Royce Freeman, Director, speaks about making his new documentary "First Coast Cinema World"

wow reminds me of winter recordings when it was so cold it's like no matter what I wore I was always cold on after good sort of um I honestly can't get YouTube or Facebook to actually trigger the start when they're supposed to um so but we'll go ahead and do it and it says it started and I'll I'll have to upload it to one or the other if it doesn't do well no absolutely it's recording though so uh welcome um thanks for coming by today thank you for having me thanks so this is Royce Freeman he's got a new documentary coming out and so he came by the two Floridian Studios to speak with us about it um we we appreciate that so thank you much heard about it through rights of the father I believe if my memory is correct right oh yeah uh one of the actors in that film Dean Philippi um I've known him for years he was in my uh second feature in uto and he played a cop and um I reached out to him recently and had him interviewed for this documentary and uh I started to follow more of his work um and and I saw that he was on the show and I thought it'd be good to cross promote it's like well there was it was one of your guests that you had for another project and he's in this project oh was so cool so he played a policeman in he played a policeman um the project in Udo is kind of like a kind of a Rob Zombie kind of gritty Grindhouse uh Thriller hostages and bad people um and you know the bad people get pulled over by the cop and the you know everybody has to play a cool so that uh you know the cop can just uh you know go about his business and nobody gets hurt and uh uh well it's a horror movie so he probably doesn't make it the reason I start it's absolutely not important or anything but he played the judge right in the rights of his father yeah he played a judge in that there's like a a a thread everything and he had a police uniform like he just brought he brought his police uniform uh to play the cop in my film he just had one has anybody checked on what he does maybe he's a police officer who became a judge maybe I mean we did ask him if he was a real judge yeah he's very good actor he um in the documentary has a clip of this but uh there's a filmmaker Richard Kodi and he does a lot of uh um film festivals or or he used to do a lot of film festival and one of the films U I think is called with bloodshot eyes I think it's the name of the short film and Dean plays uh what turns out to be the uh the president but you don't know that uh spoilers no but it it it's a guy in a bunker um who's drinking and smoking heavily and there's a phone by him and you could his you know his shirt's undone and he's in disheveled his hair is all messy and you don't know what is stressing him so out so much out and then by the end you know you know he gets the call and then you find out that he's um you know it's like it's wartime you know kind of thing he's stressing about what he needs to do but you you hold off and don't tell the audience uh that you know that he is the commander-in-chief so he got to play a multi-dimensional uh person not just I'm playing the president and that's just a one-dimensional thing because every time you see the president in the movie he's in a suit he's on Air Force One and it's so it's so or it's so militarized this is just about a flawed human who has to make a hard Choice kind of thing you know I like that what's the name of I think it's called with bloodshot eyes but I know the D the director is Richard Kodi and um you know there's there's links to that stuff on um on his Facebook page and on I think YouTube yeah okay and are are each of these films shot here in Jacksonville primarily Jacksonville St Augustine area I mean the the the Greater Jacksonville area but I didn't know this until I moved here that uh what we all call Jacksonville because of course there's Marshall ANS and there's the the boond Dos but the entire Jacksonville greater area you could fit the entire State of Rhode Island nestled right into Jacksonville Duval and all of its outskirts and and have room you know because Jacksonville is the largest mass city in the country yeah yeah yeah so the name of the documentary the first coost cinema world first coost Cinema World um named after the fact that they they refer to our uh area as the First Coast MH because I think um the settlers the um you know when uh the the Columbus and all those ships I think they settled in St Augustine before anywhere else was it St Augustine at for Carolina St August actually there were so many ships I feel like were coming right Aus then the hugenots came up to Fort Caroline still yeah but they settled in St Augustine and the the fort here got conquered got basically knocked down a few times and moved around so it wasn't really a continuous settlement on yeah wonder if we should call it not settlers but more like colonizers Invaders Invaders aliens um but let's go let's go back to the begin alens um s you mentioned off the record I mean before we started uh recording that you're not from Jacksonville no um my mother and father they met in New York and my dad's not even from New York uh my dad's from uh uh Georgia and Wilmington North Carolina and he got into photography and things like that and served in Vietnam and when he got out of Vietnam he started to Parlay and do uh film stuff and uh they met my mother in New York um or actually I don't know if they were were in New York or New Jersey but in that area he met my mom my mom was a flower child a little hippie girl um what's funny he's a a um a uh uh a gentile uh um uh family um you know non uh I well my mom was Jewish so and my dad was uh non-practicing Christian so um but it's funny that you know he's a southern conservative and she was a a kind of a liberal old Jew hippie and so it was it's an interesting combination um so I got raised in both environments cuz I don't know if you've ever lived in an area where your in-laws kind of live across the street in the building across the street so they kind of come and go as they please they just kind of show up all unannounced at your house my um my uh Grand my mom's family uh parents lived uh in the same building so they they came uh and visited all the time I get to see my mom's side of the family which was the Jewish uh uh Heritage and um my grandfather Sammy was a proud uh um man of faith and he would bring my brother and me to uh to a temple sh uh on Saturday because what funny the in the Gentile Faith the Sunday is the high holy day but in the in the Hebrew Faith it's the high holy day is Saturday um so my grandfather would expose my brother and me to um you know that world and uh um and then my dad being a filmmaker uh so I got I got exposed to all kinds of stuff growing up in New York so cool which area was it New York City or New York State I well it was New York State um living it was it was queens and Manhattan I think um my when I was a baby we lived in a uh apartment building in Manhattan and then when I got older we moved to Queens yeah okay that's it it's also kind of very turbulent well not not turbo very kind of volatile time in that those neighborhoods right grown um I don't remember the Manhattan uh environment uh but where I lived in Queens from the time they moved to Queens till the time we left New York um was the same place um as far as my memory and it was kind of you know it wasn't a suburban area but it was what a regular you know brick building in a neighborhood um I don't think that it was a a rough neighborhood um I don't remember any of that but um but it was I mean they let us play outside so if it was really rough they probably would wouldn't let us do that so right I feel like it I feel