OWC RADiO

Marco Missinato is an artist, a music composer, a photographer, but mostly he's a messenger of peace.

“Following our most joyful imagination by taking action is the key to the manifestation of the highest expression of ourselves in the physical journey.”(Marco Missinato, November 2019)

In this episode of OWC RADiO, Composer Marco Missinato talks with Host Cirina Catania, about his early years as a child prodigy, his love of piano and music, and working as a photographer on one of Italy's leading magazines and his journey on life's spiritual path. We particularly loved his story about how he got the symphony director in Portugal to listen to his pitch about "Unfolding Secrets." An example of how the universe takes care of us if we just "put it out there." The result was a memorable symphony that will live in the hearts of the audience for years to come.

You can listen to Marco's music on iTunes and Bandcamp here. You can learn more about Marco here.For more about our host, Cirina Catania, visit cirinacatania.com.

If you enjoy our podcast, please subscribe and tell all your friends about us! We love our listeners. And, if you have ideas for segments, write to [email protected]. Cirina is always up for new ideas!

In This Episode

00:08 - Cirina introduces Marco Missinato, an artist, music composer, photographer, and a messenger of peace.05:12 - Marco tells the story of how young he was when he started creating music using a cassette tape recorder.12:28 - Marco shares the various jobs he had growing up, one of which is working for a magazine where he developed his photography skill.18:38 - Marco describes his first time experiencing the United States of America, it was like love at first sight.23:16 - Marco talks about his journey, starting as a singer for an Italian restaurant and going to Los Angeles to become a successful recording artist.30:14 - How does Marco define abundance?36:21 - Marco shares his contemporary classical album, Unfolding Secrets, which he produced with Emanuele Arnone and Kristin Hoffmann.44:49 - Marco tells us the purpose of his workshop called; A Thursday Evening with Sounds of Oneness. 50:50 - Marco explains the quote; "As we walk the path, we realize we are the path."54:29 - Visit Marco Missinato's website at marcomissinato.com to learn more about him and listen to his music.

Jump to Links and Resources

Transcript

This is Cirina Catania with OWC Radio. I have Marco Missinato on the line with me today. He's in Italy at the moment, so it's a little bit late there, not too late, but thank you for doing this Marco.

Thank you. Thank you for having me with you and your audience. It's lovely to be with you and spend some time with you.

Marco is an artist, a music composer photographer, but mostly he's a messenger of peace. And I believe we really need that right now in our lives. So as someone who has been a dear friend for many, many years, it's nice to catch up for me personally, and I'm happy to share Marco with our audience. Let's get right to it, Marco. Tell everybody where you are and what you're doing in your life at the moment.

Presently I am in Italy. Right now, I'm finishing to mix my latest album, which is entitled, Journey of the Soul. I am a creator, I create my own reality, and I love to express myself through the arts. So I can define myself as an artist, an artist with a heart.

Yes, a very big heart, and you share that heart. That's what's really wonderful about you. I've watched this for many, many years. So let's go way way back. Where were you born? Where are your roots?

Yes, I was born in a small town near Venice, about 45 minutes north of Venice. The name of the town is Pordenone. And that's where I was born from a very, very young couple, and they were barely 20 years old. They just met, and as soon they met, I was conceived.

You decided it was time for you to be born, and you said those are the people.

Yeah,

Maxim Jago is a filmmaker, futurist, an Adobe Master Trainer,  author and motivational speaker. His focus is on the creative act, and what it means to be human.

Maxim talks with OWC Host, Cirina Catania, about the challenges of making and financing films, including how he recently directed his first feature film coming out in 2020.

In addition, Maxim visits the varied themes about life and creativity that he touches on through his busy keynote speaking career.

From “how to make a feature film from $0" to living your life full of existential joy, this interview has a little of something for everyone.

Transcript

This is Cirina Catania with OWC Radio. Maxim Jago, how are you this morning? We have so much to talk about. 

Fantastic. Thank you for inviting me on the show.

