool” when watching it on YouTube or a streaming service.
CASE: You get to hear me gasp.
VINALL: I always find that super rewarding; it’s a unique thing and something that I cherish as a filmmaker.
REID: You’re talking about midnight screenings – one of my favorite midnight screens I used to go to in college was the City of Lost Children, the Jean-Pierre Jeunet film. Central Cinema was doing a screening of that, earlier this year or last year, and my wife had never seen it. And, we went and it was so cool.. It wasn't midnight, but I was transported back to that experience of seeing films in that environment and cult films that you love. I don't see a lot of movies twice in the theater; that's one that I have. It’s a beautiful cinematic experience.
I think what you guys are doing at Cinerama – SIFF Downtown – you guys have been doing more retrospective films and I think that's really special to be able to see some of your favorite movies on the big screen as opposed to just watching it at home. Or maybe you own, but you don’t watch it, but then you get to go to see it.
CASE: Yeah, you have it on your shelf, but then you go downtown.
REID: Exactly.
VINALL: I remember I was coming back from Slamdance and I'd watched The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari on the flight back, because I was like in a silent film kick recently and just enjoying it. And I'd seen it before, but you guys recently played it again at SIFF Cinema Downtown – the “big SIFF” I call it – and just with live orchestra, live performance there, with seeing it on the huge screen, it's a totally different film and why I love going to the movies. Because I've seen Gus Van Sant's Elephant at home and liking it, but when I saw it in the theater, I felt like watching a completely different film and just the dread kind of looming over.
So, there's some kind of special magic that theater-going experiences have, whether you're seeing it in a theater alone or a theater with a bunch of people.
CASE: I've made two actually really good, lifelong friends just from meeting them at SIFF, people I didn't know at all. After one screening, I remember people were gradually leaving – I don't even remember which film this was, I just remember the experience of meeting this person who I'm still really good friends with – and the director was there and then we were the last two people left. We kept asking questions and then finally, the director left and we looked at each other like, “Well, hi, should we go out to have dinner?” And that was it. We've been good friends since. And there’s another person that I met that way too. It's just so funny.
BARRETT: That’s awesome.
So, we’re going to transition a little bit so we can hear a little bit about your films that you have in the festival this year. So, Jason, tell us about Suburban Fury.
REID: Well, Suburban Fury is a film directed by Robinson Devor, who has a pretty rich Seattle filmmaking history with Police Beat and Zoo – which I know Peggy was a producer of – and Pow Wow.
It’s a very unconventional documentary feature. It's two hours long, it's incredibly dense, and it's about Sarah Jane Moore, who in 1975 – 50 years ago, actually – tried to assassinate President Gerald Ford in San Francisco, so it's a West Coast based film. It wasn't shot in Seattle, but the majority of the post-production work was done here. She's the only person interviewed for the film. There's heavy archival footage and a wide, vast array of archival from different sources and stuff that's never been seen before. And it's also a story that not many people know about. She was a conservative suburban housewife who turned to become an FBI informant and ultimately turned to more radical left politics within a span of a few years, to the point where she tried to assassinate Gerald Ford.
There's no easy answers in the film. She is not an easy subject, and she is combative sometimes. But, I think that's the beauty of the film, is there are no easy answers to things like this, how people become radicalized. You look at what's going on in our country now with, you know, Obama voters turned Trump voters. Things can shift really quickly in terms of people's personal politics. And, that's really what this film is about – the change of Sarah Jane Moore. She's just incredibly compelling to watch on screen and we can't wait to show it at the Cinerama – SIFF Downtown – the “big SIFF.”
I told Beth when they accepted the film, I was like, “Can we please just have this premiere at the Cinerama – SIFF Downtown?” It’s kind of a dream come true in a lot of ways. And Beth wrote back and said, “I’m here to make all your dreams come true.
VINALL: Sweet. That's awesome.
