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Chuck:
All right. I've got the filmmakers from Ang Motel playing at the South Georgia Film Festival here shortly. I appreciate you coming, and we've got quite a few people here, so let's introduce you. Just introduce yourselves real quick so everybody can attach names and voices and also just say real quick what you did on the film.
Jon:
Jon Matthews, director producer. Go ahead, Lola.
Virginia:
I am Virginia Solomon, 92 years old. She's the actress. All right. Okay. Yeah, she's still healthy. I'm happy and fully.
Anna:
Hi, I'm Anna Solomon. I'm the executive producer on here. I'm also the granddaughter of our actress here, Virginia.
Narry:
And I'm Narry Solomon. I am producer and I actually help in this film. And I'm the son of Virginia.
Malou:
And I'm Malou, the daughter of Virginia. I'm one of the cast on that movie.
Chuck:
All right. So John, walk us through real quick. What the origins of the story? Because I'm very curious. Virginia seems like such a great person to have in a film. Did you like the film around with her in mind, or did you write the film and say, I know the perfect person for this movie?
Jon:
Definitely with her in mind for sure. So I was reading a lot of Sam Shepard at the time, and there's a story short story by him called Indianapolis Highway 74. And it's about a guy that's stranded in a random town at a random roadside motel and an ex of his happens to be staying there and offers to share a room with him. And the story just ends right there. So I thought, what if I kind of picked up the story from there, but with an entirely different cast of characters in a different location? And I thought, what's the complete opposite of that? And I've always been inspired by my wife's grandmother, who's 91 years old and has ten kids and survived a bullet wound from Communist rebels in the Philippines. And I thought she would be the perfect person to ask and kind of build this story around. And I showed my wife a draft of it, and she's like, okay, well, Lola does this and that. She records herself, stay in the Rosary and then listens to it back. And there were little things like that. You can't really make that stuff up. It's just real life. And that's the stuff that inspired me to write the film.
Chuck:
I see. So some of the stuff she does in the movie basically come natural. So you put it in the film just to okay.
Jon:
Yeah. Basically, she should be probably credited as Co writer with story influenced by because this is a lot of that. And Majang is I mean, that's what that's her life is playing machine pretty much. And yeah, the singing. I mean, it's all her, so much of it. You really don't have to be that great of a writer when you've got a character like this.
Chuck:
Nice. Yeah. And this seems like a big family affair with so many members and generations. Maybe talk about that. Is this a family of filmmakers, or is this a special project that everybody felt like they had to come together to do?
Jon:
Well, it's a special project. I guess that everybody. I mean, I'm the film in the family. I'm kind of new to the family, and I didn't know if Lola would be up to this. And then I talked to my father in law, and he's like, actually, I think she's got some acting in her. Maybe this is something she'd want to do. And she said she wanted to do it, and she was amazing. I mean, she's just a complete natural. The only thing we had to do is kind of coax her on the words to the song that she could remember, but everything else was just her being her.
Chuck:
Well, Virginia, I got to hear your story. When John, I first approached you and said, hey, you're going to be this big movie star. What was your initial reaction and how did you prepare for this role? I'm happy to experience this type of life in my life. Have you done any acting before?
Virginia:
Well, I was a child only, but that is only in the remote barriers of the Philippines when there are pests that's it like, what was it like being on the set of this movie?
Participant #1:
I'm very happy to experience such at least I have experience in my life about opting or singing.
Chuck:
John or whoever found Eurice. She seems like a natural on camera, too.
Anna:
Yes, this is Anna. So Eurice is actually a cousin of mine in the family, and she's an aspiring actress, and we thought this would be sort of a good project for her. So she's very thankful that Jon wrote this script and had her in mind for that role, too. So I think it made everyone sort of feel comfortable on set because we all are family and we know each other, and that's why we were able to make a movie that seems so natural. You might see her on commercials. She's been on an Amazon commercial that plays all the time. Okay. She was in a David Gwetta. Sea of music video, so we kind of snug her before she got booked up with everything else right before she rocking it off. Oh, Nintendo commercial. Nintendo, yeah. That's really cool.
Chuck:
Yeah. We talked a lot about on this show, just finding that right blend of people to work with. And if those people happen to be also your family. But I imagine part of some issues that could come up with maybe it's your family is that you have those kind of arguments that only family can have. Did anything come up like that during production where you had to make a big decision and you had some sort of discussion to how to shape the film.