So for those of you who don't know who has had their head in the sand, Maxim Jago is a futurist, he's a filmmaker, he's an author and an amazing motivational speaker. The one thing I love about you most, Maxim, is your creativity, your big brain, and your kind heart. So there's so much to talk about. You're in the process of writing books, you've just directed your first feature, you're at the Toronto Film Festival right now, and I dragged you into talking to me. You are organizing an amazing conference, which we won't talk about yet, but I'll let you say that, and then you're going to Tokyo. I don't even know what to start with. Let's start by the fact that you just directed your first feature, which is an amazing accomplishment for anyone.

Thank you. When I was a kid, my dad said, "Say yes first and find out how later and you'll live a more interesting life." And he never mentioned getting enough sleep. I didn't realize that was a limitation of the advice.

I always tell people I can sleep when I'm dead.

One of my favorite quotes on the internet, and I'm sure it's traceable, I've spoken about this before. You're not supposed to arrive serenely at the grave. You're supposed to tumble skidding across the ground into the grave, covered in cuts and bruises, saying, Wow, what an amazing ride.

There you go.

One of my favorite parts of that misquote is cuts and bruises. It's okay to get the scar tissue, it's okay that it's hard. We have this culture where any kind of suffering or pain is unacceptable. And I think that that's a misunderstanding of what pain is, therefore, it's a message and it's telling you something. It's not necessarily to be avoided. In fact, you should really engage with it and find out what it's telling you. But that's a whole other conversation. So I set out to be a feature film director when I was 15. And it turns out that I wasn't wealthy enough, tall enough, connected enough, it took a long time. So I have been working on projects. I have directed about 30 short films of one kind or another and did okay with those. But I just directed a no-budget, amazing concept, supernatural thriller, and we're just in post now, and we're just editing. 

And where was it filmed? 

We shot in a beach house in Massachusetts. And there's a famous guy in Hollywood, his name's *Doug Simmons, who has a workshop that has been running for 20 years on how to make your first feature film. And he's an amazing speaker. I actually saw his presentation 20 years ago and saw it again about two years ago. It hasn't changed, it's the same message, just go and make a film. And his recommendation is if you want to make the first feature, horror always sells, go to a cabin in the woods with eight kids and metaphorically artistically chop them up, edit that, film the prosthetics and the special effects of them being chopped off for some reason, and then edit that, and you've made a feature film. 

Ew. Sorry, not for me.

Yeah, I'm not a horror guy. And that's kind of the problem for me, I don't mind psychological horror, but I don't like gore. That's not my thing. I know a lot of people love it, and that's fine,

Josh Sularski loves working with audio. His talents help clients get better sound! In his spare time, he builds custom microphones.

Author, blogger, journalist, artist, Ed Newman has interviewed some of our favorite celebrities, including Kurt Vonnegut, Jonathan Winters, Buddy Holly, mass protests in the '70s, and more! These are stories you have never heard before. And they are straight from a person who was there! Sit for a moment and listen in as OWC host, Cirina Catania talks with Ed about some of his most interesting experiences.

In This Episode

00:08 - Cirina introduces Ed Newman, an author, blogger, journalist, and artist.06:30 - Cirina and Ed talk about how Kurt Vonnegut was a fascinating and intuitive man.13:15 - Ed shares the turning point in life when he felt he wanted to be a writer back in his younger years.19:32 - Ed and Cirina talk about how they met Riki McManus, director of the Upper MN Film Office.25:06 - Ed tells the story of Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, J.P “Big Bopper” Richardson’s tragic plane crash.32:28 - Ed shares how he hitchhiked to the 1971 Mayday Anti War Protest 38:05 - Ed describes how the protest started and how the organizers planned for it to be a nonviolent protest.43:46 - Ed talks about the chaos and how the police ended up arresting 14,000 people over the two days of the protest. 50:22 - Ed shares a book he read, Cold War’s Killing Fields, about the horrible things that have happened to civilians.55:11 - Visit Ed Newman’s blog, Ennyman’s Territory at pioneerproductions.blogspot.com, to learn more about him.