REID: But yeah, it's going to be really special. A lot of people in the city here worked on the film, so I think it's going to be a really special screening. We premiered six months ago, but we haven't screened in Seattle yet, and everyone's following us on social media and stuff and it's like, “When are you bringinging it to Seattle?” I was like, “Well, fingers crossed.” And then I held them off because we were doing some edit changes to the last possible minute. I was happy to share it with you, and I was very happy to hear that they had accepted it.
BARRETT: Yeah. We're really excited to show it.
Can you tell us a little bit – it's not linear, it hops all over the place, and I know you're not the editor, but how do you pull all of the story of her? She is not a reliable narrator of her own life in any way, shape, or form.
REID: No, exactly. It’s part of the fun.
BARRETT: It's like, “Wait, what is happening? What are you saying here?” With all the archives, what was that like to pull that production together?
REID: Yeah. Well, Robinson, the director, is the editor also, but I was there for probably every edit for the lab for a lot of the time; well, not every edit, but a lot of the time. And yeah, she's challenging. She doesn't tell stories in straightforward ways. She leaves pieces out. You don't know exactly what the truth is, and I think the archival was so important to get included because if it was just like one interview with somebody the whole time, that would get a little bit old. Having the archival really brings you into what was happening in the country at that time, and more specifically in the San Francisco area, the Bay area.
When you have that extra fabric, you can start to understand a little bit more how this person did become radicalized. There's also – and I don't need to get too into detail – a creative way that we went about handling only having one interview subject. A big part of her story is there was her FBI control agent, a man whose code name was “Bertram Worthington.” She speaks about him frequently, and so there’s voiceover dialogue of that FBI control agent that’s throughout the film that’s based on Sarah Jane Moore's conversations with that FBI control agent over those years. So, she'd literally tell these stories about, “I'd meet him in the car and we’d this,” and so, that was another way we got around just having the one interviewed subject, is to have a lot of archival, have have this character created out of her words and out of archival documents and, of course, her interviews.
There’s a rhythm to the film; although it's non-linear and non-conventional in its storytelling, I think that when you're reading a book you start a new chapter and sometimes that chapter has nothing to do with what it was before. And sometimes you're jumping from present to past and, and that's totally accepted in literature, but why can't that be accepted in film? Not that I'm a conventional filmmaker, but I'm much more conventional than Robinson is in his filmmaking, and I think that that was one of the positives to getting involved in it. I worked with him very briefly on a project that never ended up developing five or seven years ago, which is when I first heard about this.
Darren Lund, my longtime editing partner who's a little involved in this project but not much, he and I were like, “Whoa,” some of these ideas are radical; they're very different. Like, I would never think to combine that imagery with that word. And that's challenging because I'm trying to make a film – personally, as a filmmaker – that's accessible, that a wide audience can see. But, Rob's much more interested in the creativity and the art, and he wants it to be successful, but he doesn't want to compromise his vision. So, as a producer/director relationship, I'm constantly trying to get more clarity, more information without losing the art and the poetry of what he's trying to do, and he's constantly trying to push the envelope to make something new, make something different, make something that truly is different, you know? And I really, really appreciate that. It's also difficult because you're trying to make something that's like a successful film that can get out into the marketplace, that can get sold, and get great reviews. It’s an interesting challenge, but it's one that I really appreciate. I feel like with Sam Now, my previous long term documentary project…
CASE: Amazing film.
REID: Thank you, yeah. Reed Harkness is the director. He had very specific vision. Part of the fun of filmmaking is collaborating. Even if those collaborations turn into sort of clashes, those clashes can create what makes great art, so you can't be scared to have those things.
BARRETT: Well, it's that tension. It's that tension. We were talking earlier about Seattle – it's that tension of not wanting to lose the creativity, not wanting to lose that sort of independent spirit, but yet needing to get it out and needing to make films and have jobs. And I think Robinson is a perfect example of that tension living.
REID: Yeah, absolutely. I think we landed in a pretty cool place with what this film is, where it's still totally non-conventional, but there's onscreen text identifiers so you know what the archival is. Just certain things that I think that a younger audience who didn't live in that time – me included, born in the late ‘70s. l knew Vietnam, of course, and Patty Hearst and the prison riots. But did I know about Allende and did I know Popeye Jackson and all these radical figures in the San Francisco scene? I knew Patty Hearst, but I didn't know about the Symbionese Liberation Army in that level of detail and Cinque and all these people. People who lived through that time, those are things that you don't necessarily have to explain.
