We talk everything movies with blogger and author Clint Harrington of the popular movie blog Clintington on Film. Clint turned his blog into a book called Growing Up Movies where he discusses his experiences growing up with his family watching iconic movies such Ghostbusters. For anyone that grew up in the 80s and 90s, it’s a nostalgic look at movies in an era when family entertainment was accessible. While reading his book you’ll realize how similar your memories of these movies may be and how movies were responsible for bringing the family together.
Interview Highlights with Author Clint Harrington
When Did You Start Clintington on Film?
Started in January 2014
Clint always wanted to be a writer growing up and idolized Stephen King growing up.
He was taken by the story ‘The Body’ which as we all know and love ‘Stand By Me.”
Meeting independent author Matt Russo was a turning point. He said that if you’re going to start a blog and try and develop a platform you have to write about things that you love.
“You have to have a passion behind the things that you love and I gotta tell you guys I love movies.”
Watching Movies With Your Kids
Clint’s son wasn’t even born and he was thinking about what movies to show him
“Maybe 2 months into the pregnancy and I’m already thinking okay, when can I show him E.T., when can we watch the trilogy. I’m probably gonna have to wait on the Godfather a little bit but not too long.”
He’s waiting on Goonies until his son has a bigger group of friends so he can experience it better.
Favorite Movies
I love to quote Mel Brooks when I’m asked about my favorite movies.
I always think of the movies that impacted me and Ghostbusters was that first movie really when I was growing up that was like I finally was allowed to be an adult.
Clint thinks the Ghostbusters reboot wasn’t even close to what the original could be and I think it’s unfair to expect it to be.
“I really like gangster movies but a comedy would have to be in there just because the amount of respect I have for people that attempt comedy. Comedy is so hard to do.
He has a ton of respect for people that are good at comedy. Kevin Smith is one of his favorites.
Blazing Saddles is one his favorite Mel Brooks movies.
For Clint Ghostbusters is 1a and The Godfather is 1b.
Growing Up Movies
Clint grew up in what he likes to call Morman-ville USA. It’s a Southeast Idaho and its land of the Mormons.
He grew up Lutheran which made them the rebels of a town like that.
They wanted to be everything opposite of Mormon, which kind of led to underage drinking every now and then and those kinds of things.
Clint used to criticize his parents for how conservative they were but blogging brings back memories and he realized they weren’t that bad. They let him see a lot of things probably earlier than he should. He saw JAWS at the age of 8.
My Cousin Vinny will be appearing on his blog and if it shows up on my blog he liked it.
He goes on to say actor Fred Gwynne’s (aka Herman Musnster) performance is one of the greatest performances by a supporting actor he’s ever seen.
Marisa Tomei earned the Academy Award. It’s one of the best performances in decades for from a woman.
Clint goes on to praise actor Joe Pesci for his roles in ‘JFK’, ‘My Cousin Vinny’ & ‘Lethal Weapon 2’
“Joe Pesci in ‘Lethal Weapon 2’ I mean they don’t even have an Academy Award for how good that performance was. He stole the show across from Glover and Gibson. He stole the show. Every scene he’s in your like I can’t wait for Pesci to get back into the scene.”
Screenwriting and Being an Indie Author
He wrote a screenplay and I couldn’t find anyone to make it and didn’t think it would ever get made so Clint converted it to a novel.
The novel is called Get Back. It’s a romantic comedy for a coming-of-age adult. He says it’s also about college relationship angst. The lead character is a guy who has been with the same woman for about seven years and then she ups and leaves right before they’re about to graduate. She’s just out of his life like that. He’s coming to terms with how to move on. It’s about loss and how he’s going to get back on with his life basically.
Growing Up Movies is a compilation of the blog Clintington on Film.
He wanted to make the book free but Amazon won’t let you.
The book includes 89 movies from the 80s and earlier films like Butch Cassidy and that he watched with his parents
He’s planning on doing the 90s and that would be called ‘Growing into Movies’.
“I was 13 or 14 in the early 90s and then I later went into college through the 90s. Don’t get me wrong I love the 80s but the 90s for me?! Some of my movies that I have on my top ten from the 90s they’ll always be in my top 10. I probably have 5 movies on that I just watch over and over again. Like ‘Pulp Fiction’ was in ’94 and that changed everything for me.”
Advice on starting a blog
“You have to love what you’re writing about. That passion is going to be that fuel for you to keep going and even I have some nights where I’m like I don’t know if I want to write about that movie just yet and it’s kind of like well I’m trying to do these in order but I’m not ready to do that one yet.”
I held off on the Godfather for a long time because it had to be right. That movie had to be right. But Ghostbusters I jumped in earlier on that one. I wrote til like 4am I was like I’m doing it, I don’t care like I have to say this about this.
Tom Gould is a 30 year veteran of the music scene and has run in the same circles as some of the biggest names in the music business. He has been the front man for the Bossa Nova Beatniks since 1992 and performed all over the world, sharing his musical vision as he continues to release new material. He made the announcement for the release of his latest album, “For the Fun” on our podcast this past week. You can order your copy or download it today on CD Baby. https://www.cdbaby.com/cd/bossanovabeatniks12
Tom has been a longtime friend and it was a pleasure to swap old stories with him on the show. We also found out that his music was recently featured in a documentary film entitled Demon Wheels. You can catch it on Netflix or order your copy here: http://www.demononwheels.com/ .
On the show we got an extra special treat when Tom performed three of his songs. Joe got a chance to show off his guitar skills and joined Tom for his final number. “It was an honor to be able to sit in with him and I’m so glad this interview happened” – Joe Kane
You can keep up with the Bossa Nova Beatniks on their website www.bnbeatniks.com.
I’m Joe Kane, I’m Dan Kane and I’m Wayne Heckler and this is the Imperfect Podcast. Be sure to check us out at hecklerkane.com and everywhere on social media. To the bumper!
Alright so we’re back with Tom Gould. He was originally born in Louisville Kentucky and now resides on Long Island New York. He is the head man, the front man, the showrunner for the Bossa Nova Beatniks. Tom thanks for coming.
Tom Gould: I appreciate it. Thank you for having me.
HKC: You said you wanted to go right up front and perform a song for us. Let’s get started with some music and then we can talk.
Excellent! Tom, that was awesome for me. I really enjoyed it. I gotta tell you guys, I saw Tom for the first time twenty-some-odd years ago out on the beach in Oyster Bay. I came down with a friend of mine, Brian, who said you got to check out this band. They were out on the pier playing in Oyster Bay and what a cool backdrop of the bay behind you. The sound that was coming out, I was immediately hooked.
Tom Gould: Well thanks. And I have to say before we go too far, is that in 20 years I’ve met thousands of people and I gotta say that Joe and Dan’s parents are two of the nicest people you could ever want to meet. I wanted to say that.
HKC: Thank you. You said nothing about us but our parents are great. Yeah we suck, but our parents are great. Where did they go wrong?
Well I wanted to talk to you a little about your website. It says that you are 17 albums in and releasing a new album soon.
Tom Gould: That’s correct. Actually, Tuesday September 20th is the release date and it’s called “For the Fun”. This album hasn’t even been released yet and I’m already starting three other projects. Largely because as this CD title says, “For the Fun”, that’s really all there is any more in music It’s either you’re having fun doing it and making it or that’s it. The music business is gone. It’s not the same as it’s been. I have a friend who’s a Vice President of Atlantic Records and they say they spend their whole days tracking down the Pirates and there’s no tracking them down.