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Transcript

This is Cirina Catania with OWC Radio. And I am talking with Ed Newman, who is an author, a blogger, an artist, and one of the most entertaining and informed people I've spoken within a long time. I met him through my connections in Duluth when I was recently working on the two-day master workshop on filmmaking that we were doing. And Ed and I started talking on the phone the other day, and he was telling me, Ed, I gotta say you have some interesting stories.

I have had a lot of interesting experiences, and you haven't heard a piece of it. Thank you for having me on your show. This is great. 

It's fun. I think you blew me away when you said you had interviewed Kurt Vonnegut. Did you interview him? 

Yeah, It was by telephone. It was set up, I guess. When you interview lots of people over a period of time, you learn a few things. One of them is always to be punctual. But it was a lot of fun. I started by pitching a story to screen printing magazine, about Jonathan Winters as an artist. Most people know him as a comedian. And so they weren't that interested. But then I pitched a story on Joe Pietro, the Kentucky screen printer who actually did Jonathan Winters' part. And he had done Kurt Vonnegut and Ralph Steadman. And so I got in the inside, basically, to access to all these people and it was really fun. When I called Kurt Vonnegut, he was sitting at home watching Sunday afternoon football, New York Giants. Like any guy, who's into football. So anyway, it was really rewarding.

So talk to me about him as an artist. 

Well, he had gone to give a lecture in Lexington, Kentucky. And Joe Pietro was the one who was doing posters for this, which is how they got to publicize speakers. And so he basically interacted with Mr. Vonnegut, and one thing led to another, and the next thing they were friends, and he was illustrating a lot of Kurt Vonnegut's art. Just like some of his stories, as you know, there's a humorous side underneath. And some of the artwork was that way, too.

I just really admire his work. I wish we had visuals, and we could show people, maybe we'll do a print version of this, so we could put some of this up. What was your takeaway when you talked with him? 

My take away from him? Oh, gosh, he was very perceptive. I kind of tried to build a bridge with him and said that I had read all his books when I was in college and all of his books and Hermann Hesse's books. And his response to me was, "You must have been lonely.

Months of research, many more months filming and editing, this movie tells the story of the Wall and its impact on the flora and fauna spanning over 1,200 miles along the Rio Grande bordering the United States of America and Mexico.

The latest film by John Aldrich, "The River and the Wall," is a documentary he edited and helped shoot. It tells the story of five friends who descend the Rio Grande on bicycles, horseback, and canoe to examine issues surrounding the border wall. The film premiered at SXSW 2019 and received rave reviews from the Los Angeles Times, the New York Times, Hollywood Reporter, Outside magazine, and a number of others. As of this writing, it currently enjoys a 100% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes.

John's website gives more information on feature documentaries he has worked on. These include, "An Unreal Dream," and "Audubon," as well as a number of short films and music-themed works including the "Geo Sessions," a music series he produced, shot and edited for National Geographic.

In This Episode

00:08 - Cirina introduces John Aldrich, a producer/editor/DP based in Austin, Texas. He has worked on several feature-length documentaries, among them The River and the Wall, An Unreal Dream, Audubon, Let The Fire Burn, The Russian Five, and Above It All.05:30 - John talks about the people involved in making the film The River and The Wall.10:26 - John shares how they managed to work with the cold weather while camping in West Texas together with the crew.16:07 - Cirina and John describe the feeling of finding motels and mini grocery stores to get the necessities in remote areas while in production.21:04 - John shares the mic systems and equipment they used for The River and The Wall.27:08 - John highlights the advantages of using DaVinci Resolve and an experienced colorist for high-quality color correction in a film.32:15 - John shares one of the most challenging parts of production and post-production of The River and The Wall.38:51 - John tells an exciting story of how he met Larry O’Connor, the owner of OWC.43:19 - John talks about his experiences working with Al Reinert in making the documentary film, Unreal Dream. He also shares how Al was a very brilliant man.49:03 - Follow John Aldrich on his social media accounts, and watch the film, The River and The Wall, a story of five friends who descend the Rio Grande on bicycles, horseback, and canoe to examine issues surrounding the border wall.

Jump to Links and Resources

Transcript

This is Cirina Catania. I have John Aldrich on the line. He's a producer and editor and a fellow adventurer. And I'm really excited to talk to you, John because I've heard some stories about what it took to film this last film that you were involved with called The River and The Wall. How are you doing? Have you survived?