Even the fact that it's blowing younger audiences’ minds, that there was a time in recent American history where there was a President and a Vice President that were not elected. They were not elected. Ford was appointed when Spiro Agnew resigned as Vice President. And then when Nixon resigned, he ascended to the presidency and they brought in Rockefeller, you know? And that's just mind blowing. At least now, our President was actually elected, but that’s crazy; the President's supposed to be elected by the people. I think that that's been shocking to people who didn't know that that happened in such recent history.
BARRETT: 50 years ago – it's nothing.
VINALL: With the main subject, with how challenging they were, were you able to get more than one interview off with them?
REID: Yeah, before I was involved in the project, they shot eight days in San Francisco. I think they went back and did three more days, and then they did audio interviews with her. So there's a massive wealth of interviews with her. Once again, it becomes challenging – what parts of her story do you want to tell? What are you able to tell? What are you able to tell visually? You can't have her on camera all the time.
Another thing about the film is it's incredibly cinematic. The way it was shot by Sean Kirby – a one time local DP who now lives in Vermont and does a lot of work all over the world, but based in the East Coast – and Rob, they came up with a pretty incredible, visual, way of doing her interviews.
I don't want to spoil it too much, but shot in locations in places that you wouldn't necessarily expect. I think that that makes it exciting. It's also confusing for some audiences who are expecting the standard talking head thing. There's no real talking head kind of interviews in this. So you're like, “Oh, well, why are you doing it this way?”
Well, you know, we're doing it this way, and that’s exciting as a filmmaker to be able to do.
VINALL: Yeah. That's great.
BARRETT: Justin, you work primarily in short films and primarily in genre. Can you tell us a little bit about that and your film?
VINALL: So, Stargazer – I've been referring to it as a cosmic ghost story. It's a proof of concept for a feature that I'm trying to get off the ground. It follows the story of Jonas, who is this retired as an astronomy professor. Over the course of the last 40 years or so, he's been studying and obsessed with this one kind of particular star that he names Cosette. As he's kind of going through the twilight years of his life, he's reflecting on the past and relationships that were lost things that he's regretful of. And one day he comes across this young woman who is also named Cosette, and there's something eerily familiar and strange about her, and it goes from there.
It stars Joe Peer, Hailey Stubblefield, and Olivia Finklestein, who are all fantastic actors I was very lucky to work with. The thing with the project, though, was initially I was working on developing a completely different thing. It was a vampire thing I was working on for the last year and a half, and then there was a circumstance where it kind of fell apart at the last minute and said funding for things. So we re-pitched it for Stargazer and made the thing in 13 days, which was not fun, but we had a great team together. Me and my DP that I've worked with on the last four short films, Kevin O'Donnell – what you were mentioning with tension and clashes with, your collaborators, he's great to have because he challenges me, I challenge him, and we both, find a really great area to work in together and bring forth the vision that I'm bringing to life, because again collaboration for me is so paramount. And he's just one of those great collaborators I always go back to. But yeah, we reworked the film in 13 days, got off the ground and then started to kind of get it pitching around and whatnot, and we'll see how it goes from here to genre festivals, but I’m really excited that we have the opportunity to return to SIFF with another genre short film.
BARRETT: What is the short film community like here in Seattle?
VINALL: It's great. There's a lot of people that are energetic about making stuff. I do a lot of producing too with short filmmakers around here if I like the script or able to get the money, whether we fundraise that through Seed and Spark or a grant, or they're pulling out of their own pocket. I am always trying to, like, be realistic with them, breaking down budgets with them and being like, “Listen, this thing's going to cost X. Are you willing to compromise or look at things a bit more critically to make the best possible thing.?” And a lot of the filmmakers I've worked with have been very open-minded to that while still trying to be resourceful with what they have around them and what I'm able to pull for them as well.