Anna:
Our family is very dramatic. Okay. We had fights here and there of like, oh, what's the schedule? Are you scheduling something else here? But it all worked out at the end. Just like any sort of family. You have the big drama sometimes little blow ups here and there. But at the end of the day, we were all there for each other. And I think we actually worked very well together. And we're all happy for my mom. Yes. Because at the end of the day, a lot of us are not in the film industry at all. So this is all very new to us. And we thought of this as a project to help grandma always wanted to do some sort of acting, and we thought this was a very special project for her. So a lot of this was motivated by like, oh, let's do this for Grandma.
Chuck:
Well, I mean, Jon, you've been in the industry for a while. You've got so many credits here. You've been making documentaries, it looks like, and all sorts of shorts, et cetera. How did you use your experience? How did you get your family prepped for this crazy making a film, which is always insane? How did you get them all ready for it?
Jon:
They maybe didn't realize how insane it was going to be. Then they show up on set and there's kind of all this crew and this equipment and these lights and what's going on. But I tell you who the most professional person I thought was. It was Virginia. I mean, Lola came in and she said, tell me where to go and what to do. And she did it. I think she really came to life in the Mahjong scene, and that's really her. And she's humming during it. And then I kind of wrote that humming into the score of the movie, and it's just really all just inspired by her and kind of what a unique person she is.
Chuck:
That's great. And maybe talk a little bit about just directing. Was there any difference between directing such a gulf? I guess you could say of generations between the two, the two leads, maybe, like language or anything, you know, like, really getting to the weeds of, like, directing just how you talk to actors. I'm just kind of curious about.
Jon:
Yeah, I'm always curious about that with directors, too. So I'm terrible at talking to actors. Okay. I'm better at casting than saying some magical thing that's going to get them to act a different way. So that's my secret. I've always worked on indie films. I came up through NYU, and that's the way we're trained. And I'm not in an environment of $100 million movie where we can do 50 takes. I bring in actors that are who the characters are in the film because I don't have time to do all these takes and try to get them where I need them to be and probably wouldn't know what to say to them if I did. So they were really just being themselves. And I tried to write it in a way that kind of highlighted the best and most interesting parts of who they are. I mean, Eurice is so cool. Like, she's half black, half Filipina, and you don't instantly look at her and think, oh, she may know some Tagalog. And then she's on the bench with Lola and she starts speaking to GOG to her, and you're like, okay, well, maybe there's something more to her character that she brings to the table that we're not seeing. That's not apparent. So I thought that added to it, too. And just who she was and who Lola was and then being themselves and me kind of getting out of the way as much as possible, I think was the key to it.
Chuck:
Yeah. Casting, casting. If you cast right, you're right. You just kind of naturally does it.
Intermission:
Hey, welcome to the Intermission. This is Chuck just breaking in real quick with some announcements next Monday. Film Bar Monday is back. I think it's been back a few weeks. I forgot to mention it, but they took off some time because of covered concerns. Things apparently are looking okay. So if you feel safe, trackside Tavern next Monday, the 28th. Head over there and have some drinks and eat some food with some fellow filmmakers in the Atlantis, Georgia, area, where networking is friend making, not networking. So leave those business cards at home, or at least tucked into your back pocket. The Atlanta Jewish Film Festival is still going on to the 27th. It's all digital, so you can enjoy all these films from the comfort of your own home. Recently we covered the film Jews of the Wild West, so make sure to check out that one. But there's tons of other movies to watch. You can head to Ajf.org for more information on that. And the weekend of March 4 to 6th, South Georgia Film Festivals going on down in baldasta. That will be in person. So again, if you feel safe head on down there, we'll be there doing some interviews. Otherwise, hanging out and watching movies, just having a good time. Again, it's March 4 through 6th. You can head to Southgeorgiafilm.com for more information on that. Make sure to head over to Patreon.com Afcndfilm and give this week's Patreon exclusive content where all the filmmakers talk about lessons they've learned over their lives, specifically the new people talking about what they learned on this film and John talking about what he's learned over the years of being a filmmaker. You can get it for as low as one dollars a month. There's other options, including a shout out on the show. Thanks to Ken Merritt for getting that one. But if you're not over@patreon.com Afcendyfilm, you're missing lots of advice from all these filmmakers and talk to you every week. If you're trying to make movies, you want to learn from people who have done it well. There you go. Last thing I need to tell you about our sponsor is Element Certified Public Accountants and Consultants. So I have a little stack of papers next to my couch where I usually sit in the living room. The stack of papers is all