like it makes it like the backdrop of Sesame Street could be Queens yeah I I think that Sesame Street is supposed to be queens or some some place like that is it really well I think I know it's New York I know it's supposed to be New York but um but I don't know exactly where where that's supposed to be but it definitely isn't there like a shot in Sesame Street where you can see past the buildings like the Brooklyn Bridge or something like there's one of those shots on Sesame Street I don't know I'm not as I'm not quite as up on the lore but I got that feeling that was the vibe I got from oh yeah yeah it was I think it was New York when they where they shot I know Mr Rogers was shot in uh Pittsburgh in in uh in Pennsylvania but Philly area yeah cool um well yeah we're glad you moved down here because um your documentary I think gets into the history of of this region in film right in the uh all the way back to the silent film era is that correct when when I first moved here in 2004 um I was not aware of the history of where I was moving to um cuz actually I moved to Orange Park which is Clay County and I didn't Venture into Duvall County except for whenever friends said hey let's go to the the the bar the club and the beach and this kinds of stuff so um I wasn't aware why it was called the First Coast I wasn't aware that um this was the silent film Hub before Hollywood was Hollywood things were here so I started getting into film without any of that knowledge I just kind of jumped in the deep end and started swimming um my first feature uh Rapture which is a a horror film um I got to make that film because a friend of mine Tom came into some inheritance and he wanted to to make a film and he said let's make a film and my buddy Kurt helped write it and he acted in it and we shot at our my friend David's house he happened to have his large property um and uh it was tailor made for us to just write a film to to shoot there and but it wasn't with any of these people in the Jacksonville Film Community because I didn't know that there was a Jacksonville Film Community I just put ads into uh um online and David and Me cast some of our friends my friend Kurt came from Miami he was in it and he brought some of his friends and so it was just kind of this you know uh kind of a family affair which we're casting these these unknowns and uh it took so long to make that film that over that time I got to meet people and we premiered it originally in 2014 and then later we revised and made a director's cut and we premiered it like two years ago but um every project got me introduced to new people and then I worked on that project and then it introduces me to new people um so again I started doing this documentary in 2022 something like that and it just occurred to me I was sitting on the couch with my wife and we were watching something it could have been a documentary on Netflix it could have been anything but I don't remember we were just sitting there and it just occurred to me you know like when you have a lightning and a bottle thing you don't even know where they idea comes from it's just something about that makes you think of this and I like you know we've been going to all these film festivals we've been doing the 48 uh 40 Hour film project and all these things and I'm starting to hear about this history that Jack cil's had and I said you know I've never seen anybody Chronicle that history and put it into some comprehensive form with all well it might there might have been little uh pieces done on like an NPR or PBS where was more uh formal and not done for entertainment value but I'm like there's so many people in this Film Community that I've worked with they are characters if you get them talking it's there's there's jokes and shtick and they're all they're all flavor you know so you're not going to get a Walter kronite kind of thing you're going to get people with um all kinds of wild uh um personality so I said to my wife I said um what do you think about me doing this long form project I don't know how long it's going to take to do and I don't know how how long the film will be um but I want to do a love letter to uh my community and she says yeah I think it's a worthwhile project and then so I involved my dad I in fact that call was funny I was like Dad I know you're probably busy blah blah blah uh why don't you give me a call when you can and he and he thought that it was something important like is everybody okay is the baby is well actually the baby wasn't even around yet but he say is the wife okay is family okay no no no it's nothing nothing like that um I have an idea for this project and the moment I told it to him you could hear you know when you're on the phone with somebody you can't see if they're smiling what but you can hear when when if somebody says something you can hear that's probably coming from a smile you know there's just something about the voice and I he was like I I think you definitely should do this this sounds like it's going to it could be a very worthwhile project um and then I started contacting all the people that uh the major players like certain people like Adam Madrid and Monique Madrid they do the film festivals they run the 48 and Richard Kodi and this guy Chad Hendrick a bunch of people these filmmakers that have been doing meaningful work and they all were like absolutely yes um but uh the reason that all this got started is that in 2014 um this guy Richard Kodi he um started doing this showcase at the I you have you been to the Sunray Cinema or do you know about okay and and then unfortunately they're closing you know um because of big business you know big business wants them to do something that they probably don't want to do as far as I we don't actually know what it is we're all speculating but we somehow think and it's never right to assume anything they you know what they say but um we think that because the owners are such um um artistic uh people they're not about big business and um you know making it you're making making the the theater look like every other Multiplex you go to Sunray it's very very wholesome and artsy and stuff I have a sneaking suspicion that the reason that they can't stay has something to do with the guy jacked up the rent and probably wanted him to turn it into something he didn't want to turn it into I'm just guessing but um the uh when they did the short film showcase Richard kodai said you know I want to bring all these filmmakers together and let them show their short films and CU When you have a premiere of a project if you have one project well the only people going to come are people that are interested in that one project and then the cast and crew and families and friends of that one film if you have 20 short films those are 20 movies they might be only 5 10 minutes but that's still a movie M it's a project so you have 20 projects of cast and crew and friends and fans so you can pack the theater and they were always packed and he did that for several years um Mo'Nique and Adam Madrid these filmmakers that actually um Adam Madrid won the 48 Hour film Project which is a contest they do nationally and they have it in Jacksonville too um he won that I think in 2014 and he that he wanted to start a film festival with with his wife and they wanted to do it exclusively comedy and Richard was Richard was getting I think kind of burnt out from doing the film festival so much cuz sometimes he was doing two a year and he said you know I don't know if I'm going to continue to do that why don't you guys kind of take over um it's like a soft reboot like the his showcase became the LOL I mean they they were going to do the LOL anyway but I don't think they wanted to have both happen at the same