Again, the community – there's a lot of genre filmmakers around here that are spectacular filmmakers, and I'm really happy to be in a really great bubble with all of them. I think we're all trying to move into the feature film realm and I think in the next couple of years, there'll be a lot more folks trying to make that leap more. Every time I see films from particular like-minded filmmakers tha I've come up with, it's been exciting to see their growth along with my growth as well.
BARRETT: That's awesome.
REID: Where did Stargazer premiere?
VINALL: It premieres at SIFF Cinema Uptown on Friday, May 23rd at 9:30pm.
REID: Is that your world premiere?
VINALL: Yes, it’s our world premiere. We premiere there and go from there.
BARRETT: It's exciting.
Peggy, you're here at SIFF with Jessica Earnshaw’s Baby Doe. Can you tell us a little bit about that film?
CASE: It's interesting because you were asking me about Sweetheart Deal, and I think they both felt like really important stories to me, really personal stories, and they just both really resonated with me. I think it's the way they're both told in verité filmmaking, but piecing together very real scraps in the end to tell a raw story that just feels really true and real to people.
One thing just to say for a second about the experience of showing Sweetheart Deal – and actually we just had this experience at South By and in Cleveland showing Baby Doe – I'm actually so heartened because there's so much crap and glamor and everything in a lot of the movie industry, right? So you think, “Oh, that’s what people like.” But, people come out of both of these movies, which are just very heartfelt, very raw, very real – just piecing together real things to tell this total raw story. And people are very moved by that, you know? So, for some reason that's just really heartening to me, that people don't need all the glitz and glamor. They think maybe they do, but this is really what people really want.
BARRETT: But in reality, they're really just looking for stories, and both films have women at the center who have made unimaginable choices and are living with that.
CASE: Yeah. So, Baby Doe – I remember reading about this story in 1993 in The New York Times, actually – a young Christian conservative, unmarried woman in rural Ohio, Gail, is in denial that she's even pregnant and she gives birth alone to a baby. She believes the baby is stillborn and she leaves it in the woods.
And, basically, fast forward 25 years. She's married now. She never told anyone about this experience. She's married. She has three adult kids and a little granddaughter. And the sheriff basically knocks on her door one day, and arrests her for murder. It’s just a really devastating portrait of a woman who comes face-to-face with her past and who she is, who she was, and then she becomes completely ensnared in the American justice system.
The filmmakers – Jessica, basically – she's an amazing filmmaker all by herself. She shot the whole thing. She also had someone else who helped her shoot a lot – Emily Thomas, she shot the whole thing, too, in addition to being there. Emily Thomas, again, I want to mention because she also helped in a lot of the key scenes.
Jessica basically embedded herself with this family throughout the process and filmed the trial. I won't say what happened, but it's just… yeah.
BARRETT: Yeah, you want to think she's a villain. But, she’s not. She's a woman that made a choice at a certain time. I don't want to think she's a villain, but at the same time, you're like, “What happened there?”
CASE: I think it's really a film that – we've seen in these few screenings that we've had so far, and I can't wait to to show it at SIFF now – people totally feel a certain way at the beginning of the film and they're pretty much entrenched and they feel like, “Well, I know what this is about.”
And not to go into the details, but by the end, that's the comment that everyone has. It's like they completely change their mind about how they felt at the beginning. And so that's really interesting to watch that process and for people to discuss that afterwards. And people stay for a long time discussing it with each other.
BARRETT: Yeah, it's a really intense story. It's a beautiful film.
CASE: It is a very beautiful film, beautifully shot. And, the family that participated and allowed Jess into their lives, to record this whole thing is pretty amazing.
REID: Sounds fascinating.
I mean, it’s sort of interesting. Sarah Jane Moore is also somebody who you kind of like… you kind of like her, you know? And a lot of times you forget that she literally took a shot that almost killed the President of the United States. Yet she's funny and she's charismatic, and those kinds of characters for a film are kind of perfect, in my opinion – just complicated, right? You know what you think of them. Even with Sam Now, their mother disappeared and there's still things that you can like and appreciate about her and about her story and even sympathize. And I'm sure with Baby Doe, there's a lot of sympathy for her despite this horrible thing happening.