With the internet, everybody gets everything for free. You sell one CD and the rest of the world has it. Yeah so you know it’s a whole different world and you know in a way it’s kind of good because there’s no mercenaries anymore. You’re not going into the business for money anymore, you’re making it for the fun and that’s what I do. And I love it.
One of the reasons why I’m back in the studio rather than pounding the pavement is that I love making them, I hate promoting them. So I figured, why bother. It’s out there. It’s on iTunes, Amazon all that sort of thing, but for me personally all I care about is making the next one.
HKC: When did you get started as a musician?
It started very early. I was young enough or maybe too young when Elvis hit. I was young enough to sort of know who Elvis was. When I was a kid my grandparents used to come to visit us. They’d spend a month with us every year. They’d come into the city on the train, into Grand Central Station.
This one time that we were dropping them off in February, We were driving through Manhattan and there was a commotion going on. My older brother said, “Stop the car I want to get out and see this” and of course I wanted to see it too. So I hop out with my brother we go around the corner and the block is packed with girls, young girls. We look up and sticking out of a hotel window are these couple of guys waving, you know with the mop tops and it was The Beatles.
As soon as they stuck their heads out the window, the whole block of girls just screamed. The energy was nothing short of a phenomenon. It was amazing and you know, once you get that energy in you. I followed The Beatles quite literally and started playing the guitar. I picked up a bass.
HKC: Now I thought what got you started was those screaming women. Speaking of energy, just being in the center of that, you thought maybe I should play an instrument.
Tom Gould: I can’t deny that. I was just 14 years old so I was beginning to understand that it would be a good thing as well. Yeah it was a lot of fun. It’s interesting because up until about a year ago there was I’d say 30 years that I went without not being booked. I had a gig for 30 straight years.
HKC: That’s very impressive as it just
Tom Gould: It’s just what I love to do I mean I love to get out and play. My first album was in 94, something like that.
HKC: That was the album “Eleven Eleven”. I love “Eleven Eleven”. It has the song “Jack Jack,” which is the storymabout Jack Nicholson I suppose.
Tom Gould: Which is interesting because you know the title “Eleven Eleven” came because when I was doing mixed downs and things I had a tape recorder. It was reel to reel back then but some of them had real-time counters that would count seconds and minutes and some of them just had a counter that had the numbers going. I noticed every time that I was working on this song, “Jack Jack,” the counter would say 11:11. It would either be 11 minutes 11 seconds or we just say Eleven Eleven and I just started seeing it everywhere.
When I was getting down to finishing the album I was at a studio in Centerport and we came out of the studio after a mix down and the wind was coming through the trees and it actually made a howling sound. You know you always heard that was a romantic thing. The wind began to howl and all that. I was standing out there actually hearing the howling so I got all excited and when I came home I tell my wife I got the name for the album, “Night of the Howling Wind,” and she looked at me and she said, “That is so pretentious.”
I said well we’re going to press in two weeks. What the heck! I don’t even have a name for the album. She goes why don’t you just call it Eleven Eleven? That’s all you’ve been talking about for the last year. And so I did and afterwards you know I found out that there were a lot of stories around Eleven Eleven and I didn’t realize somebody pointed it out just only a few years ago that “Jack Jack” which was the song that got this whole Eleven Eleven started is the 11th card in the disc. It’s deeper than you could have even imagined.
HKC: “Hard to Beat,” was your next album. That’s when I became a true fan to be honest with you. I heard “Hard to Beat,” and all the songs on there, “Red Johnny” and “Fingers in the Cake.” I said, okay well this guy’s got it. You also ended up releasing a French version of “Hard to Beat,” later on.
Tom Gould: That’s right it, when the Eleven Eleven album came out, I went into Bleecker Bob’s record store on in Greenwich Village and I walked in with the album and asked if they could you carry this in their store. He says, let me have it. He grabs it, opens it and he’s gonna to put it on and I’m all of a sudden thinking wait a minute. Because you look around the store back then it was all punk, razor blades and safety pins and I say you’re going to put on this cute little album and then you’re gonna throw me right the heck out of the store.
Anyway, he puts on the first song which was a very acoustic number and he looks right up and he goes, “You know who would love this? Skydog would love this!” He says I’ll give you his name Skydog who is Mark Zamartie from Paris. I sent it over to him. Since that album was already out he said, “When you work on the next album” which was “Hard to Beat” “send me the tapes.” So I sent him the pre-release of that and he licensed it and packaged it up and sold it in Europe.
I found out just a couple weeks ago, I had never seen the guy, never laid eyes on the guy, but I was reading Chrissy Hines book, “Reckless: My Life As A Pretender,” and in the book she talks about how he put her up before she became a Pretender. She was just sort of wandering about. She stayed with Mark Zamartie. There’s a picture of her with her arm around him and turns out that he’s the one that broke Lou Reed and Iggy Pop and a lot of the bands of that era came through him in Paris.
HKC: You had a couple of stories that you wanted to share specifically about Louisiana or something like that you’d mentioned to me before.
Well, we were talking about this train that came in that my grandparents used to come in on and it was called the 20th Century Limited. You would go down into Grand Central station; the steam and there would be the train with the sleeper cars and all of that sort of thing. They’d roll out this carpet and right next to it, it said 20th Century Limited. That train is actually cinematic.
Alfred Hitchcock used it in “North by Northwest.” I just saw a Fred Astaire movie the other night, he gets off the train in New York and it’s the 20th Century Limited. Back in the 90s when the 20th century really was limited I read a news article that they decided they weren’t going to name trains anymore. I thought, why would somebody just decide that?
HKC: It’s like a rule that somebody sat down and said, “We’re not naming names anymore. I guess It’s too painful when something happens to them.
Tom Gould: I said as long as they’re still naming songs I was going to call this one ,”The 20th Century Limited,” so I wrote a song somewhat of a train song about my experience with my grandparents and what led me to see the Beatlemania firsthand.
HKC: Great experiences lead to great artistic pieces. No matter what your medium is whether it’s painting or whether it’s television or music or whatever, it’s all about the experiences that you have and that’s the only way to stay true to yourself. It’s to be able to relive and put a piece of your experiences out there for others to appreciate.
Tom Gould: Would you want to hear the song “The 20th Century Limited”?
HKC: I would love to hear it. It’s a little greedy for me because this is one of my favorites that you do.
(Music and Singing)
HKC: You know it’s a lot of fun to have you down here and actually performing. We usually don’t get too many musicians in studio playing for us, so this is a treat for all of us. We’re enjoying this.
Tom Gould: I’m glad you’re enjoying it, I’m enjoying it as well. It’s fun having a band obviously and you get out and play but what I realize is, in the five years we were playing, we haven’t played a new song because getting a gig and then everybody’s busy so you don’t get to practice as much as you should and so when you do get together you just run through the material you know and you have the same 20 songs that you go out of the house with and play.
As a songwriter I’ve got notebooks filled with songs I’m just realizing I’ve got more songs then I’ve got time left. A lot of people say that, like going on tour and getting to perform your songs is great because you get to see the immediate reaction from it but unfortunately what you’re doing is you’re creatively stifling yourself because you don’t have the chance to be creative while you’re on the road. In fact Chrissie Hines said that in the book. She figured when I go out on the road that’s when I can write the next album but you get out on the road and it’s just not conducive to writing.