time so I think Richard said you know I'm getting I think you should hand the torch over um and in 200 um 17 I think was the first uh LOL and um they do that every year and because of the success of that they got asked uh to be the city producers of the 48 Hour film Project which that's nuts have you ever heard of what that is yeah I have well I saw the trailer well teasers yeah yeah I know only from um uh Bryce Howard uh put in a submission to it um and I know that you have to make a film in 48 hours yeah I mean you have no way to plan anything other than getting your they give you a topic yeah you get you they give you a topic the line of dialogue you have to use and you can't change the line it has to be exactly that line and you have a prop you have to use character and the name and so they tell you this guy's name is Bill and he's a cop and it has to be Bill and a cop you know or whatever it is um now what's interesting is and every so often there's filmmakers that do this now it's tricky because if you try to reinvent the wheel the judges have to appreciate the irony if they're like I I don't I don't think that you've done it the way we've asked you to do it or if they think that you've been a smarty pants and you're like technically this is that and you might get brownie points for actually being subversive and trying to you know do it your way but that's a crapshoot if you try to try to get outsmart the house you know the house always wins in Vegas so if you're like well technically this it's like well the judges have to appreciate that but every every once in a while the judges do reward uh bold uh thinking yeah so people have submitted things where like you do like a like a script maybe you say oh I'll just do the whole thing like I just received this script and then I'm reading it um different Concepts what have you seen done um well as an example um there's a a comedy group um I know that there's still kind of doing stuff but I I haven't seen anything lately but there it's called mad cowford because actually it's funny Jacksonville used to be called Arlington Florida but calford actually has it's a name of like I think Jacksonville was called calford or something right um so mad calford and they're and they're a comedy sketch group but they do zany stuff and their 48 that they did one year was I think they drew because they give you piece of paper that has two um choices and you can combine them or you can pick one or the other they drew silent film and musical so they decided to do both um they did you know like the oldtime silent films that have like the Ragtime music going on you know it's not in widescreen the blacks on the sides and it has the old timey look and they have you know you know like that's really you know Betty Hill Music and they don't have dialogue every time they want to cut to what's being said they cut to a a a black screen with like The Laurels and it has the dialogue on the screen so it has the all that going on well the the story was um the you know all the villains always wear those little bolo hats and they have suspenders and these little sleazy mustaches always those those you know they're always like you know like this old timey Laurel and Hardy stuff and they went to the lady's house cuz the lady baked these really amazing pies and but the guys were coming over and they really wanted something else from her you know but they but her baked goods was the metaphor right and they they had an island in the middle of the kitchen and they literally were chasing her around the island you know like the you know the stereotype of you hear the the secretary chasing the the the boss chasing the secretary around the office you know kind of like kind of thing so they had this Ragtime music playing where these sleazy guys were chasing her around trying to get her buys and uh but they won um I believe um and it was funny because it was a silent film Musical and um so I think that that's actually very cool when they take an idea and they combine ideas and they make some hybrid you know some some concoctions some amazing stew that is delicious reminds me of the fun of drama class I used to love when you would try to combine random things and have to just go with it um I don't know what that exercise was called but um it was a lot of fun didn't they do don't they do that on um like the the show was it Whose Line Is It Anyway You Know they have to just throw you something that comes out of nowhere and then those those guys are always like having to change the script and come up with a new um you know scenario and weave around the you know it gets ridiculous when I saw that show I wasn't sure if my drama class copied that show or that show copied my drama class was it at school your drama class yeah um yeah it wasn't a good one it was when they let anybody in um but yeah they uh I always thought it was the most fun it was one of the most fun I didn't like School very much but I like drama class because I thought those exercises were were were very entertaining and they always led to some great jokes and things that became funny on and on and on I had a Drama teacher um I many many different teachers that did this but as long as we didn't make an example of this and get the teacher in trouble um the it was a safe space so I mean we couldn't curse like Sailors and anything ridiculous but the teacher said look you're here and this is a trust exercise you know I'm letting you we're all here we can be vulnerable together I'm going let you kind of be uh emotionally and and and and at your core naked you know I'm going to just you know you can be your your your true self and uh unless your true self is actually naked yeah and um which I've actually heard from a lot of actors that have done Live Theater that a a theater group a a troop like a a family environment that at some point it's it's co-ed it's like look uh we have to quickly change our wardrobe we don't have time for any of this uh look yes it's it's uh I'm not wearing clothes get over it you know I mean and it becomes clinical like doctors uh being in in a doctor's environment it's like you're not looking at somebody and thinking something else you're you're like eh that's just bill over there he's get he's getting dressed it's nothing you know um like I know one guy that does sound for some projects and he does DJing at a um dance club you know and he goes I went over there one time to you know um pick up some paperwork and stuff from him and I walk in and the music's going the dancing's happening and I kind of just out of the corner of my eye I see an eiel and I I don't know how you get any work done around here he goes it's nothing I see it so I see it every day all day it's nothing it it it it does nothing for me you know so um which is interesting um that uh you know you can become numb to you work in any environment and you can become kind of it becomes like white noise you just kind of filter it out um I think playing with that is a big part of your profession when you make movies one of the amazing things about Cinema and uh is the part that you don't show is the implication of a story is the are the components that you've you've framed the aspect to grab the focus in order to basically pull off a magic trick well it's all magic trick I mean there is no Motion in Motion Pictures there is the illusion of motion you know back if you're starting off with edit Thomas Edison creating a film camera um there it's 24 IND individual snapshots like a flip book it's 24 frames a second mhm there is no motion it's the illusion of motion which actually when technology got so be uh good that now we have HD and 4K and stuff like that if you ever go to a cinema and I don't know why they would do