I'm doing great, Cirina. Yeah, production wrapped a little while ago, so I've had a chance to recover. Great, great to talk with you.

Yeah, you too. Tell everybody a little bit about what The River and The Wall were when you first started. And then we'll get on to what it was for you by the time you were done. When you first started the project, how do you feel about it, and what kind of prep did you do? Let's go under the hood a little bit.

You bet. So The River and The Wall, for those who don't know, is a feature documentary that follows five friends as they go down the Rio Grande, from El Paso to the Gulf of Mexico under their own power. First on bicycles, and then on horseback through the Big Bend and then on canoes through lower canyons and other sections of the Rio. Because the Rio in some sections doesn't have water, and you actually have to be on foot or on horseback. And so they ended up going all the way down the Rio Grande to Boca Chica, which is the [mouse of the Rio de Arte, the Gulf of Mexico. And along the way, they encounter folks who tell them about what a potential border wall would do to the environment,

Pt. 2 with Thomas Michael Mulligan covers the New Hope Film Festival and gives sound advice to others who might want to hit the festival circuit!

Visit the New Hope Film Festival here.

And learn more about Thomas Michael Mulligan by visiting his site.

In This Episode

00:10 - Cirina introduces Thomas Michael Mulligan, a successful actor, and producer. His latest short film, “The Witching Hour,” recently won Best Period Short at Silver Docs!06:22 - Thomas and Cirina talk about how vital sound is when making films.13:16 - Thomas explains how New Hope Film Festival upgrades its sound equipment for the best screening experience.20:09 - Thomas discusses his involvement in SAG-AFTRA and how he became one of the first few to join.27:58 - Follow Thomas Michael Mulligan on his social media accounts, and visit his website thommichaelmulligan.com to learn more about him.

Jump to Links and Resources

Transcript

This is Cirina Catania. I am back for part two with Thomas Michael Mulligan. He's an actor, writer, producer, with a really amazing career over the last few decades, just a very few, not a lot, not as many as me, because I'm older than he is. But he's been very successful, and he's got some great advice for you guys. So part two now, Thomas, I want to talk about your film festival journey, not just for your films, but also because you started, you're the co-founder of the New Hope Film Festival, right? 

Yes. 

So tell us about that. What is the New Hope Film Festival?

The New Hope Film Festival started over a breakfast conversation back in late 2008 or early 2009. And Doug Whipple, who was a friend in Pennsylvania back in New Hope, I had been introduced to Doug prior to that by a friend; we knew his family. And Doug had written a screenplay from a book, a novel he wrote called Shadow Fields. And my friend said, "Would you be willing to talk to their son, Doug, and help you with the script?" And that's how Doug and I used to be friends over the phone and really hit it off. And then, when I go back to New Hope, I would help him work on the script and develop it. And this one time I went back, and we're having breakfast, and I was talking about how hard it is, and you've been around the                 century-long time. It's not easy, and it's not easy getting work; you're always looking for work. And I was joking with Doug saying, "We're on the W-list," and Doug said, "What's the W-list?" They're like, "Tom Who?" "Tom Mulligan," "Tom who?"

There’s a whole new dynamic today in movie making. Anyone who has a passion can create a film with a low budget.

Everybody that is in the creative side of the business feels like that at one point or another. You feel like that, that's okay. It's okay. You're allowed.

It's not like the D-list, but anyway. But it is commiserating, and I said, "Look, I've done stuff. I've done some good things, but friends still know me in the industry, but I'm not a household name or anything like that. I'm not an A-list actor." And we started talking about film festivals, but it was like, "But I live in California.” So I got to work and a week later, Doug called me up and said, "Hey, Tom, I went to my attorney and incorporated the New Hope Film Festival. Let's do it." So Doug's background was 12 years on Wall Street, Wharton School of Business MBA, incredibly nice guy, an incredibly brilliant guy. So he had that side of it, and I had this side of it. I know the industry. I know film festivals. And we spent the next year over the phone together. And we launched it in July of 2010, basically how you got started now we just completed our 10th year.