Writing is a whole, personal, lonely kind of off by yourself kind of thing and the party atmosphere of touring is not conducive to writing songs. Actually the original band, we were playing in Manhattan at a place called the Nightingale bar around the same time other bands like Blues Traveler, Spin Doctors, Joan Osborne and that group God Street Wine. We were calling ourselves Flyboys at that time largely because I had a band called the Rhythm Bandits. That was a first band and I felt that people were having trouble spelling rhythm, it’s a tough word, so I wanted to make it a little easier.
I found out that I share the same birthdate, day not date, as Charles Lindbergh and I thought that’s interesting you know he slapped together this wooden airplane and expected it to fly across the ocean I slap together a little band expected it to you know rule the world or whatever and so I figured why not call ourselves the Flyboys. So we were Flyboys for a while. While we were playing the Nightingale I heard somebody said, “There’s a band in San Diego that called themselves the Flyboys.”
They were doing pretty well so I figured okay we’ll change our name. We’ll call ourselves The San Diego Flyboys but that didn’t pan out. It was about this time that hip-hop started coming in and fly became an urban term so people thought that we were going to be a hip hop band.
The original lineup at this point, I was actually fronting the band. I wasn’t playing anything. This guy Eddie O’Rourke was on guitar and his brother Bob was on bass and George Fromundy was on drums. George has been with me to this day. This was early 90s around 92 I think. We were practicing one day, and Eddie and Bob O’Rourke, these guys were amazing. Still are, I’m sure. Bob’s in Italy and Eddie’ is in California to let you know how people spread out.
They used to just come out with these non sequiturs coming out of their head. Bob stepped up. We were about to do one of my songs in practice and Bob went up to the microphone he said, “And now for the Bossa Nova Beatnicks sound of Tom Gould,” and I looked at him and said, “Where the heck did that come from?”
I like Beatnick and Bossa Nova is the dance of love, you can’t go wrong. The name just stuck and we couldn’t get rid of it. We weren’t a Bossa Nova band. That’s another thing, we went from Flyboys where people are expecting us to be hip hop band and now being the Bossa Nova Beatnicks and people would come in with Salsa outfits on figuring that they’re going to salsa tonight. I’m sorry, my apologies to Joe Beam, but we’re more of a hybrid. If you look at the history of Bossa Nova, Bossa Nova became a hybrid between the Samba and The Blues.
I figured well, where we’re taking that hybrid idea a step further and we can bring in the beatnik, which focused on the lyrics and poetry of beatniks. It was always in the back of my mind that we can’t be calling ourselves Bossa Nova Beatnicks if we’re not doing Bossa Nova. At the time we were playing CBGB’s and the woman who did the bookings, a woman named Louise. I told her for now well call ourselves Bossa Nova Beatnicks, but we’re gonna come up with a new name.
She said, “No, you can change that name, it’s a great name. I figured well this lady has seen everything booking CBGB’s. She’s seen thousands of bands and I figured well you know she thinks it’s a great name who am I to argue. So, I’ve been living with it and you know in deference to the people of Brazil and Joe Beam and the Boss Nova movement. We do try to do something Bossa or Samba on at least one cut on each album.
Then again I don’t want to be labeled like i said I was a child of the Beatles and if you look at The Beatles albums, they’re doing country, they’re doing rock, Helter Skelter. They do everything and I thought, well that’s what you do. If you’re a songwriter you don’t say oh well I’m a reggae band so I have to make a reggae song. No I’m a musician, I’m a songwriter, I’m gonna write the song and if the song happens to be a reggae song it will be reggae. If it happens to be a country song it’ll be country.
Of course in today’s market the radio stations if you don’t…
HKC: If you don’t fit the niche, you’re not going to get it.
Like CD Baby covers my albums and when you submit an album they always say okay pick a genre that you’re in click on the box and I look at the hundred and fifty boxes, I don’t fit in any of them. That’s another reason why I have removed myself from the whole promotion and all that. I just want to make the music and let somebody else figure it out later on what it is.
HKC: Well, that’s the beauty of it and then you get discovered for certain things. We have over here (can you hold that up Wayne just towards that camera over there.) It’s called “Demon On Wheels” and 3 of Ton’s songs were featured.
Tom Gould: There’s a song called “Zantee Misfits” “Worlds Will Collide” and a song called “Bad Little Baby.”
HKC: So those three songs are on Demon Wheels which is an indie film and kind of fits into our normal format of things.
Tom Gould: That’s why I wanted to bring that in because I had watched the podcast and noticed that you’re primarily about films and I love films. This came out a year ago. I’m so proud of it. It’s about a guy who used to be a rum runner in the Catskill Mountains in the 70s or earlier. He had this Shelby Mustang. The cops couldn’t catch him. I’m sure they knew where he lived and stuff but they had to actually catch him and they never could and so it was something for all of them to do on a Saturday night.
It wasn’t safe or anything like that, but it tells the story when he stopped being a rum runner. He put the car in the garage and then he became a mechanic. He’s making his living but he got the urge to get the car back out again and so the movies about him rebuilding this car. Caroll Shelby who designed the Shelby Mustang is actually interviewed in the film and he died during the making of the film so this is the last interview with Carroll Shelby.
The documentary gets into the relationship with the guy’s wife who’s looking at the books and saying this car could bury us financially. It’s called “Demon on Wheels” and it’s a really cool documentary.
HKC: I’ll have to get a look. I honestly haven’t. I didn’t even know you were bringing that tonight.
Tom Gould: It’s my only copy so I’m not leaving it with you. No, no. I will find it I will dig it out, trust me.
HKC: A couple other things. You have this other album here which is Tommy Numbers and the Wildcats which is also you. It’s a series of covers that he did, “That’s Alright Mama” “Bossa Nova Baby” “Honey Don’t” “Ruby Baby” “Little sister.” Is that Stevie Ray Vaughn’s Little Sister?
Tom Gould: No, that’s Elvis’ Little Sister.
HKC: But these are just some of the songs that are on the CD. It’s not under the Bossa Nova Beatniks umbrella. Although it is you. Tom I gotta tell you, it’s been a pleasure having you here. This has been mind-blowing for me because I’ve been a fan for 20-something years.
Tom has a new album coming out. It’s called, “For the Fun.” Okay, Bossa Nova Beatniks, Tom Gould. Are you going to play us out with another song.
Tom Gould: Yeah, If you’ll join me.
HKC: I would love to.
Tom Gould: This is another cinematic song in a way. It was inspired by Groucho Marx. This one’s called, “I Gotta Run.” This is another one from the sequel to the Tommy Numbers album.
Insights & Highlights from the Kyle Hester Interview
First of all, Kyle is one of the nicest guys you are going to meet in the indie film world. He’s got a wealth of knowledge from the extensive resume he’s built up over the years with 20 acting credits to his name including films like The Book of Daniel. His popularity on Twitter is what made us take notice due to his involvement with the crowd funded independent horror film Zombie With A Shotgun. We even had a laugh discussing his first gig where he played Phipps in Rock and Roll Fantasy during the panty raid. Yup we said panty raid.
All kidding aside, he knows what it takes to get a film crowd funded and why independent films are so important to keeping creative control. We learned a lot and know you will too. Check it out and let us know if you have any additional questions for Kyle in the comments below. I’m sure he’d be more than happy to answer them. Be sure to follow him on Twitter @kyledhester.
You can help #SupportIndieFilm by donating to Kyle’s projects below:
We interview actor Kyle Hester, who was born in New Orleans to a professional football player. His father is Ray Hester of the New Orleans Saints which is pretty cool. Kyle is an actor and producer and has been in some notable independent films like Zombie With a Shotgun that’s coming out soon, as well as Preacher Six which is in production right now.