CASE: Right. Well, I should say not to go into too much, but the film is actually about her very personal story, but it also chose other stories parallel that are happening all over the country now because of DNA – that's how they found her. It's all about this – which I never knew about – unperceived pregnancies, that people can be pregnant and not know it the whole time they're pregnant.
Did you know that, Jason?
REID: I mean, I have heard stories, but I don't know that much about it.
CASE: I never knew about it ‘til I was working on this project. It's amazing and it's fascinating the way they explain this in the film, too, with some really amazing psychologists who are in the film. It's done really well. So, the whole film just feels like this really personal, riveting story. But you also get this bigger point of view about unperceived pregnancies and how that can happen.
But, picture Gail. I mean, she was in a very religious rural family and her dad had always said, “No daughter of mine will ever be pregnant before wedlock” or whatever. And so, you could imagine for her here, she becomes pregnant. She has this father who's like very, shall we say, stern.
And so, she did get a pregnancy test, but then, right away, it's just… well, someone, like, has a lump and you don't want to admit it or it's just out of sight, out of mind. You can convince yourself it's not true. I mean, we all do that every day, right? We have different scenarios going.
There's been all these studies done now that show that women who have unperceived pregnancies really do not know that they are pregnant the whole time. And then all of a sudden, one day she gave birth at work in the toilet.
REID: Crazy.
BARRETT: But it's real life. Like Sarah Jane Moore, you can get radicalized very quickly. These things are real and they're happening, and the stories around them are so well-suited to film because there is that empathy you can create. Yes, she did intend to kill Gerald Ford. I'm glad that she didn't, because that would have been bad. But, you feel for her.
CASE: Like, how can a person get to that point?
BARRETT: How do you get to that point where you take out a gun and try to kill somebody and then what do you for the next 30 years when you're thinking about that? That is something that film does so well as to bring out that empathy to create those spaces, because conversation will happen after all of your films, to create those spaces, to have those conversations, to really, plumb some of the emotions that come up for all of us.
CASE: That after-film experience is unlike playing a video game, unlike anything else. To have that live experience with the people afterwards – certainly working on documentaries, I think that’s the thing. I love working on documentaries because it's like going to school your whole life. It's always like, “Oh, wow, this whole new subject I get to learn about.” That's also what it's like going to see them at SIFF. You just learn about all this stuff.
BARRETT: I was alive when Sarah Jane Moore tried to kill Gerald Ford, but I don't really remember it like. It doesn't live in my consciousness., but when I was watching the film, I was like, “Oh, yeah, I remember all that. Oh, yeah, Patty Hearst. Oh, yeah, that.” Things that just grab in your brain and then live there and then can be brought back out and relearned.
REID: Yeah, I love What Peggy's saying about documentaries. You know, you really do a deep dive into sometimes subjects that you don't know that much about. One of the first films I wasn't directing – that I was a producer/editor on – was a film called K2: Siren of the Himalayas. I had just gotten into climbing and things like that, but I by no means knew how to anything that much about climbing 8,000-meter peaks other than reading “Into Thin Air” and stuff, but really getting in there and learning about the Karakoram mountain range and learning about what's involved to fly into Pakistan and go all that way and just all the planning. It’s like, “Wow.” You know?
And Evergreen, which screened at SIFF, just learning the nuts and bolts of local politics and how this law was passed to legalize marijuana for the first time concurrently with Colorado. And with Sam Now dealing with intergenerational trauma. And Sarah Jane Moore, I love history, so it's really amazing to be able to dive deep and learn so much.
CASE: And it gives you license to call and talk to people about this subject that you're finding about.
REID: Yeah, my first kind of big hit film was Sonicsgate, all about how the Sonics were stolen from Seattle and moved to Oklahoma City and I'm still doing interviews this year about that film. We released it in 2009, you know? 16 years ago. I became an expert in some ways on the subject of team relocation – professional team relocation – and there aren't that many stories, and because I was the director of that film, people come to me. I know that topic up and down.