the tax stuff. I have to do both for my production company. I have two and personal stuff. Now, what should I do? Considering that this is a bunch of film stuff and it's complicated, should I worry about it and drive myself crazy trying to do it myself? No. What I should do is take all this stuff over to Element Certified Public Accountants and Consultants. They're based in downtown Atlanta and they do all sorts of cool stuff like production accounting and film taxes. Help you figure out the complicated Georgia tax credit system. The works. It doesn't matter if you own a production company like me. You work on set or maybe a little combination of both. They're going to help you find a solution for your tax accounting needs. And also, they're hiring. Element. In its sister company, Storyboard Financial Services, are hiring production accountants. They're looking for entry level clerks and production accountants, assistance and keys. Full time positions include health benefits, retirement benefits and immediate room for growth. If you're interested, please contact Element by visiting Element Cpas.com. That is also the website you go to if you need their services. So whether you're looking to get hired or hire them to help you sort your life out, Elementcpas.com is the way to go. Thanks to them for sponsoring the show. Great talking to John in Virginia, Anna, Nari and Mallow in this episode. Virginia is definitely an example of never too late. You see all those memes like, oh, Colonel Sanders did whatever the stage, whatever Virginia is in a film, it's winning awards. She is winning said awards at the age of going on 92 years young. So it's literally never too late to get started. And doing something creative. We've always wanted to do it. Maybe listening to the show thinking, I don't know, there's no excuse. There's just no excuse. Virginia has proven that. Kudos to John for recognizing that and saying, I know she can do it. And like you said, it comes from that world of documentary making. You see these interesting people out in the world making a great documentary. Sometimes they make great actresses and actors. And there you go. So Congrats to everybody on the production of On Mattel. So I'm going to get you back to it. I hope you enjoyed the interview. Go make your stuff. Even if you're not ready to get out there and start working out there because you're still worried about the virus, whatever's going on, eventually you'll get to a point where you can make stuff. And the only way to do that is if you keep working, writing, directing, acting in your own home, whatever it is you're doing, keep at it. You got to keep practice or it's going to be tough once we get out of everything. So keep at it. I believe in you and enjoy the rest of the interview.
Chuck:
Virginia, what did you think of Jon's directing? Did he do it well or did you have any notes for him? Yeah. Is Jon a good director?
Virginia:
Yeah. And thank you for that.
Jon:
I'll tell you what, she outlasted most of us younger folks on set. She was ready to go, and we're actually going to do another film with her. She's won really? Yeah. She's won two different best actress awards and film festivals so far, I think we've been we've won six different awards, and she's won two of them herself. So we're actually ready to shoot another one in March. And it's again inspired by her life. I mean, she's going back to the Philippines. And the way she talks about it is she's going there to die and she wants to be buried next to her husband there. So we've come up with another story that's built around that, and we're excited to shoot that one, too. That also goes back to what you're saying about casting. You cast the right people. And when somebody like Virginia has this great backstory in her real life and it comes across on camera, you almost really don't have to do very much like it's just naturally there. And that's got to be super helpful. Yeah, absolutely. I guess coming from a documentary filmmaker background, too, documentaries. And you cast for characters, you cast for someone who's interesting and that people want to watch. And if you kind of take that mentality into the fiction world, you're going to win every time. If you've got somebody that really is who their character is, then there's no way that's not going to come across.
Chuck:
I'm curious about the other producers on the film. There was their first time producing anything. So I'd like to hear just some of their stories about what they learned, which I'm sure was quite a bit, but something to help them with the next film that they really learned on this film. Yeah.
Narry:
This is actually new to us first time, but it turned out to be a realization on our part because I didn't realize that about ten minutes film, you need a lot of hard work, a lot of time, days to film it and a lot of creativity. And thanks to Jon for that. And another thing that I realized actually is my mom after that film told me that when she was a teenager she wanted to become an actress and her uncle approached her if she wanted to be in the movie, and she was so excited about it. But then my grandma and grandpa said no because my mom grew in a poor family. She's just helping my grandma on a small car in the year for a living. And they said, you need to help us. You cannot do that. So this is a dream come true for her. We learned a lot about how hard it is to create one. Yeah. A lot of creativity. And thanks to Jon, he did a lot of great work. You know, what I realized is a good movie is not only because of a good story, but you can have a simple story, but you can transform it to a great movie. And that is how the directors will come in.
