Beyond Your Imagination

After a detour through art and madness, Kelley and I return to music documentaries and revel in the double feature of Zappa (2020) and The Sparks Brothers (2021), two stories about bands and personalities that overlap in impact, work ethic, and a body of work that boggles the modern mind. There isn't a shortage of talking points with either Frank Zappa or Sparks. Throughout our conversation, Kelley and I talk about doing what you do for a long time, wanting people to like what we do even though we shouldn't care, the paradox of creative control, the business and political legacy of Zappa, the reality that art has never been easy, and the lack of ownership and the loss of discovery in our culture.

In this episode, we travel to South America with filmmaker Werner Herzog and documentarian Les Blank in the double feature: Fitzcarraldo (1982) and Burden of Dreams (1982).

It's one thing to watch a film where the main character moves a giant ship over a mountain, it's another to watch the documentary revealing the painstaking process of making cinema magic come to life. In a world that seemingly pushes us toward the easy and the comfortable, watching films about making impossible dreams come true unleashes a flood of questions: Where would we be without dreams? Where would we be without dreamers? What role does madness play in the pursuit of our dreams? Can you make art without suffering? How do dreamers evolve as they grow older?

Enjoy this conversation with Kelley and I about art, madness, dreams, dreamers, and the cinema of hardship.

In this episode, Kelley Baker AKA The Angry Filmmaker and I explore two films by filmmaker Stacy Peralta: Dogtown & Z-Boys (2001) and Riding Giants (2004).

Having no personal experience with skateboarding or surfing, it was eye-opening to have a front row seat to the movements presented in both films. Kelley and I dive into these films and talk about a range of topics including corporatization of sports, filmmaking from the perspective of the insider versus the outsider, why style will always be favorable over slick and shiny aesthetics, and the value of falls and failures.

While there are nuggets of wisdom throughout this conversation, I think this quote from Kelley sets the stage for this episode, specifically regarding creativity: "When you have no money and you don't have a lot of options, you become creative."

Kelley Baker AKA The Angry Filmmaker is an author, filmmaker, and music aficionado. Music and music documentaries are a common point of discussion whenever we get together, so we thought a great double feature to discuss would be It Might Get Loud and The Other F Word.

How can a good documentary humanize a myth or a god? On the surface, a good documentary brings you into a world you know little about. You see how people live and the choices they make. But on a deeper level, the humanization or elevation of a subject reveals a message that evolves and instructs in new ways as you get older. In this conversation, Kelley and I talk about what we've learned this time around watching these films, specifically relating to art, commerce, the pursuit and obsession of craft, and the price we pay as artists and humans.

One final note before diving in to the conversation, it's incredibly powerful to not only watch a film you otherwise wouldn't, but to listen to what that film means to someone else. I am not a father, so Kelley's perspective, as both father and grandfather, helped me to see *The Other F Word* differently, through his eyes. I hope this conversation does the same for you.

Kelley Baker AKA The Angry Filmmaker is an author, filmmaker, and music aficionado. Whenever we get together, we’re always talking about music and music documentaries, and two films we can’t stop talking about are Rush: Beyond the Lighted Stage and Muscle Shoals.

As we discuss this double feature, we touch on themes of history and mythology in the music business, curiosity and dissatisfaction, the pursuit of greatness, and how tragedy and rejection shape people. Weaving stories and memories from both films and our lives, Kelley and I talk about how these films reveal necessary traits that all artists need in pursuing their work: upping your game by working on your craft, surrounding yourself with people, and going down your own path.

How do you know you're getting the real story when you go someplace new? If you're a documentarian, how do you tap into the reality that stories are everywhere, as long as you have the key, the very object that provides access to the storytellers? In Searching for the Wrong-Eyed Jesus, directed by Andrew Douglas, the South came alive with a 1970 Chevrolet Impala. Kelley brought this film to my attention as an example of a movie that immediately makes you question, "What the hell is going on here?" It messes with the documentary form, makes you work to understand the underlying meaning, let alone who the people in the film are, and speeds beyond stereotypes. Ultimately, it is a film that many people will not like, will struggle to even see because of its limited availability, but should experience. If you need a shot of artistic courage, this film represents the guts required to make a film the way the director wants to.

Kelley Baker and I are kicking off this season in style with a lively chat about his independent filmmaking and writing journey from film school, working in the sound department, and directing shorts and features in Portland, Oregon to writing books and short stories. We talk about why living life is so important for artists, what makes a memorable story, what he looks for and what turns him off in movies, why book-to-film adaptations often fail to measure up to his imagination, and why you should always help your friends out on their creative journey. Sprinkled throughout is his approach to both filmmaking and writing books: do whatever you need to do to tell your stories.

What is the future of your filmmaking career? This is one of the many questions that Ryan and I talk about in the season finale of the podcast. From producing and releasing feature films on a more consistent schedule to creating projects that have more depth and substance, we explore the topic of legacy and what we bring to our films as we get older. Additionally, we further the discussion around building community with trusted collaborators.

A critical component of filmmaking is making sure there's an audience for your film. Ryan and I talk about ways to get your film in front of the right people from sharing about it on social media and going to related events to premiering it in your local town. But a larger conversation throughout the episode is not just finding the audience, but building the community who will continually support your work: Actors, crew, financial supporters, and community partners. No matter where you are at on your filmmaking journey, never lose sight of the community you are building each day.

Whether you are in the film industry or not, you've probably heard the phrase, "We'll fix it in post." It's a philosophy of production that allows directors to speed through shoots, not worrying about whether something is technically perfect or not, because everything can be fixed in the computer. In this conversation, Ryan and I talk about our thoughts on this phrase, along with our philosophies of editing, new technologies we would love to have in software, and the inspirational impact that KISS and George Lucas has had on Ryan's career.