Well thank you very much and I’m glad that we can all be imperfect together, I’m very comfortable now.
HKC: Yeah, we are as imperfect as it gets and we love it that way. It takes the pressure off.
Absolutely. It’s like apologizing at the beginning of a party so then whatever happens you know you’re covered already. I love it. That’s fantastic. It’s like all bets are off after that point. Absolutely.
What happens on the podcast stays on the podcast (until we distribute it.)
So let’s get to know you a little bit.
Q1: Where did you grow up? Reading your bio on IMDB we know you were born in New Orleans. Did you spend your youth there? Where did you land for most of your childhood?
Kyle Hester: Why yes, I was born in New Orleans. That’s where most of my family is and then I grew up in Houston. So pretty much from the fourth grade all the way through High School I was in Houston, so I definitely have the southern experience. Yeah, it was cool.
Q2: How long did it take before you got out to LA?
Kyle Hester: Basically I got in my Mustang when I graduated High School and I drove to California.
HKC: What year was the Mustang?
Kyle Hester: It was a 69 Fastback. It was so nice. It’s one of those things, like if I knew now I would have kept it and lived in that.
Q3: What was the first project that you got involved with? Was it before you you got to LA or was it after you got to LA?
Kyle Hester: Okay, since you don’t know how my life weaved through the country, it wasn’t as linear as that. So I came out to LA and then I ended up going to school at USIU in San Diego for a semester doing musical theater. Then I was like, you know I think I probably don’t want to make a career out of musical theater so then I ended up going to Cal Arts, which is up here and now I’m in Valencia. And then after that, I moved to New York, then Atlanta and then ended up back here in the early nineties. It was a trip around the country
Q4: Are you a musician also? Growing up in New Orleans you got good music, good food and I saw on your reel, in a film you were playing guitar and singing. Do you do that in real life as well?
Kyle Hester: Well I do sing but I’m not a musician. Basically, the guy who wrote that song that’s in the clip on my acting reel, it was his guitar. He’s like, here are these three chords, get to know those and that’s what you’ll be doing. I said alright, I can do that.
HKC: We know a lot of musicians that can only play three chords so it’s not a big deal. A lot of bands made it famous just playing three chords a matter of fact. I can’t play anything more than three chords! It’s like Ralph Macchio in Crossroads. He didn’t play guitar either.
Kyle Hester: You know what, between all of us, we could have like a really bitchin kind of guitar situation. I’ll just jam out. You take the A and the C, and I’ll get the G.
HKC: Kyle when you actually see this podcast if you look behind us and those who follow the podcast regularly we have a a wall of guitars hanging behind us. That’s kind of our thing. It’s not just for show either. We do play actually.
Kyle Hester: That is awesome and I’m glad that I got you to psychically talk about guitars.
Q5: musical theater that wasn’t your thing huh?
Kyle Hester: Well, no I love doing it but it was one of those things where the choice was what do I want to do in life. That was the thing and I always wanted to do film so it was a matter of what’s going to get me to doing film as opposed to touring the country and doing Broadway and all that kind of stuff. I know some friends of mine who are in New York and have been doing Broadway forever. They went to the same high school that I did. It’s just the choices we make.
HKC: And sometimes you get locked into doing something, it’s hard to break out once you do that, so you’re right, you have to choose wisely.
Q6: You obviously have the performance bug but what actually drew you to film and acting and drew you away from the musical theater? What appealed to you about acting?
Kyle Hester: Okay let’s cut to the seventh grade and I’m watching Fame, the TV show. Remember that show fame? So I’m watching this guy Leroy and he’s on stage and he’s dancing and singing and jumping over mannequins and stuff like that. Everybody was having a great time and I’m like holy shit, I gotta do this! That looks awesome. I didn’t know what I was getting into, but that was it. I saw fame and Leroy dancing and I was like that looks like a blast let’s do that.
HKC: That’s great and I love Leroy’s line, “I”ll speaks how I likes.” That always stuck in my mind for some reason. That was Leroy. But you’re right, it looked so fun. You say, hey man if I could do that for a living, man look at these guys, they’re having a ball. I felt the same way. That’s awesome.
Kyle Hester: That’s fantastic, it’s like once it gets in there something resonates. Whatever it is, you get that one thing and you say alright let’s do that and hopefully you know we can do something with it or it becomes an awesome hobby, but you always gotta do what you love doing.
Q7: I’m looking at your IMDb and it shows here your first credited roll was “Rock and Roll Fantasy” and you played Phipps during the panty raid. I want to hear more about that.
Kyle Hester: That’s funny. That was the very first film that the guys from the “Asylum” did. That was the guys who did Sharknado and all those kind of films throughout the years. I think I didn’t get paid anything, you know it’s like my manager was like hey here’s an opportunity to be in a movie. I’m like alright, let’s do this! I don’t need to eat. I don’t need money. This is cool.
HKC: I’m all about the art man.
Kyle Hester: So I was a frat guy doing the panty raid and you know it was pretty simple but it was fun as the first thing to do when I was out here.
HKC: Well it’s always fun doing a panty raid regardless of whether you are acting or in real life.
Kyle Hester: Oh yeah right, that’s like a bucket list thing. Okay, panty raid, okay done.
HKC: I did that, we’re finished, moving on. Now I think I’m gonna visit Andersonville instead. What the hell, what’s gonna happen in Andersonville after a panty raid. I started with the panty raid I don’t know where to go from there. You can’t get any better than that.
Kyle Hester: There was a segue into Andersonville. I don’t know how you go from panty raid to Andersonville, but we can get do it, we have the technology.
Q8: How long was it until you got your first paying gig in LA? What was your private life like? Were you waiting tables? Were you that guy? Were you the typical stereotypical starving artist?
Kyle Hester: I managed a coffee shop here. I was slinging cappuccinos. So it is kind of the same thing but not really. You know, food and beverage. You do what you got to do. I had a blast and that’s actually where I met my wife. It was at that coffee shop.
Q9: Your wife is a writer. Is that correct?
Kyle Hester: Yeah, She is. She’s writing Preacher Six. Very awesome, I’m totally excited about it.
Q10: Is that the first project you guys are going to work on together or have you done other stuff together?
Kyle Hester: No, this will be the first project that we’ve done together. We’ve done ton of stuffs not together and basically the way that it happened, there was this other project that I was working on which shall not be named. I was working on it for five years and then the writer kind of lost his mind. As soon as you start talking about money with people now you’re like if things become real or has potential like, “Hey You Could Be a Millionaire”, which of course hardly ever happens.
Once people start thinking like that they lose their freakin mind and it’s like all of a sudden it’s about them. They say, it’s my project and I’m going to control this and all that kind of stuff and it’s like you see ego completely destroy the whole situation which is what happened. And after five years of nurturing a project this guy loses his mind and we don’t do the project so I’m talking to my wife and we said alright let’s do something that we control so that this never happens again.
HKC: Sometimes that’s what it really comes down to especially with independent film. You start to think, hey to get this thing going we have to do it ourselves. When you put it in the hands of studios sometimes you’re waiting on a lot of different things but the one way to do it is to make it yourself then you can be as artistic as you want and the more control the better. Of course then there is more responsibility, which makes it tough but you have to make it happen.