I could talk in my sleep about it, you know? Really, what's the value of a professional sports franchise to the city economically or culturally? And like, how does this work in Europe? A team would never get relocated. You aren't going to move Manchester United. It's literally impossible. But here in the United States, that sort of thing is allowed and just being able to learn that subject – the politics of it, the big business side of it, all that stuff. Without making that film, I may have cursory information from reading articles, but then you're interviewing people and then you're going through all that footage and you're trying to figure out how to tell it in a way that makes sense for your average person who may not even care about the topic, you know?
BARRETT: So… are the Sonics coming back?
REID: Loaded question.
BARRETT: I had to ask.
REID: Well the biggest step has been taken, which is that we have a state-of-the-art billion dollar arena that's suitable for NBA basketball. One of the reasons we lost the team is because Key Arena was not that anymore in the eyes of the league. Now that we've had this investment, it's a matter of team availability. The NBA has teased for a lot of years the idea of an expansion franchise. Everyone’s like, “It's coming, it’s happening” I get texts like, “Hey man, you hear the news?” I'm like “No, I haven’t heard the news” It's only happening once it's actually happened. I've learned not to get my hopes up, but I mean, it's never been closer and there's serious talk about expansion. I think it's just a matter of hopefully a few more years.
VINALL: On the topic of documentary filmmaking, what I love about watching them is the multi-dimensional material you're getting from your subject matters, getting the whole spectrum of who this real person is and delving into their lives and the context around them.
I always find that fascinating, just the amount of research that you guys put into your work. Documentaries like that I always find so gripping and pulling to watch and probably why I like Robert Eggers as a filmmaker, because he's very well-researched into the time period and setting and dialogue and mannerisms with all his horror films.
It’s something that I try to even bring with Stargazer. I have an affinity for astronomy and the deep unknown of space. Building the feature version of my proof of concept and trying to learn more, I talked to the Seattle Astronomy Society here in Seattle at length about how would an astronomer go about and investigate studying certain stars and astrological things and even time of the year – time of the year was always kind of interesting in terms how hot and cold you'd be able to look to the stars without messing up the scope itself. And then of course, just digging into research for black holes.
Once I get the script together, I like to get more into the research and then anything that's from the real world that I can pull and twist a bit makes it that much more engaging and exciting for a filmmaker.
BARRETT: So before we get to a little “This or that?” – all of your films are still brand new, but have you already started your next projects?
REID: I always have my hands in a lot of different things, you know? I won't get into any specifics, but one of my goals is to get back to doing some directing. So I'm working on some short projects that are still in development; well, I'm actually shooting one of them. Yeah, that's been a goal for me.
I've served a lot of other projects as producer and oftentimes editor, so I'm really excited to get back to my own vision. I'm also trying on for size being EP on some projects that are a little less direct involvement, because there's so much work when you're on as the full producer, so helping facilitate fundraising, helping with key advice at different times.
I think that's a role that I'd like to do more. Always also consulting editor, consulting producer.
CASE: And taking my phone calls.
REID: I have a lot of knowledge that I can share from my experience in the industry. So, rather than spending these years of my life grinding it out on a project, it's pretty nice to have someone else doing that and be able to come in on a more executive level and offer feedback on cuts, feedback on business decisions and things like that.
But really, getting back to sort of directing my own stuff, hopefully. Itt's how I started my career and I'm looking forward to that.
VINALL: That's awesome. Would you do a Sonicsgate follow up?
REID: Well, it’s really funny because there's lots of people poking around about doing a Sonicsgate follow-up. I've spent a lot of years in the Sonicsgate world. I'm not necessarily inclined. I kind of like to keep it fresh and do new things. I think my vision for a Sonicsgate is very different than other people's. I would prefer to basically pick up right where it left off and take it to present. A lot of people are more interested in a project that documents the actual process of a team coming back, which would also be really interesting, but I feel like the last 15 years has been incredibly interesting with the story. We had the whole street vacation issue in SoDO and Chris Hansen and stealing the Sacramento Kings and then it falling through. There's a lot of interesting pieces of that. But yeah, it's definitely not a priority. I still can be a spokesperson for the Sonics cause and stuff but artistically, I'd like to keep creating new things and different things.