this but um certain movies they project them at like 48 frames a second or whatever like like um when the movie The Hobbit The Hobbit films came out and certain films like that you ever watched a movie and because we're so used to a certain 24 frames a second look it's it's there's a little bit of a blur but you don't you don't see the blur but it it makes it have this dreamlike Haze that it's not real cuz a flip book it's like you know it's it's fake you ever watch if you watch something at 48 frames a second or more it's too smooth there's no blur it looks it's like watching a a Pay-Per-View fight uh uh like a boxing match or whatever it's just it's all so smooth and so crisp it's too clean it doesn't film is magical when you go to a movie theater back when it was filmed depending on where you're sitting you hear this very faint this little clicking very you know I mean the sound booth it muffles most of it but there's a very faint in the air the clicking of the projector and then the light is shining from the projecting Booth onto the screen but if you look up there's like dust particles in the air and the light is cutting through that and it's it's it's it's leaving this it it is a like a magical experience the idea of um going to a dark uh room sitting with a whole bunch of people most of them you don't know and if you if you'll forgive this analogy I've heard people refer to going to a cinema as kind of a a church you know they don't mean it literally but they said it's a spiritual experience for them because they're sitting there much like when you go on a Sunday to do the same uh a different thing for uh but you're sitting there and the lights go down you're sharing this this fellowship with this audience and you're all experiencing the movie together but much like comedy um not everybody finds the same joke funny so it's not like um on Q like you know when you watch like a talk show and it has like it tells the audience applauds they want you to applaud because they're telling you that's the joke and uh the host or the guest just made a joke so everybody all laugh and but if they didn't have that you might find something that's funny and I may not or vice versa so you go and watch a movie and the shark jumps out of the water or the monster gets this or whatever or there's a joke and it it's a it's amazing to sit there especially if you're the filmmaker and you've made the art to sit there it's so rewarding to hear everybody go or to hear everybody you know and it's so cool because you're the Puppet Master you did that and I have found that many many artists say this um entertainers you know not just film but creating something and it's result oriented because a comedian wants the laugh the the horror Maestro wants the scare um and you can play the audience like a fiddle you can be the puppet master and and if you do your job well you have manipulated a group of people to bend to your will and but but in a in a in a passive way you're not doing anything harmful you're just you're doing your job so well that you're actually um creating um some world and and and and breathing life into it yeah that's right somebody's asking a question here let me see if I can I can't quite read it from there um well it's interesting I'm glad you it's not relevant to us uh but it was one of my friends saying Roy Roy St talks too much um well no I'm glad you said that last sentence because as you started like manipulated probably like I'm not sure I like this and then when you said like you you as basically create this whole world and you convince for the duration of the film or movie this audience that this is like this is a real experience they're going through like this magical world you created you invited them and they're in a way submitted to the would say to the plot to the flow of this magical plane that you created I think yeah I think it's it's it's really beautiful but um is this your first documentary because you mentioned earli films that were all feature I have loved documentaries for as long as I can remember and um do he like to learn oh yeah I mean and it's fun there's there's some movies like my wife jokes around that like if I go to the store or if it's on Best Buy Best Buy you know or or Amazon if there's the barebones Blu-ray DVD and it doesn't have anything except the movie and and there's $5 more there's this stacked disc that has commentaries and deleted scenes and documentaries I'm going to spend more money to get that stuff and there are classic movies that I love that I've actually watched the documentaries on the disc more than the films um because there's actually there's a whole bunch of uh all about director's Cuts oh yeah well there's a whole bunch of direct uh documentary filmmakers that um they've made their living uh chronicling um you know uh other films uh back in laser disc days and early DVDs I don't remember how to pronounce his name is Laurent bzero I think um he d uh did all these uh like on Jaws Close Encounters ET um Indiana Jones a lot of documentaries about Spielberg and George Lucas and those people he would Chronicle those films and there's these award-winning documentaries by that guy and there's other filmmakers too that do that do those things too and I'm fascinated by it and of course um a lot of those people that either the interview subject CU you know you can disarm again just like with the word manipulate that's disarm also sounds uh like it's a negative thing but when you sit on a a therapist couch or you go on a talk show and Ellen whoever is going to make you feel calm at ease yeah and that's what disarming is is you're going to probably if you have a good um uh person that's the the host or the therapist or whoever if they're a Comming presence you are going to volunteer so much more that you you probably never intended to you might be like oh crap I can't believe I said that right yeah but you you willingly did it now and that's the thing about uh it's like my wife said that uh um you know you you you lose every opportunity you don't take so the worst that you can hear is no you know I mean I'm or a variation on no some people are not nice about how they say no but uh but the worst you can get is no but you're always going to get no if you don't try well as a filmmaker though I think what we're getting at here is you're basically a hypnotist you're that's the I mean that's kind of the the the the qualification if you will of doing it well as you're you know you're you're taking an audience and taking them out of what is otherwise a dark room with a series of still images in front of them that people would not find amusing or entertaining and then it becomes something it comes to life and in the and in that thing that you made the artifice uh that you created uh through your own process you make something more real than reality because you can take an idea isolate it demonstrate it yeah and then and there in find something that gets to the heart of a matter or the truth within something in a way that you wouldn't have been able to do without cutting away everything else without being that hypnotist well it's an illusion um you watch some movies and you see the behind the scenes and some like when you go to live theater and then they build uh they build the sets you know they're flat you know they call them FL flats and you know and then they the back s and know the curtain comes down and then they just fly those away and then the next set comes in and then there's the next scene well it's all an illusion there is no like there's no more set off stage on either side same thing with the frame there are movies that they're literally like we only need to see this couch mhm so they don't build anything over here you