Kyle Hester: Yeah, you said it all. I think, without repeating what you said, I mean there is two ways to go. You are either in the system and have been working at the studios, working your way up and you all of that happens the way that happens. Or the nepotism of Hollywood and you’re the son of somebody famous and here’s your shot with a five-million-dollar project, good luck. Or you’re like us, you just kick and scratch and figure out how we are going to do this. What are we going to do? Let’s go kick some ass and see what happens.
HKC: It’s funny these days the technology is there for regular people to do these type of things not in a studio. I remember when I was younger watching the movie magic and they said one day there will be a Spielberg just sitting in his bedroom or his basement and look what he could put together. So technology is there which is nice. When I was younger, I wish I had this technology. I had one of those old camcorders and you know it didn’t have the same editing power it does today so we gotta keep moving forward.
Kyle Hester: Yeah well I think you know with a ten-thousand-dollar camera you can shoot the same kind of quality that you could for the hundred-thousand-dollar cameras. It’s definitely a lot more accessible to people that are just trying to do something.
HKC: Right and then it becomes up to you what you do with that technology.
Kyle Hester: Yeah, the big thing there is once you have the technology is don’t suck! You bought all this stuff, you got the surround sound and the 3d modeling with the goggles and stuff and you suck. You got to be good at it.
HKC: Sucking is all subjective. Right, it’s subjective. I don’t know sometimes it just sucks.
Q11: What exactly is your approach to acting? Method acting? How do you tackle a certain role that you are taking on?
Kyle Hester: To me it’s pretty simple. Whatever the character is, you basically get out of his way for whatever is going to happen. It’s like in the chair, which is the horror film that’s about to come out. It was Roddy Piper’s last film. We, as the prison guards were all unique horrible people. So am I going to walk around being this like maniacal horrible person at home to my wife because I’m a method actor and I gotta get into the character. It’s like no, go fuck yourself.
So I I’m not about that and basically you just get out of the characters way. We all know how to feel and laugh and cry and get pissed off and get angry and run and jump over things. Whatever is called for. You do that and so it’s really just getting out of characters way. Don’t let me over simplify, because this is after going to the Performing Arts High school and I went to Cal Art. I’ve taken all the different kinds of methods and all that stuff. I can say this because I know what works for me. That doesn’t mean it won’t work for somebody else.
HKC: I think you’re being a little humble too. I’ll be frank about it. You have a great career in terms of your acting roles and what you’ve done. I mean you have the resume. You’ve built up chops so you’re able to do that. I think you’ve become more comfortable with your acting abilities so I think that probably speaks volumes. If we were having this same conversation back in 1992 before your panty raid, I’m sure you had a very different mindset going into that for your first role. And all of you who just turned in, yes he said panty raid. And method acting for something like that might not be the best idea either. You could end up in jail.
Q12: What else influenced you growing up? Actors or movies? Did you have a favorite childhood movie growing up? I know you mentioned “Fame” earlier, but what about movies?
Kyle Hester: I think the thing that influenced me the most as an actor was “The Shining” with Jack Nicholson and I think with his captivating presence throughout the whole film, you just wanna watch to see what he’s doing. That right there is something special, you know. And I think what is that? What is it that makes that magic to make people talk about this guy? And you can repeat the lines and you can hear him in your head the way that he says them. What is it that does that?
HKC: “Wendy, I’m home,” sorry I couldn’t resist.
Kyle Hester: Exactly, yes its in there. It’s definitely in there.
HKC: We keep Wayne at the end of the table for that reason alone.
Absolutely, in my career I hope to have some moments like that where that ear warmers are in there from something that I get to say. These are the goals.
HKC: You’re involved in some really high profile independent films right now, The Chair, which a lot of people are aware of, Zombie With a Shotgun, which is currently in post and Preacher Six that you’re working on with your wife. With all those films you’re obviously gonna get the opportunity to shine. Let’s talk a little bit about that.
Q13: How did that process go in terms of funding for Zombie With a Shotgun? Was it a good time being part of that project? Were you just acting or are you also a producer on that?
Okay, Zombie With a Shotgun, here’s how that happened. Hilton Ruiz, the creator ad director had basically contacted me on Twitter because of “The Chair” He knew I did “The Chair” and we’re Tweeting back and forth. I said call me. So we get on the phone and basically one thing led to another. So I asked what are you doing with this with this project, you have like a bazillion followers and you’ve done the web series and stuff and now you’re trying to do a film but where is it going? What’s happening?
So out of that kind of short conversation we’re like let’s do it. So we so we put the crowdfunding thing together which of course without crowdfunding these films would not be made. Like The Chair, was done through kickstarter and Zombie With a Shotgun through IndieGoGo. Will these things ever see a nickel, you don’t know. They’re really fan-driven entities.
HKC: That’s the beauty of it, you already have a built-in fan base for the release right? I mean that’s kind of the beauty of doing something like that and knowing that there’s some justification in making the movie now because you did get a fan base to back it and I think they all exceeded their goals too. It wasn’t like you guys couldn’t meet your budgets. You guys met and exceeded them I believe.
Kyle Hester: Yeah, one of the things that gave Hilton the confidence is that we do have a big following like each of us individually. And you know crowd funding is not easy. I see so many people, they say, “I have four thousand followers,” and then you watch kickstarter and then you just see it sit there because it takes a lot more prep work and getting people interested way before you your launch a project like that. You just don’t know. I wouldn’t know unless I had the experience of watching Peter Simetti with The Chair.
Q14: Can you give some examples of some of the steps that you have to actually go through besides just launching the the Kickstarter.
Kyle Hester: Yeah I would say get a following however you can do that. Whether you spend like 90 hours a day on Twitter getting people to know who the hell you are, that’s part of it. If no one knows who you are no one’s going to care so that becomes a big part of it, is just putting what you have done out in front of people and the people that are gonna like it will follow you and the others that don’t you know who cares about them anyway.
I kid, I kid. You get the audience, you get the people who you know are going to be interested before the project launches so that you have your people that are fans. They are like “Alright let’s do this and we can all make an impact in the beginning.” Because in the beginning, that’s when a lot of judgments are going to be made about the project. You know if you’re sitting there a week in and you have two hundred dollars you know that doesn’t give the rest of the whole project or Kickstarter the strength it doesn’t give confidence. People are going to say they only have two hundred bucks.
Even if it’s like, “Hey mom can you just throw in a grand just to make it look like there’s something going on.” It’s all an illusion. You have to build that illusion that makes people confident in what you’re doing.
HKC: It’s like putting money into the tip jar yourself and hoping everyone else puts in as well. Sometimes you have to build that confidence.
I saw one of the perks that was pretty cool. I think it was for $1000 or $5000 that you get to die a zombie death and be one of the zombies that actually get killed in a cool way. Did you have anyone for that?
Kyle Hester: Not the $5,000 but there was a $1500 I think where you can be a zombie, come in and do that. Yeah we did have somebody do that. A guy named Sam. He was a super cool. He came in and kicked ass. It was great, so it’s like everybody wins in a situation like that.
HKC: Obviously this story was launched from the original book and then was made into a web series and now there’s an innate following with that immediately because you’ve already, there’s already footwork that’s there. You weren’t part of that original series but the original actors that were in that series are also in this correct?
Kyle Hester: One of them, the lead, Brady. He is in the film, but I believe that’s only cast member that transferred because some people are doing other things and some were unavailable and so that’s how that happened.
Q15: What about the cinematographer or the composer? Are they the same people who were doing the web series? Is the music the same?
Kyle Hester: I think he’s talking to the music people right now and composers so the crew is different. Hilton being the director, he just kind of put together the crew that he wanted to use. He knows a lot of people so I think it was just like who was available and who best fits the project.