VINALL: Yeah. So, right now it's just kind of full steam ahead with Stargazer, developing a feature for that and hopefully get that off the ground in the next year or two or so. With anything, just having a bunch of stove tops on and having a bunch of things cooking. So, I have that and then like another feature I'm developing at the moment.
CASE: I do have a secret project. I can't I can't talk about it yet, but I should be able to talk about it soon.
BARRETT: That's exciting. All three of you are like, “Yeah, we got somethin’ cooking.” That's all good. It’s exciting, because it’s just continuous working and keeping pushing forward and making those films and telling those stories. It's so amazing.
CASE: And thank you, Beth, for showing our films.
VINALL: Yeah, thank you so much.
REID: You've been a huge support.
BARRETT: Our pleasure. Absolutely.
Okay, so here's a little lightning round of “This or That?” We're going to start with… buttered popcorn or chocolate popcorn?
REID: Well, geez, if we're talking about the Cinerama, I'm probably gonna have to go chocolate popcorn. It is a little rich, so I'm going to hedge a little because I do like buttered popcorn most of the time.
BARRETT: There's nothing wrong with the mix. The mix rules.
REID: But I mean, if you’re going to point a gun at me – chocolate.
VINALL: Yeah, same, I’d go with the mix, but if you had to put a gun in my head, I'd go with butter.
CASE: Chocolate.
BARRETT: Hands down. Chocolate.
Aisle or center seat?
REID: I'm all about the aisle. I like to have that easy exit. Obviously if it’s an empty theater, I'm going to sit right in the center. Relatively close, but back far enough. But if it's a packed theater, I kinda like to do aisle.
VINALL: I like centered midway if I'm able to, to get it. But, if I'm seeing a movie with my wife, we'll do the aisle.
CASE: Aisle, towards the back.
BARRETT: Yep. Everybody has their favorite seats. I'm like, four rows back on the left.
Paper or digital tickets?
REID: Oh, man. I guess if you’re talking to people about your film, it's nice to be able to hand them physical tickets. But yeah, majority digital at this point.
VINALL: Paper, if I can jump on it. My first movie ticket I collected was Fun with Dick and Jane with Jim Carrey in 2005, so I have this big bag of movie tickets. It's not as full – I'm not throwing tickets in there as I used to – but I do like the whole having the physical thing.
CASE: Digital.
BARRETT: Peggy, you've got these down.
CASE: I thought we were just supposed to give quick answers.
REID: With concert tickets though, I probably have in various boxes, like my Nirvana ticket stubs. It’s pretty cool, if I ever get around to, like, going through all that.
BARRETT: Scrapbooking.
REID: Not a lot of time to scrapbook.
BARRETT: Matinee or midnight screening?
We'll start with you, Peggy.
CASE: Oh, gosh. Tthat's a hard one. Midnight.
BARRETT: Midnight.
VINALL: Gosh. Midnight, I think. You know the audience is going to be great with the midnight screening. Not bad with matinee, it’s great just going to see a movie earlier in the day, but I do think there's an energy with midnight.
REID: Probably midnight. But you know, I’m a little bit of a creature of comfort, so midnight’s getting a little…
BARRETT: Can midnight start at 9pm?
REID: Yeah, exactly.
VINALL: Totally.
BARRETT: Thank you all so, so much for coming in and spending some time with us. All of your films, again, will be at the Seattle International Film Festival. The website – siff.net – is a place that you can find that. Suburban Fury, Stargazer as part of the Spirit Cabinet, and Baby Doe.
CASE: May 20th.
REID: May 21st.
BARRETT: Great.
VINALL: May 23rd.
BARRETT: Perfect. Thank you all so much.
Really appreciate it.