know they just point the camera at the couch and if you move the camera even slightly you'd see craft service table or over here you'd see a desk you know the office it it it it's all it's all fake mhm but people surrender you know the suspension of disbelief you know when you go to a magician they're not see he's not really sawing the person in half you know because the person's still alive and well when the when the show's over so so it was yeah so it wasn't so it wasn't it so it didn't you know the person really it's it's an illusion yeah so people want if they're gonna put down their harder money to go see the comedian or the magician or the film they know it's not real unless it's a documentary but then even we know now what's that the thing they the Uncle Ben says to Peter Parker is that with great power comes great responsibility you can as a documentarian be truthful or you can do with some documentarians that are a little bit more propaganda based B is they take a comment of you and they take a comment of something else that's unrelated and then it makes it sound like you're talking about that but you weren't talking about that sure yeah and there's documentaries that push a really far agenda and they're trying to you know make change or make um or make things worse you know but there's documentar that they they are fueled by the F filmmaker agenda to do whatever I think we always have to look at the agenda of the source I mean I I personally like to go to movies where the agenda is to make the comfortable uncomfortable and the uncomfortable comfortable as they say that's that's the agenda that I like in a film but they you know everything has some agenda the um Alfred Hitchcock um there's lots of movies where you will swear like you could take a lie detector and you would pass because you would be convinced and you'd be wrong but you'd be convinced that you went and saw this movie and you're like oh my God it was a blood bath like or there was so much nudity or there was so much whatever and then you and then you watch the movie and you actually slow it down and you watch what you thought you were watching and you watch it in slow motion and you see the magic trick you're like no there was no nudity there was the suggestion of it or there was so much implied uh uh graphic uh um Bloodshed but you never saw a drop of blood but because of the the volume of whatever it is you're convinced that you saw more than you ever saw and that's the magic trick is in Psycho that poor girl in the shower you think it's a massacre I mean I mean she doesn't make it it is a massacre but you never see the knife touch the skin yeah everything is slide of hand it's all magic I thought it was really brilliant how Danny Bole dropped frames in 28 Days Later during the zombie attacks to create a strobing effect in the theater because what your brain fills in in those missing frames is more grotesque than anything he could make or manufacture there's a filmmaker um I won't name him because I don't know if I mean he said this openly but I still I don't want to out him U went to a premiere of his film it was amazing film and him and the composer were on stage and they were talking about um it's going to sound worse than it is because they actually ref offhandedly refer to this music in this way but I don't actually know if it is but there's certain you know CU you know like with with sound there's the frequencies and Hertz and then there's um the the lower the frequency is like sub you know frequencies something you can't really hear I Subic well like dogs can hear certain things on on a doggy whistle but we can't Ultra harmonics and subharmonics yeah there are certain pieces of music that are considered the devil's chord Sonics cons there's there's certain pieces of music or or chords that they refer to I think it's this is what he said it's called The Devil's cord and it's because at certain sublevels certain music actually is meant to be an affront like the the musician will literally play it and you unknowingly are being um intruded like you're not well you're not allowing the musician you're not giving permission for the musician to do this you're not giving consent to the musician to actually cause you discomfort at a core but there are musicians that do play things at high frequencies or really low frequencies knowing I know for a fact that it's going to upset your stomach I'm doing this on purpose to make you completely moved well dissonants for example commonly do that the beginning of Twilight Zone was famously this way that that starts out the twilight zone is a famous disant um um tone that's known to cause a lot of discomfort the um the bad guy Freddy couger um his red and green sweater the director the director said I looked in a book of colors and it said the retina to the eye the eye retina this shade of green and this this shade of red put next to each other this is the hardest combination for these colors to be put in and just doing it will cause the audience harm it will disturb the audience more than anything I could ever do and it makes it's interesting I hear that I mean I ask you this I'm a filmmaker MH would you be upset to know if a filmmaker said I read psychology books and I know for a fact that by putting this music in the movie or this color on screen it will harm your psyche it will make you feel worse about what you're seeing than you would want to feel it's going to scare you it's going to scare you in your soul isn't that the I I believe that's the point of almost every movie I've gone would you if the if the filmmaker did research and knew for a fact it would have that desired effect would you feel um upset knowing that he wanted that result then he was going to do that because he wanted you to feel that way I would be compelled because I I would not be I would be the opposite of upset precisely there are people like Bill who will be compelled and he would like oh totally get going there and I would be like I'm going to pass because I when I was young I used to watch movies like this and it gave it no but I mean after the fact no if you watch the movie and then the filmmaker admitted okay there's a piece of music in there that is a know it's known no it's it's considered Taboo it's considered very um sensitive because of how it could affect something and I chose to put it in there on purpose because I wanted the audience to get that effect no I wouldn't be upset again as long as let's say I'm looking at the whatever trailer or description it's not something that I will automatically not go to let's say it's a thriller psychological thrill totally down because as you said it creates that experience suspension of the disbelief that going that and Bambi you're going to put that in a horror movie I I miss watching movies before I already knew everything about them now in the modern era it's impossible to have happen anymore do you see the the magic like do you see oh that's fake I know how they did it that's that's nonsense that's it's not real I even saw when I watched Fight Club I was uh so when I saw some movies in the era of for example Fight Club I got to see them before I ever heard about them because back then you could get movies on the internet long before they were ever even publicized yeah where now filmmakers are smarter than that they don't they don't put it together till the last minute like I'm not going to make a finished product and sit on it for a year for everybody to leak so um but anyways yeah when I was watching Fight Club I was over at somebody's house who had downloaded it and it was way ahead of it coming out so I had no idea what I was watching I was like what is this movie with Brad Pit and Edward Norton I was like this is