Q16: Did you guys do a lot of filming in New York?
Kyle Hester: We did all of it right in Chinatown.
HKC: Yeah bummer we didn’t get to hook up while you were here in New York. We’ll have to hit up Hilton and see if we can get a hold of him at some point. I’m sure he’d be glad to talk.
Kyle Hester: He’d definitely makes himself available.
Q17: Cool, let’s talk about your other project that just released as well, The Chair. I think that just went to festival right? I saw that just got picked up or entered into festival.
Kyle Hester: Yeah, actually it just now getting accepted into festivals as we speak and there is one that Peter announced today but I’m not in front of a computer so I don’t remember but yes so the first one has been announced. It’s a festival in Wisconsin. I do know that and I know he’s applied to several others so I think we’re going to be hearing in the next couple of weeks about that and there’s going to be a theatrical limited kind of release. If you sell enough tickets to the project per theater when the event happens and you get to see it so that’s going to be happening around the country. It’s like a slow roll out and then it’s going to end up on all the platforms that you can rent or buy the DVD.
Q18: Yeah, I saw your Twitter post or Twitter poll today about where do people watch movies. Are you doing a bit of research on your own to see where you’re going to release stuff?
I’m just curious what’s the landscape? What do people do now? You know, is it cable? Is it Amazon? I love DVD’s. The whole streaming thing, I mean I understand it, I’m not an idiot, but I don’t get it. You know it’s because I love the physical stuff you know I love having my own DVD that I can stick in a machine whenever I want. Where with the downloads if your computer crashes, now you’re out.
HKC: I think Wayne’s got a box of 8 tracks for you if you want them. You’re talking to the right guy over there with Wayne. There really is nothing like having your stuff. With iTunes and everything else. It’s different digital. When you actually hold the CD’s in your hands as well and these are mine, but the only problem is it causes clutter. I think that’s why they invented computers. One thing is it saves on clutter, especially when you move, believe me that’s a problem.
Kyle Hester: Believe me, it all works. It all facilitates watching something, so it doesn’t really matter exactly how you watch it if you are you interested in seeing something you’re going to see it. I’m just trying to get the landscape so you know what’s really happening and how to push as far as distribution goes. And the funny thing is it if you look on that list, half of the people are interested in DVD’s and Blu Rays. Like they would rather do that then stream, which was surprising. You know everybody’s talking about, yeah it’s all going streaming now. But if you ask people, 800 people have responded to that poll as it were. I think it’s about 50% or something like that, that prefer DVD’s and Blu Ray.
HKC:The group of guys you’re talking to right now would all prefer DVD’s. Yeah I got it right here actually. It was 37% percent Netflix, 30% DVD & Blu-ray, 26% in the theater and then you had a bunch of others Amazon, Hulu and iTunes lumped together and that was really low. I’d be curious to see if Amazon streaming was broken out on its own but regardless I think Netflix wins the war at nighttime viewing in TV. They have way more TV series than movies though.
Kyle Hester: Netflix is like the big kid in the room. The problem for filmmakers is, yes it does give you a lot of exposure, but when you watch it, the filmmakers are not getting money from how many times people watch it on Netflix. It’s like a buyout. You’re gonna sell your project for however much, $2000 for a two-year contract to Netflix? I’m not gonna do that.
HKC: Most of the money actually comes from DVD sales. A lot of times, especially smaller movies, the movie proceeds are one thing in the theater and usually the DVD’s when you look back and see the gross income, it’s definitely more with the DVD’s, so where kind of hoping that does remain still. Like you said you’re not getting a credit each time someone watches Netflix. So from a business standpoint, you definitely still want the DVD’s around something physical that people could buy themselves.
Kyle Hester: That’s why there wasn’t a lot of stuff on Netflx. We find a lot of obscure stuff. A lot of super low budget or whatever for the people that just want the exposure of it but it’s like if you’re looking to actually make a living so that you can go and do another project that is not the answer.
HKC: You mean like Deathgasm? I don’t know what else I’ve watched on Netflix recently but yeah Deathgasm was up there.
Kyle Hester” They probably got like $1500 or $2000 to have their film on there for two years. You put in so much time and effort and energy and stuff like that it’s like that’s why people wait on Netflix. It will come out in the DVD’s and rentals and you know try to get in theaters like that then Netflix will be like down the line, basically when nobody cares anymore and you can just throw it on Netflix to see what they give you. At that point, you’re not fighting the whole thing, but if you throw it up on Netflix first, you’re done.
HKC: I was gonna say, it’s a smart move for you guys with the movie feature coming out. You could sell the web series potentially to Netflix as like an advertising preamble to the movie coming out if you can get that type of deal done. So selling the web series before the feature comes out that way you have kind of the build-up to the feature, that’s not a bad thing. Sal is our marketing guy. He always comes up with good ideas.
Kyle Hester: I’ll run that by Hilton. He’s got people already talking about it and are interested. I’m weary of everybody as far as distribution. You know because I’ve heard so many nightmares from friends of mine that made films. Yeah the sale figures show that I have $80,000 that came in but I only got $8k of it. So, how does that work? It’s basically, they’re papering, we had to fly to this place you know for that festival. We had to rent this amazing hotel room on your dime. Oh by the way you paid for the plane ticket too for us to go. They are trying to sell your movie. It’s like you got to be smart these days because you’re swimming with sharks and everyone wants to make money off of the creator’s.
Q19: You are now moving on to a new project and we’ve already talked a little bit about it, Preacher Six, what can you tell us about it without spoiling anything?
Kyle Hester: Well I can tell you that Preacher Six is going to be a grindhouse type film with lots of action and blood and comedy and demons and all of that kind of stuff. It’s about a small town preacher that comes to the big city and ends up fighting evil in a literal sense. So that’s where you see the art work on the site, that I am holding the sword and the gun all this kind of stuff. The preacher ends up battling demons like the real ones. That’s kind of the gist and there’s some super cool characters that are with him helping him out. They become a bunch of super hero type people that are not superheroes. It’s gonna be a lot of fun.
Q20: How far in the process are you with that one?
Kyle Hester: We are in development right now. We’re actually launching the fundraiser next month, so we’ll start that up in October on IndieGoGo. That’s gonna be another 24 hours a day on the computer you know trying to beg, borrow, you know, get a bumper sticker. All that stuff man but we’re definitely excited about it.
HKC: Nice, we’ll put out some reminders at that time as well from us to remind people that’s what’s gonna happen in October. Fantastic.
Q21: When is Zombie with a Shotgun coming out? What is your estimate?
Kyle Hester: Well I can say definitely in 2017 but right now we’re not quite done filming. My character is wrapped but there’s other scenes that we have to get, so if you see the fundraiser now, I’m basically trying to raise money to finish post production. I don’t know, maybe we’ll be done in six months. Fingers crossed on it. You know I mean it’s like The Chair, we shot over a year and a half ago and there was like lots of issues in post and stuff that had delayed it coming out, which is now why it looks like there’s so much going on. There’s The Chair, Zombie With a Shotgun, Preacher Six and it’s like all this happens to be happening now in various forms. The timeline of it was, we shot The Chair a year and a half ago.
HKC: Yeah, you seem like a real busy guy.
Kyle Hester: We are the new wave, it’s kind of the Wild West out there right now as far as filmmaking, so it’s either you’re one of the big guys or wer’e just all kinda in the same creative pool together trying to make something happen.
HKC: Kyle, thanks for doing this.