Anna:
And just watching the different shots, too. I just want to Echo for a ten minute movie. We didn't think that it would take what, 16 plus hours to actually film. Right. And being producers in this movie, going back to the point of finding actors and casting, I think that's a really good point because now we're casting other people that are outside of our family to be in this movie. And trying to find the right fit is hard, especially since the last one was very easy because we had the people in mind this one, we're still trying to find the right people. So I think the technicalities of what it really takes to make a movie and also have casting, I would say, are the big challenges.
Chuck:
Yeah. Some of these lessons learned on the fly. Did anything come up like where you had a location or anything like that that you had to figure out real quick? Just, oh, we thought we had this, but now we have to figure out real quick because all of a sudden we lost it, you know what I mean? Yeah, that kind of thing.
Jon:
Well, the thing that comes to mind is we're filming in Carlsbad, California, which is San Diego County, and filming in New York and in La. You're always going through the permitting process and that's so involved and so detailed and expensive and all of that. And Carl's bad. No permits needed, which is great. Right. Just go in there and shoot on public property. It's fine. So I scout up this great location for the last shot and it's sunset. It's beautiful. There's the ocean in the background. But the thing I didn't think about is that there's a million people there because it's sunset in the oceans there. Right. I'm working with the skeleton crew and we're trying to just get people to hold walking into frame for just 20 seconds. We can film this real quick. And that turned out to be the most difficult shot of the whole movie.
Chuck:
Yeah. I guess you don't have just like tons of pas to stop people like, hey, stop walking for a second. You just can't really do that, right. Nowadays, of course, we had a bigger camera than your phone, but everybody's filming everything on their phone. So they don't really. Oh, yeah, they've got to get their shot too. Yeah, that's a good point, actually, with everybody says just shoot on your phone and everything. But there's always that thing where you've got a set set up and it clearly looks like a set. People treat it differently. But you're right. If you're just walking around with your phone or maybe even got a gimbal or something. Still, everybody has those now. So they're just like, oh, it's just another person taking pictures of the sunset. There's not that different treatment of like, oh, you're making a movie, that kind of thing. Yeah, right. Exactly. That's pretty interesting. So you said Virginia has already won some acting awards and it sounds like the film is already really getting out there. So I guess South Georgia Film Festival is not the premiere or anything, but talk about getting the movie out there. Was there any plan in place or you're just trying to find it a good home and find the most eyeballs to it?
Jon:
So with Covid and everything, I think South Georgia is going to be our first in person screen. I see it maybe is the premiere in a way, I don't know how that works anymore with I don't either. Our biggest one here was we were in the Asian Film Festival, Los Angeles, which looked like it was going to be an in person festival. And then the last minute in December switched online. But the other film festivals, everything so far has been online and this is the first in person screening. So in a way, this might be our Premier. I don't know.
Chuck:
Okay. Well, did you have a distribution plan in place when you first started making it or just kind of seeing what's available when you wrapped or what was the plan for distribution?
Jon:
You know what? We don't have a distribution plan. We're just kind of doing this as a family project and wanted to have fun and to have something that means something to the family and that says something about who Virginia is, who Lola is.
Chuck:
Okay. That makes sense. Yeah. Plus it feels like this film could go to so many different types of festivals. This is like a strict horror movie or something. You have a lot of options, I feel like. So yeah, that's nice.
Jon:
Yeah. I would love to have an in person screening locally in Southern California where Virginia could come and maybe one in the Philippines too when she goes back.
Chuck:
Oh, yeah, that would be great. Well, tell everybody where to find more information about the movie and yourselves. Any websites or anything like that you want to shout out?
Jon:
Okay, yeah, I'm johnmathewsfilm.com jonmatthew sfilm.com. So you can go there and check out more information about me and about the film.
Chuck:
Okay. Anybody else have a website or social media or anything?
Jon:
Oh, no, we should be more social media savvy.
Chuck:
No, that's fine. These days you got to have one. I just wanted to check but that's fine. Everybody come to the South Georgia film festival if you can make it and make sure to see Ong motel and of course all the other films but especially on motel and I really appreciate everybody here coming today and talk to me and it's great meeting all of you and good luck with this film and it all your future films.
Jon:
Thanks a lot, Chuck. I appreciate it.