like a major film like and but there's like uh film there's there's frames missing and something else in between and I I saw it like immediately um so I I notice all that stuff because I'm used to looking at things around 400 frames a second yeah and I'm used to high resolution High frame rate things from video games you know like with TV um and only certain people that are techy people would know about this my friend Dave he Services film projectors um so like whenever he buys a new TV he doesn't just hook it up and ready to go he'll calibrate the TV he'll play with the settings uh like he'll put on a move that he knows is supposed to look a certain way and he'll like freeze it and then he'll adjust the blacks he'll make it so he'll use something that is a good reference and it's like this is how I know this is supposed to look and it'll adjust it until it looks the way it's supposed to look um there's a there's a cycling rate like but I don't know what 60 Herz or whatever it is there's a cycling rate of the the the the the electricity that if it's if you change it it'll actually improve the image but most people there's a lot of Technology right out of the box you know for everybody uh it it's going to look weird maybe how interesting but U you can increase the voltage to a lot of equipment and it improves it that's what I did with my airsoft gun and I made it insanely powerful so you you hacked it and you made it work to what how you wanted it to be I made it operate four times as fast so now it fires 90 rounds a second and sounds like a steady steady stream when it comes out instead of sounding like a gun firing it just goes you just hear it like so you turned it into a a minigun you know yeah Metal Storm except it's plastic Metal Storm so plastic storm um is it okay to go back to yeah no should yeah know well because we were talking a lot about feature right like the magic like documentary yeah is sort of like the complete opposite right you want to actually convey or uh compile and share a certain truth right or a certain view oh yeah and this is I I thought naively because all I know is watching the finished documentaries um and I actually to speak to a point you asked if I had done other documentaries before the two feature movies I made when the distributor um said they wanted the movie um they were going to put it on DVD and they said that U no do you have any bonus content deleted scenes or whatever well I had shot of all these interviews with the people on the projects um on set or after the fact just for you know posterity and so I said yeah I can give you guys like a 30 minute or 45 minute making of so I made documentaries of both of my own features which is interesting because I made documentaries about my own film so on one hand I was very qualified to do it because I knew the right questions to ask all the people because I knew everything that went on so I knew what to ask what not task and in the editing I also knew how to you know get the most impact by cutting this out and doing this doing this so when I'm edit when I'm doing a documentary about something that's not me um it I have to come at a different perspective cuz I was interviewed for the documentary so it's very weird editing the documentary and then you know you have this one folder that has all of my stuff in it you're like well how much should I be in this dogumentary mhm because you don't want the audience to be like cuz when I interviewed some people early on I went to the people I knew I was going to interview and that they already were not suspicious and they gave me truthful interview and there were some people because there isn't really a need outside of Jacksonville to Showcase Jacksonville and talk about it there were people in the community there were like they weren't suspicious of me but they were like why do you want to talk to us we're nobody's I'm like well yeah but we're big fish in our small pond to us we're somebody's and we that's what the like one guy really big guy in town said why is anybody going to care about who we are we win 48s and we have the occasional film that goes on streaming on tub but then that's it no stars I said it's my job as the documentarian to make them care it is my job to to give them a reason to care about something that it's no different than any film that's not a documentary why does anybody watch anything you don't have to watch anything you know no movie has a right to exist art is not a right you know uh so you know the film The Artist you know you're not entitled you're know like I made this movie people must watch it no so I have to give you a reason to care so um you know I I decided I was going to do this documentary and I try to use myself very little I'm in it I mean I I got interviewed for an hour but or probably more uh but I did that because I don't know what I'm in the need of mine and I was like I'm going to be in there like a narrator every often I'll just come in and I'll I'll pepper myself throughout and I'll just have a comment here or there but until I had everything else I didn't know what I needed so I and answered every question imaginable about everything just so I had it um and the movie is 90 minutes long and we have 50 people interviewed in it wow so is it like um is it about the history of cinematography in Jacksonville or it's about the cinematography scene today both both in fact um so I knew I was going to interview people at Norman Studios which was the last Studio still going and and it's a museum now um I interviewed some curators that work there one of the filmmakers that's that does film she's on the board there too Devon um so I interviewed them but that's the first five minutes of the documentary is hearing about it and then it then it's all about the modern era I didn't come about to find this one major part of the story until way late in the game this is this is filmmaker Chad Hendrick um he works with a lot of the people uh the the people that did rights of the father mhm um I don't know if he works he's worked with them but the urban community the the posit the positive community that is talking about African-Americans and uh people of color and you know just the positive representation of non-caucasian um um artists in film that's what Richard normal was doing with Norman Studios and Chad started doing that in the early 2000s but with like Flavor you know zombies and rappers and you know just you know but still letting the artists that he's working with really tell the story he's telling the story but he's letting them tell their truths and you know so I discovered I knew Chad but I didn't know that about him somebody said oh you know in in he was in folio weekly in like the early 2000s and they called him the Eminem of Jacksonville and I was like I didn't know that and he says yeah and furthermore the person that interviewed him for folio said you are aware that you're doing what this guy Richard normal was doing and then and he's like hold on hold on a second he he was doing it with like positive roles for doctors and pilots and lawyers mind's with zombies and rappers he goes yeah but still you are the only one that's putting uh other F uh you're telling stories and you're letting you know all these different uh cultures and environments be in your films and there wasn't anybody in Jacksonville doing that at the time and he just kept doing that and inspiring all these other filmmakers this is Guy Carlos Smith um his uh um he calls himself Los 2K he's done this series of movies called The Soul Hood Saga and he's has another movie he's doing now um there's a lady that works you know lavilla um theater she's a a teacher um at in the art school in town at the performers Academy and she also does