Kyle Hester: Absolutely, the way I look at this is we’re all in it together as entertainment type folks so it’s all good.
Download the Interview with Indie Film Blogger Ruth Hill
We are lucky to have the opportunity to interview indie film supporter and blogger Ruth Hill. She is a single mother of a 13-year-old girl and lives in Yelm, WA, the Seattle/Tacoma area. She’s a substitute teacher, singer, film and television show reviewer, blogger, writer and interviewer. She runs the blog MyDevotionalThougts.net which started back in 2009. You can reach her on twitter @RuthHill74.
Watch the Interview with Indie Film Blogger Ruth Hill
Highlights from the Ruth Hill interview:
If you’re an independent film maker, actor, producer or writer, Ruth Hill is a person you want to get to know. She’s wonderfully charming and intelligent. She cares so much about the work she’s doing to promote independent film and does it all selflessly. Ruth gets to know the people she interviews and that’s why we wanted to get to know Ruth. An important takeaway is that this business takes passion and hard work. If you’re looking for fame and money, independent films are not the place to “get rich quick”.
Ruth’s story is inspiring. Our favorite part of the interview is where she tells us about the person that inspired her childhood creativity from playing piano and writing songs of her own.
How did you get started with your blog MyDevotionalThoughts.net?
It was almost by accident. I had been following a lot of blogs. I had recently moved back toWashington State and had some extra time on my hands because I was now a substitute teacher rather than being a regular classroom teacher and I’d always had a love for writing and I started following all these blogs and I remember one day just finally saying to myself, well, I could do it just as well as these people and probably even better. So i just sat down and started blogging and had no idea what I was doing. So I jumped in, learned how to build a website, asked a lot of questions.
It really has only been in the past couple years that I started to review movies and TV shows. Then in January this year I started interviewing actors. I had made a lot of connections through reviewing movies and TV shows.
What’s you’re interviewing process like? Phone calls, Skype or written questionnaires?
All of the above! Okay, seriously I try to make it as easy as possible. At first it was all going to be phone interviews when I first started. That was what I thought you always did and as I started talking with actors they’d say, “Well my schedule’s really crazy” or “I live in England and I’m 8 hours ahead of you” and so it’s the time difference that can be an issue as well. And they said is there any way I could just email it to you and I thought yeah sure, that’s great.
And then I’ll never forget the time that one of the actors, actually an older actor. I want to say he’s close to 60 and so it shocked me when he said, “Well why can’t we go ahead and Skype?” And I’m thinking almost 60 and you want to skype? I remember being very, very nervous the first time skypingwith an actor because you hear all the horror stories online. Well, what if this person is not really who they say they are? What if they’re a serial killer out to get me or something? I mean I know its crazy but being someone who doesn’t really know anything about the process it was a little intimidating at first. But then once I got going with it it was perfectly fine
I try my very best when I reach out to actors, I usually reach out on Twitter most of the time. I’ll ask for an interview and I kind of try to work it however is easiest for them. I want them the most comfortable and about half the people do say emails the easiest just because their schedules are so crazy.
That’s cool. So here’s a fun question.
Who was your first interview?
Oh I remember my first interview. That was back in January and it happened to be one of my favorite actors. I happened to do a lot with the Hallmark network. That’s kind of how I started. I was working with a lot of those actors from their shows and movies. The first actor was an actor named Brennan Elliot who is best known outside of hallmark for being in the Lifetime show Unreal. He plays a small part in that and he was also in one of the Chucky films back many years ago. He had been one of my favorite actors and I asked him and seriously within like 10 minutes he responded and said yes!
Then I found out that night that I was interviewing him in 2 days. It was not so much that I was intimidated talking with him. It was that I wanted to do a good job because he’s a really great actor and he’s been so supportive of my reviews. I’ve reviewed a lot of his works and he’s always very supportive. I wanted to do a good job. I wanted to make sure that whatever I did that I was asking the right questions and everything came off really well.
What was really funny was I didn’t know that my phone was not set up to accept private callers. I didn’t know that my phone company automatically blocked private callers. So I get this message from him saying I tried to call and it won’t let me through. So we’re trying for about 45 minutes. He’s really patient trying to get thisworked out because I live in the country. I don’t get cell phone reception out here. So I told him, ok we’ll do it on my cellphone but I’m gonna have to wait about 15 minutes. I’ll let you know.
I decided to drive to where I could get service. So my first interview was in front of a nearby gas station, in the parking lot.
That’s great. You gotta roll with the punches and do what you can do.
Oh yeah and it really was great. It was, honestly. He was great about it and he was actually cool about it. He was excited, as excited to talk to me as I was to him because he was interested to know who I was because I had been such a supporter of his career.
That’s awesome. That’s kind of the whole point of any interview. That you’re excited to talk to the person. When Sal told me that we were setting this up with you and I’d seen you on your twitter feed everything, I was excited when this was all a setup just to talk to you too! So it’s always a fun thing.
What drew you to independent films in particular?
Well I knew nothing whatsoever about independent films until I happened to interview, and as it was again, an interview really almost by mistake. I don’t even have any clue why I contacted this guy, except that he was following me and somehow I was following him and my friends knew about him. Kyle Hester, which I think you guys are familiar with from Zombie with a Shotgun. I reached out to interview him and we set something up and I had no idea, I could not have told you. I didn’t even know what indie film meant. I would never be able to even tell you what that was. I just didn’t know but we had a really great conversation and he explained everything about independent films. All the funding. I had no idea about any of this.
This was a whole new world to me and he just kind of opened it up for me and I thought this is really cool. This is great that they’re able to do these projects that the studio’s aren’t doing. Studios put some great stuff, that’s true. But it’s great to be able to have these stories that maybe nobody else would get to tell. And these people are going out and they’re raising funds for it. They’re involving people in the whole process and so he got me so excited that I started supporting independent film projects and reading up on them. And so that led me to continue to checkout more independent films.
But the thing is every single one of those films I got to watch, people went in and did so much work behind the scenes. They had a vision, in fact I remember I had somebody tell me this. Somebody that I interviewed for independent films:
“Maybe it wasn’t the way you would have done it but they did something. They actually got up one day and decided, I’m going to do this. I’ve got this passion.” Some of them have to work for years to raise the money. To get all the crew and to get the actors and I’m honestly in awe of what independent filmmakers do when I realized all the work that goes into what they do. It’s amazing!
How many interviews and reviews do you think you’ve conducted at this point?
Interviews I think I figured out it’s been around a 125 interviews that I’ve done.
Yeah, some of them were not featured on my site because when I first started interviewing I actually did work with an online magazine. They were actually the ones that I kind of originally started interviewing people for. It just became that they had a different vision than I did as far as interviews went. I tend to be one that goes very much in depth and also I’m very conversational. I’m not one that tends to just talk about their project.
Sometimes I’ve read interviews where they take the film or the show and they just dissect it in great detail and the person’s character and they start asking things that for me I’m not really that interested in. Sometimes I get bored reading interviews. I’ll be honest that sometimes and it’s not so much the interviewers fault even. It’s just that they’re sometimes asking things that I’m not that interested in because what I really want to do is I want to find out who the person is.
I had the opportunity a few months ago to interview Marshall Teague. I don’t know if you guys know him he’s most known for being in the movie Roadhouse with Patrick Swayze. He plays Jimmy, I think that’s his character’s name. If remember right he’s like the bouncer and there’s like a big fight scene and all that. Marshall Teague, I actually got to know him through Rick Ravanello because they made a movie together a few years ago.