Congratulations. Did you have any idea how much work that was going to be?

Yes. Because I've been around festivals. Let me put this out there too. I think a lot of people don't realize, and they may think festivals only work as the month before the festival starts. Festivals' work is full year-round.

Thomas Michael Mulligan, Actor/Producer, recently garnered an award for Best Period Short for "The Witching Hour."

John Heino creates 3D Photos, writes music, performs live as a keyboardist, opening for bands like Lynard Skynard and is completely elated he left the corporate world behind!

WDSE-WRPT's Patty Mester, is the President and General Manger of Duluth's local PBS station. She goes behind the curtain to give us tips on how to get our films distributed by the #1 entertainment brand in America.

"I shoot movies, brew beer, and ride my bike."

Scott McLeslie, DIT, drone operator and cinematographer talks with host Cirina Catania about his recent work with Village Studios on some pretty awesome projects with major stars and a great team. He has some very interesting and amazingly candid comments about the future of the DIT's position with the production—and it is NOT on the set! We grabbed Scott as he was in his car and stalked him at the airport in Nashville as he was headed out to his next assignment. Listen in!

In This Episode

00:14 - Cirina introduces Scott McLeslie, DIT, drone operator, and cinematographer.05:20 - Scott talks about the TV series Salvage Marines, directed by Shaun Paul Piccinino.11:01 - Scott explains the intricate ways of shooting on RED Helium’s 8K camera when working on a movie.16:56 - When did Scott McLeslie first realize he was born with creative skills that led him into the film industry?21:53 - Scott discusses how they produce LUTs and color grade on sets using Qtake, a digital video assist software.26:05 - Scott explains the seamless workflow he structured for Village Studios’s setup for making various productions.31:17 - How is DIT going to be handled in the future?36:27 - Do DITs need to be on set/gig all the time? What are the primary key responsibilities of a DIT?41:57 - Scott talks about Grand Isle, a film directed by Stephen Campanelli.48:16 - Visit Scott McLeslie’s website at scotty.ru or his company Black Hangar at blackhangarstudios.com to learn more about him.

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Transcript

This is Cirina Catania OWC Radio, and I am so excited. Scott McLeslie is on the phone with me. We've been chasing around trying to get this interview done for at least a month now, but his production schedule is unbelievable. Scott, where are you, and what is happening today? Oh, by the way, I should tell people what you do so they have a little bit of background. Scott is the Chief Technical Officer at Village Studios and Black Hangar. He's a DIT specializing in 3D stereo and 360 imagery engineering, and he's also a post-production supervisor. And he's been around for a while now, even though he's quite young. So we have a lot to talk about today. And let's start off by asking you where are you? Where are you going? What's happening today for you?

All right. Hello, everybody. It's super exciting to be on the show. And at the moment, I am traveling to New York. We just wrapped a shoot for the first block of Salvage Marines, which is a sci-fi movie that I was not only doing DIT, I was flying some drones, shooting some camera. And now I am off to do some establishing shots for our next thing. 

Oh, my goodness. Are you in a car? You're literally traveling. I mean, when you say you're traveling, you're literally in the car, right? Sounds like it.

Yeah, I am. Don't worry, and I'm not behind the wheel, so it's safe to talk. 

Okay, good. No texting while you drive. I'm glad you're not driving. That's awesome. So you're headed to the airport? Where are you currently?

New Orleans. We started off in Baton Rouge, and we are almost at the airport in New Orleans.

Oh, my goodness. Well, we're just gonna keep asking you questions. So first of all, let's just set a stage for what is Village Studios? What do they do, and who do they do it for?

Okay, so Village Studios is a pretty interesting project in terms of its size and capacities, because the way it was built, it's relatively new. The major renovations happened three years ago, so what we tried to do is we tried to take the top of the top technology, basically shrinking a full-size production studio into a very, very small footprint of the property, everything we need to run a full-scale production of tier two, tier three if we must. Should I say, we succeeded. The last productions we did though the Jeepers Creepers, Blaze, those movies you don't actually shoot in the middle of nowhere,