2DCU1302HD Director's Cut: Greg Dixon Transcript

- The following program is a PBS Wisconsin Original Production. 

[energetic music]
- Olympia: I wanna make a book.

- You wanna write a book?

- No, I wanna make a book.

- Of what?

- Portraits. People that I see and who I meet. Like, like snapshots, only I draw them. Like people in a particular moment in their life that if you don't stop and notice it, it just passes you by.

[Olympia chuckles]
Sorry, that was just really heavy.

- No, no, I'm into it.

- When you make your book can I be on the cover?

[Olympia laughs]
- Yeah, you can be on the cover. 

[soft piano music]
 
[light upbeat music]

- Welcome to Director's Cut, I'm Pete Schwaba, and that was a clip from Olympia which is also the name of the film's title character, a Chicago artist approaching the age of 30 who is struggling with her career, her relationships and with her terminally ill mother. Joining me tonight here in the studio is the film's director, Greg Dixon. Greg, great to have you.

- Great to be here.

- You made the drive up from Chicago, I appreciate that.

- I know, it wasn't too bad either.

- And we also have a special guest from your film, a surprise guest if you will, is gonna drop by a little later. That's exciting, so.

- Yeah.

- Bringing part of the team with you. So that's a pretty bold statement, “Can I be on the cover of your book?” on a first date. The guy was just going for it. Tell us despite the brief synopsis, tell us a little bit about the story from someone who's more in the know if you would.

- We wanted to make a movie about what it means to become an adult in the modern world. Because we think that it's, that it's changed since our parent's generation, for example. People are not getting married right out of high school. They're not sticking with the same job for 30, 40 years. They're not buying houses at the same rate. They're not having kids as early as they used to. So we wanted to explore what our generation's idea of becoming an adult was, post-recession. I graduated college in 2008, which was the worst financial year since The Depression. So the idea of getting a great job right out of college and starting your career and paying off school loans right away is kinda gone out the window, I think.

And the effect of that is we kinda feel lost as a generation I think; lost in our relationships, lost in our careers.

- Ordeals, right?

- Yeah.

- What you're talking about.

- So we wanted to explore what the idea of getting a career off the ground, following a dream, as a career. Making your dreams part of your career and... and what commitment looks like and what family relationships look like, so. I think it's the idea of a coming of age, but we're calling it a coming into adulthood.

- I think too when the deck is stacked against you like that, you might as well become a film director, right?

- Yes, I mean that's why am here.

- Yeah, let's see another clip from Olympia.

[fireworks exploding]
 
[soft jazz music]

- So... exciting new development.
- Company's moving.

- Henrietta's moving?

- Yep.

- To a bigger office?

- To California. And ah...

I would like to know if you, Olympia Welles, would like to come with me to California?

- Oh, wow.

- I know, I know.

- Is it decided. Are you going? You definitely have to go?

- I think so.

I kinda gotta make this job work.- Right.

- I've been, I've been thinking about it, Lym. I mean not just today. But, ah...

We could get married.

- What! Don't do that. What are you doing? Don't do that.

- Right, no. No. 
[Chuckles]

I know you never thought about yourself as a relationship kind of person.

- I never said that. I just said we should be able to walk away whenever we want.

- And I'm happy that every day for the past three years neither one of us has. And now, I know your family. I know how you like your eggs. You know where I'm ticklish. I know where all your beauty marks are. 
[siren blaring]

We could build something, if we wanted to. You want to?

- Looks like every guys' worst nightmare, I think, when he starts to get down on one knee and the girl goes, whoa!

- Yeah.

- Tap the breaks a little bit. So let's discuss the animation at the beginning of that clip.

- Gregory: Sure.

- You have that kinda sporadically throughout the film-- an interesting choice. 'Cause I think I told you, I don't know that your film needed it, but I kinda thought it was cool. Discuss if you would the thinking behind that.

- Well originally, you know, the lead character is an illustrator, of course. So I think adding that kind of intrinsic artistry to the movie enhanced the character first and foremost. 

But I also think that, for me, a big theme in the movie is anxiety and her inner anxieties about commitment and family relationships. And I think that the animation to me was able to show that visually of what she's feeling and the pressures that she's holding in on her own. So, I think that it's just an extra motif for the film and also I think it's-- it gives it a modern feel. You've seen a lot of movies in the last few years kind of use this in transitional phases in the movie.

Diary of A Teenage Girl was particularly the movie that we drew inspiration from.

So, I think it modernizes it and just adds that extra little level of creativity.

- How difficult is it to do that? Is it just an easy thing to do in post or? How'd that work?

- For us and the style that we chose, it was. I didn't do it myself, so I don't wanna say it was too easy. But we worked with a brilliant animator named Kaitlin Martin and she was able to turn things around fairly quickly. And worked within a style that we had already showcased throughout the film in Olympia's own art, so.