So, again I didn’t know much about Marshall when I first interviewed him and so I had the opportunity and it was really something to get to talk to him because he has these fantastic stories. He’s been in the business for many many years. We end up talking nearly 2 hours.
I actually had to break it into two parts because there was so much. And what’s really cool about Marshall also is he also is very big on independent films. In fact tonight, one of his, one of the independent films that he was in is actually at the Long Beach film festival in California.
What if you could interview anybody through history alive or dead?
I was actually thinking about this last night. I was thinking through that question I was thinking, who would I interview that could be anyone. Honestly I think the person that I would interview and it does happen to be somebody who was connected with television but someone who I think was influential in my life was actually Fred Rogers. Mister Rogers Neighborhood.
It’s kinda funny but when I was growing up I was even quieter or even shyer than I am now. And there were a lot of family issues. There were a lot of things going on and I was usually by myself a lot and I didn’t have a lot of confidence in who I was and I can remember turning on his program and I was even older when I really got into it. I wasn’t like a little tiny kid. I was in elementary school and just somehow I hadn’t even realized the show and I started turning it on and since he was a musician I connected that way because since I knew he played piano and I play the piano.
He’d write songs and I remember even that kind of got me going oh, I can write songs. I remember actually kind of playing around with that idea, writing songs and so I think that although I never knew him, although before he passed away, the coolest thing that happened is I was able to send him an email and I did get a response back and that was really cool. Because I wanted to let him know how influential he’d been in my young life and I think that it would be really cool if I could interview anyone I think I would choose him.
Do you make a living with your blog MyDevotionalThoughts.net?
I do not at this point. On occasion I have been able to do a sponsored post or something like that and I will get some money off of that. I was at a point where i was starting down that road but when I changed over to doing the reviews and interviews I think that that changed a few things and it’s kinda like I had to in some ways start building things again.
I had a social media following which I’m grateful for. I’ve worked extremely hard to build the social following that I have. I concentrate on that sometimes more than I do building the following on my blog. So at this point it’s not been for money. I’m making money on the site necessarily but I think that it’s getting closer to that point. I guess I’d say I hope to one day and I hope to sometime in the near future to have it at least making a part time income. That would be nice.
What recommendations would you have for somebody starting an independent film blog?
You have to figure out why you’re wanting to do this. I have followed enough blogs. I follow the blog community and I’ve seen blogs that make it and blogs that fail. A lot of times the blog’s that fail, they’re doing it for the wrong reasons. They are going into it thinking that they’re going to be rich. They heard the success stories of these big-time bloggers that make a $100k dollars a year blogging or something like that and I’m not making that up. There are bloggers of course that are able to get that kind of money. So if some people go into it with the whole mindset of I’m going to make lots of money. I’m gonna get free products that I can review.
I’ve even had people that will look at what I’m doing. Oh you’re getting to interview all these great people and I think sometimes these people think that quite literally I sit around all day and interview famous people and that it’s not a lot of work. People are not willing to put the work into it and the time that’s necessary especially when you get started. You’re not going to make anything and probably you’re gonna have to put out some money initially to get yourself started.
You have to realize, why I am doing this. Am I doing this because I really have a passion? I’m passionate about writing. I’m passionate about reviewing these things. Whatever your focus is you need to figure that out first. So if you’re doing it for the right reasons then you next need to do some more research to figure out what blogging platform you’re going to start on and all that. But I think the main thing is get your focus right because the results are not going to become rich and famous.
That’s the same kind of thing as acting. I’m always asking actors what’s your advice for people who want to become actors and want to be a part of the entertainment business. Well course it’s not to be rich and famous because there’s a good chance that’s not gonna happen.
What’s next for you? Where are you going with your site? Maybe you’ll be doing a podcast soon?
Interestingly enough I think it was a few months back because I was having to make a decision. Do I stick with the online magazine? Do I come back to my blog? I was going back and forth with that decision and it was actually Sebastian Spence and Rick Ravanello. I go to both of them regularly, they’re both really great at giving advice. I think it was actually Rick that made it clear. I need to definitely go back to my blog. That’s where I’m happiest. He was actually kind of my deciding voice on that. He has a way of a way of talking that in no uncertain terms this is what you need to do and that was what I needed to hear.
Then Sebastian and I have talked about topics back and forth messaging back and forth. He has even offered that maybe he could help with this. We’ve talked about maybe eventually having some live interviews. If it’s possible we might get to that stage. We’re not there yet but it’s something that would be maybe off in the future. I’ve only been interviewing since January. So yeah I mean that would be something, but I know that no matter what, even if I do start doing live interviews like that, that I would still always go back to the writing.
What I’ve really been focusing on with the interviews even more so as I go along, because of course I go back and I read the interviews that I did back in January-February and I just think, what was I thinking? I didn’t have a clue what I was doing. It’s very clear now. I can see it. I can look back and think those are really not very good compared to what I do now because I’ve learned so much more.
I’m looking more towards just continuing to refine my interviewing style. To refine the questions that I ask. I’m trying to not always ask the same questions. I’m trying to make it very interesting and really trying to bring the level of my writing skills up and always trying to strive to be better. I guess it’s a real treat when the person I’ve interviewed, and this happens very regularly, especially now. They come back and they just are blown away by what I say in the interview. Because a lot of interviewers and this is kind of I think something that separates me a little bit from a lot of interviewers. It’s really easy I think, anyone who wants to interview anybody can just put a transcript of an interview up and that’s extremely easy.
The difference is that I take the end of each interview and try to synthesize everything together and get an idea, present a perspective on that person. Again going back to the thing of I want you to be able to see the person as I see them and I can’t tell you how many people, the messages that I’ve gotten back from these actors and directors whom I have interviewed. They read that ending, that concluding paragraph about what I’ve said about them and they’re just blown away. They say if they’re having a bad day they’re going to come back and read that.
I’m very sincere in what I do and they know that I’m putting positivity out there which is something I’m very passionate about. I want everything that I do on my blog to be very positive. So immediately probably not live interviews, probably not a podcast but eventually I’m definitely open to that.
First of all, Kyle is one of the nicest guys you are going to meet in the indie film world. He’s got a wealth of knowledge from the extensive resume he’s built up over the years with 20 acting credits to his name including films like The Book of Daniel. His popularity on Twitter is what made us take notice due to his involvement with the crowd funded independent horror film Zombie With A Shotgun. We even had a laugh discussing his first gig where he played Phipps in Rock and Roll Fantasy during the panty raid. Yup we said panty raid.
Okay, Zombie With a Shotgun, here’s how that happened. Hilton Ruiz, the creator ad director had basically contacted me on Twitter because of “The Chair” He knew I did “The Chair” and we’re Tweeting back and forth. I said call me. So we get on the phone and basically one thing led to another. So I asked what are you doing with this with this project, you have like a bazillion followers and you’ve done the web series and stuff and now you’re trying to do a film but where is it going? What’s happening?
Kyle Hester: Yeah, actually it just now getting accepted into festivals as we speak and there is one that Peter announced today but I’m not in front of a computer so I don’t remember but yes so the first one has been announced. It’s a festival in Wisconsin. I do know that and I know he’s applied to several others so I think we’re going to be hearing in the next couple of weeks about that and there’s going to be a theatrical limited kind of release. If you sell enough tickets to the project per theater when the event happens and you get to see it so that’s going to be happening around the country. It’s like a slow roll out and then it’s going to end up on all the platforms that you can rent or buy the DVD.