stage plays her name is Dr Shawn Powell and she and but all these people know Chad and Chad all these people have said that if Chad didn't start doing it he would have he started a ground swell he started a movement that other people who had stories to tell they just didn't know that there was a venue to do it and him him taking blazing the trail gave them the motivation to tell their stories and then you know just keep it going so um so I was funny so I had most of the documentary uh shot um and I also had you know like the first cut of anything is too long it's always too long and sometimes you don't even know what you have because you put everything together you're like this thing's too long but you know sometimes if you just take this out and move this here and just re moving things around and taking little things out suddenly the sculptor figures out that I can make the swan out of this ice but you have this big block of ice and you don't know there's a swan underneath and you don't or you don't know how to get to the swan because you're like I got too much ice sounds like you took you took us along for when we get to see it for a journey through your Discovery as well because you you discovered many of these things and and in the process you you've got it captured while it's fresh I know a lot of times if I don't capture something when it's fresh and my mind it's a different process later it's to it's a it's a process more of what I created or what I wanted to say but if I capture it when it's happening then I'm I'm more able to Faithfully relay um uh relay my impression uh initially and maybe draw that out um my wife is modest and she wouldn't want too much attention uh you know placed on her shoulders but I will shout out and say that um when we were at a certain certain stage in the process um it was late in the game but because it drastically changed to what it is it was in its infancy cuz it went from here to here she was like so how's it going and I was like well um she goes I don't want to see it till it's done but give me the elevator pitch you know give me the the Quick Pitch I start telling her the story because it's it's in chapters it is still in chapters but what it was before was um it it talked about the silent film era then it talked about how the Hollywood came and made all these films in the early day in the um there was films in the 70s and 80s and TV shows and things here and then tax incentives went away and then then the Indie filmmaker started kicking in around 2000 and up until today I was telling all her all the stuff and one of the things I mentioned was that the Richard Norman thing and then I mentioned all this other stuff was saying and then I mentioned the Chad thing and how they said that Richard Norman and Chad there was this connection they felt and she goes okay hold on a second in your story because you know like at a comedian they set up a joke and then they pay it off but if the payoff is so far away from the setup the audience has now forgot about the setup so they're like they don't get the real they don't get why the punchlines say funny because they don't remember the setup so you got to reinforce it huh yeah so so I told her and she because how long from the time that you're talking about Richard Norman until you mentioned Chad and Chad's connection and re relevance to how he's the modern Richard Norman and I gave her a a a time frame she goes no that's too long it's too long she goes she goes she called herself uh I'm not going to like make a point of cursing a bunch but can I say what she said absolutely okay she goes cuz you know like when when you're like doing U marketing research I'm Jim from Arizona you know like she says I'm I'm I'm the [ __ ] from Arizona okay I'm your audience and she goes she go she goes this is what I'm hearing you tell me you're what I'm hearing you tell me is it's it's about a film industry that didn't want to film in Winter climates that came down to Florida and started making films in silent error and Richard Norman started doing Pro African-American films and he was a a Blazer and then I'm also hearing that 100 years later there was a guy Chad Hendrick that started to carry that torch but in the modern era doing um hip Urban films with an urban with an urban flavor in the modern era I said yeah that's pretty much what I'm saying she goes you have to those two thoughts have to come right together like that and so by knowing that one point it drastically changed Chang the restructuring of about half of the documentary because I was like okay so what the documentary now is is every chapter has a setup and a payoff in a different way I had separate chapters for different points but I realized a lot of those like poetry the stanas rhyme so I was like okay silent film Urban film uh Hollywood film incentives those go away indie film so now it's you know Urban film silent film uh Hollywood versus Indie 48 Festival chapter you know so I had a vision but I had to tell it to an impartial person who's who stay you know I see every day and has a no filter so anytime she has to give me um a a constructive criticism or the tough love she goes all right so you want to hear from the [ __ ] from Arizona why Arizona the Arizona you know she says you want to hear you want to hear from you want to hear from the [ __ ] from Arizona I can tell you I was like please do yeah so it's our work is always better better with a good editor uh my wife is certainly my editor and and I'm very appreciative because I'm glad that the things that she catches don't get out to the public well my dad's the same way my dad is my collaborator in Freeman films and I've worked with him since I started doing solo work in like 2010 and he every time I work on something he gives me I'm just going to give you the truth you know and he says you know this shot was this or the audio was this and he goes I'm going to tell you I'm going to be unfiltered when I tell you how I feel because usually when he's dealing with the footage you know he's having to this is the expression every filmmaker hates or especially if you're the the editor we're going to fix it in post you know or a or a or a sound uh uh person has to clean it up right M well whenever the filmmaker on set is like we'll fix it in post you know the the the editor's like oh I want to choke that person that said that because it's like yeah it's easy to say that but then when the if you have to be the one to fix in post you might not say that you know So eventually you're painting a movie instead of having the thing to to in its Essence the um tell us a little bit before we run out of time uh let's let's cover a bit about the the film festival I want to make sure we cover where we can watch it it's going to be at Sunray cinema right Sunray Cinema um unfortunately Sunray is closing its doors um you know around I think July 6th I could be wrong but I think it's around July 6th um so we're deciding we decided to want to Premiere it there because my two other features premiered also there and um that's also where Richard had his sh film showcase which is funny enough it's a onew punch July 1st Monday Richard's doing one more short film showcase he hasn't done one in seven years but he said no if they're closing the doors I want to I want to have one last Harrah so we're going to have the short film showcase all these filmmakers are going to be two-hour block of short films July 1 July 1st and then July 2nd is going to be uh the premiere of the documentary um which is funny there's a chapter in the documentary that deals with festivals so it deals with the LOL and then also Richard's short film showcase originally before he decided to have his Premiere his uh short film showcase the