- Yeah. Let's talk a little bit about your connection. 

McKenzie Chinn is the writer, lead actor. How did you guys-- You said you've collaborated quite a bit. How did you connect initially and talk about how this came to be with Olympia?

- So, McKenzie and I both went to DePaul University in Chicago for graduate school. I was part of the film program or digital cinema. Film is dead at DePaul. 

And McKenzie was part of the theater school. We're both MFA students. And we were put in a class together, I think my second year, her third year, where they paired-up MFA actors with MFA directors. 

And for the actors, I think they were teaching them how to work with directors, how to work with the camera, specifically. And we got paired up on a project together. 

And I think... the project I think was a little controversial in the end 'cause we didn't exactly follow the rules. But we made this brilliant piece of art that we both really loved and we really enjoyed working together. 

So years later, she was writing this project and sent it to me just for notes. Like, she just wanted my opinion and give her feedback on the script. And so I did. 

We went back and forth on a few drafts together. And at one point, she was awarded this big, national artist fellowship called, the Leonore Annenberg Artist Fellowship, which no longer exists, unfortunately. But she received a big grant that we were able to go into production and I was lucky enough that she asked me to direct the movie. And from that point on we started a little film company together, and brought many more team members on board, and got the movie off the ground.

- That was great. That's interesting. Let's get into more of that. We're gonna see another clip from Olympia right now.

[people talking]
 
[soft piano music]

[phone ringing]

- I have to take this. I'll be right back. Talk to her. 
[gentle piano music]
 
[party chatter]

- Hi, uh, hello.

- Woman: Hi.

- I'm Olympia.

- You're the artist?

- That's-- Yes, I'm the, uh, artist. 
[people chattering]

- It's interesting, simple.

- I know, it's simplistic.

- Simple, not simplistic. Have some confidence.

- Are you an artist?

- I'm an artistic entrepreneur. I'm working with the museum: prose, illustrations, varying themes.

- That sounds really interesting. I'd love to, I guess, hear more as it develops.

- You guess? You'd love to hear more?

- I'd like to hear more. Yes. Do you have a card?

- I think I have a few left. Here.

This has some potential, I think.

- How do you-- I do wanna get back to the film financing thing for a minute, because I have had people come up to me and say, "Hey, when you have these directors on the show, "do they ever talk about financing?" 

I know it's a weird thing to get into because a lot of people don't wanna say how much they shot their film for. 

But, you did say you got a grant and you crowdfunded. What other avenues did you take to raise the budget for Olympia?

- So, this was also my MFA thesis project at DePaul, which was a little ambitious to do a feature for a thesis project. But because of that, we had a lot of resources available to us: equipment, for example, insurance. Things that would cost your normal filmmaker thousands and thousands of dollars. And along with that we also had certain post-production grants available to us as well. So that was probably the bulk of our funding...

along with the fellowship, of course. But other than that, we own this movie. This is like our own creative endeavor. So we put our own money into it too, just to see it across the finish line.

- That's great. Okay so, when you have a scene like this and you have lead actor who is an artist-- her character is an artist-- are you worried about the art you showcase in the film being believable to an audience going, "Ah, that's not good art." 

I mean I wouldn't know whether it's good or bad. I think it's really cool, but were you nervous? I think I would be as a director if I had to put art in the film of people judging the art within the art, if that makes sense.

- Well, I think for us the style of art that we choose, really enhanced us because we wanted this elementary look. This idea of thinking back on your childhood and I think that's really conveyed in the art. We actually hired an artist to come on to make all of Olympia's physical artwork in the film, named Kelsey Zigmund, who did a fantastic job. But she would do different phases of pieces. For example, you see paintings in the film and the work in progress. She would do like three or four different versions all in different stages of progress. And McKenzie-- We'd film McKenzie like filling in the details. But I do wanna say that McKenzie does have a natural artistic ability. And I was very impressed with that. She had no problem picking up a pencil and following along with the lines. I mean, she's very multi-talented.

- That helps a lot when she's an actual artist. It's not like someone playing a pianist or something.

- Gregory: Right.

- You have to record them doing this and they're not really playing.

- Gregory: Exactly.

- Adds to the authenticity. 
[throat clearing]
 Pardon me, it takes us a while to warm up to Olympia.

She doesn't take money for a cab, early on. She knows she's gonna be late. The boss gets mad at her. She's a frustrating character, because you identify with her, as you know, a budding artist, but her executive skills, she just seems to lack. But by the end of the film you come around. You see what she's going through. Did you have anything to do with the writing and kind of her arc as a character, as a director?- Well, I think like I mentioned before, I think the natural anxieties and depression that plays into her character provides that roadblock for her. I think that we see people everyday that probably suffer from anxiety and depression, but it's not something that you can physically see. You don't really understand what they're going through. So I think that that pressure that's holding you back as a person, or as an artist, as someone trying to explore their career is something we see everyday but it's hard to relate to on film. It's hard to root for a character like that. And I think we kinda wanted to break that boundary, of course.