day before my film people in the audience were going to have this Nostalgia of remembering something that they did seven years ago you know and that's the reason why a lot of them got into doing film and Richard shows up to all these film festivals anyway so he's always around so the audience originally was going to be when it references that they were going to be thinking about something that happened 7 years ago now they're going to be thinking about something that happened last night one last short film showcase so um but we're going to be premiering it there um and there are some Stokes in the fire irons in the fire of there's another place that we're looking to do an encore presentation of the documentary we don't know when or 100% if it's going to happen but it's we're really trying to get one more showing also in a even bigger venue uh sometime in the summer um because you know sunr only holds about 160 seats and we thought about this we're like even if every single person that worked on the documentary came everybody which it's not going to happen because everybody's got lives but if 150 people from the documentary came that only leaves 12 people that did the the people well the people that come are going to want to bring dates or friends or Spectators well and there's no reserve seats for you know these are only for the 150 people that worked on the movie and here's 12 other seats right it's first comes first serve the theater is is independent of me so they're like no we're charging for these seats you know I have no control over that so the other venue we're looking at holds like maybe 400 seats so we're looking like hey yeah if we can actually make that happen then maybe we'll be able to have uh uh even though the the Sunray is an art house uh you know it's a home Cinema for all the filmmakers it's a Indie Gala event mhm other venue that holds for ined seats that's in a bigger venue it might be more of a black tie scenario sunay is not is not as much of a black tie thing not because it shouldn't be it's just it has a different vibe yeah it's not a multiplex it's not like that uh but I've been working on this thing for two years almost and it's it's I'm happy that it's finally um completed because I've seen it so much I'm starting to you know I'm starting to see double like this is nuts I don't know if you've ever had to do this um so you send something like any kind of media you know you send something to a copier or um or a printer or a disc is made or whatever and but you have to check it every time you you give a revision to the printer you have to watch the whole thing yeah you can't just fast forward to wear or flip over to see if the the thing there's all kinds of render errors that happen when you do anything and it's not mathematical and it's not something that's in your control I've had to watch this documentary hundreds of times especially in right in the 11th hour it's being rendered for the uh the f festival and you know there had there was a couple of things I had to adjust for the theater every time I had got adjusted I had to watch it again like I've seen this movie so many times I'm like I hope I don't have to watch this again for the next two weeks because if I'm sitting in the theater I at least want to be enjoying watching the film and if I have to watch it one more time I'm going to I'm going to I'm going to my head's going to spin well next time next time you watch it I think we'll all be be watching it with you it will be July 2nd July 2 which is a Tuesday it is a Tuesday uh at 6:45 is when we that they will have let people sit down 6:30 6:45 when they're going to let people sit down in the auditorium get there early to get popcorn and all those things but your seats are reserved so actually if you show up late you still can get your seat like I like the old days where you're like you got to get in line otherwise you no seats um but um 6 45 is when I'm going to get up and just thank everybody for coming um and then the movie will start at 7 mhm seven sharp they're not going to hold it you know seven is when they're going to start the movie um no no trailers no joking uh no no no no I no I wanted to show trailers but the guy is like but we're closing our doors at 6:30 there's on July 6 there's no reason to put trailers which I guess that makes sense um but so at 8:30 the movie will be over and we have the venue until 9: because they have another thing they're going to play there um so he said for about 20 minutes I can do like Q&A if anybody wants to ask any questions if they're if they're not tired enough about hearing me talk about it here you know if they want to ask uh any questions I'll be able to answer them um okay we're looking forward definitely to to seeing that and and uh tickets can be gotten from Sunray cinema.com right um well you go to C c.com um you have to navigate the page to find where it says tickets and stuff but um if you actually go uh to uh um well there'll be a link uh in this somewhere in this uh video feed but uh there's a Facebook page for the event that I made okay and the link to the you know you know the links for some things are like a mile long it's not a tiny URL it's like all this code but people can buy the tickets right there from the website Sun oh for sure you can do that there or on Facebook on the avenge page just look up First Coast cinema world documentary and um on that Facebook page you'll have which is linked below yeah it'll it'll be there and you can go right there and you get the the tickets um they reserve seats you know you can find seats uh they have amazing uh snacks and and and uh drinks they do have really good food if you're going up to watch this I got to say out of all the theaters you can go to they've got the best uh chicken sandwich Pizza things that are I mean a lot of theaters have that stuff but they're well made they're and I will say this uh just because it's it's more of a modern concern that then when I was a kid go to that theater it don't feel you can't eat there because they have um uh vegan uh options they have dietary specifics I'm sure there's a gluten-free thing too they make them all there so it's not that they get them from some they're not like from Doritos or whoever they're all like they made by the pizza place that's next door so awesome very cool we're looking forward to that yes thank you so much thank you for joining us yeah and and uh you know uh you know like you have to tell people if movies rated R R at PG or whatever there is some language in the movie and we do touch upon sensitive subjects like we literally talk about cancel culture we talk about the artist's right to be uh representing truth and and that point about um well if real life has less than pretty elements should you how how accurate can you make that in your art and if one person's offended by it is that enough of a reason not to do it that'd be a great thing to talk about when we can have you back on we could discuss that topic entirely for an hour for an hour the artist's right to uh to for free expression you know just because somebody doesn't like it just just change the channel if you don't like it change the channel don't make it so no one else can watch it well agreed yeah well thank you for having me yeah thank you very much Roy I appreciate it and I hope everybody can get to see this documentary because I think it's quite interesting to really understand the that Jacksonville's influence in film is great and few people know about it so thank you for sharing I only 12 seats left because 150 just the cast just the cast and crew get those seats while you can they're going to sell out yeah all right thanks again thank you so much very nice Mee you too no that is exciting