- I think you wanna root for her but it's frustrating to watch. 'Cause your like, "Oh, don't do that, or "Just take the money," you know, that kind of thing.

- Yeah, sure.

- But when we come back we have a special guest who's gonna join us right after this clip, another clip from Olympia.

[music from TV]
- Hey, how was the marathon?

- Why are you here? Why are you not at some after-party with your friends?- 'Cause I wanna be here.

Jemma got a really good job in New York and Felix's job is moving to California. And Felix asked me to go with him.- And are you gonna go?

[Olympia scoffs]

- I don't know.- Well, why wouldn't you go?

- Because... to be here with you.

- Why would you want to be here with me instead of out there... doing things?- Ah, I wish I'd done more, you know?

Well, I guess you don't. You can't know until you've had the distinct feeling of something important having passed you by.

A feeling you don't have... 
[loud boom thundering]
 ...until the thing that's passed you is long, long gone.

- Mom.

- No, let me.

Back when I was still trying to be an actress. 
[audience applauding]

Everything's sure. Everything is possible. Your father was gonna play his music. I was gonna be on the marquees.

- Olympia: Mom.

- Olympia...

You're gonna have regrets...

no matter what. So you might as well regret the things you did do, rather than end up regretting the things you didn't.- That's a great line about our regrets that Olympia's mom has and some perspective from, to that millennial generation from you know, a boomer.

- I guess, yeah.

- I guess is what you kids call it these days. So this is exciting. I'd like to welcome to the show, Otto Sharp, who is the composer for the film, who joins us for couple segments here. Otto, welcome.

- Thanks for having me.

- Yeah, I know I kinda geeked out there, said we have a very special guest. But we don't have many composers on, so I didn't mean to give people the impression like Julia Roberts was coming on.

- But for our purposes...

- No offense.

- This is really cool.

- [Otto chuckles]
 Thank you.

- Honestly, you might be the very first composer we've had, so it's great to have you.

- Thank you.

- How closely did you guys work, like you wrote the score I assume?

- Otto: Um-hm.

- Maybe some original music or is it music you had in like a library that Greg liked? How did you guys work together to create the music?

- It was pretty much all original music.

You know, I actually co-wrote some of the songs with a friend of mine who was also involved in music. His name's Josh Coffey. We called ourselves the "Western Kentucky Wrecking Crew".

- Pete: That's where that accent's from. I was trying to pinpoint that.

- Yeah, Western Kentucky, and then our engineer was Jake Zenor, and Josh and I got together and in about a week time we wrote, I think it was around 36 original songs for the soundtrack. So, yeah, and then a few songs I was able to pull in from artists who I'm friends with to kind of give some diversity from what we were doing.

- That's really cool. Now, Greg, I assume you have final say in which songs, collaboratively, but you probably have-- Are there any songs or pieces of music that you did not get in that you wanted to get in or did you have to push hard for them?

- Yeah, there was a few pieces. You know, it was kind of a learning experience for us all, because-- Because we were writing original music, you know, we would spend every song that Greg or other members of the team were like, "You know, I'm not really feeling that." 

That would be like just add on an extra three days to creating. Which is actually a really fast turnaround time. That means writing, recording, putting it into the film.

But, yeah, there was a few that I don't really feel like creatively hit a home run with McKenzie and Greg that we were kinda feeling. But you can't be sensitive about things like that. It’s a collaborative effort and ultimately, just like in songwriting, when you're a musician and you're coming in and you're playing on someone else's track, your job is to serve the song. And in this situation our job was to serve the writing and the movie, so.

- Did you have to tell her what you wanted or did she kind of come to the table with everything and you were like, "This is great?"

- I think I gave her some initial inspiration.

- Otto: Um-hm.

- I had assembled an assembly cut, or rough cut, with The Black Keys, right, so.

- Some, Alabama Shakes.

- I was going for that Southern vibe. I didn't go all the way to Alabama, but we made it to Kentucky.

- Pete: Halfway to Alabama, yeah.

- And then I think I gave kind of extensive notes throughout the process.

- Yeah.

- Very nice. Well, let's see another clip from Olympia.

- Look... I know it's a lot to process.

But I wanna do this with you.

We don't have to get married. We can just live together, be partners. I'll make breakfast. I'll make breakfast all the time.

- What would I do out there?

- Your art, something, we'll find something.

- I don't have a job out there. I wouldn't have any money.

- Well, I'm getting a pay bump when I move. If we're careful, we can make this work.

- What you give me an allowance, like a housewife?

- Lym, I just wanna be with you.

- I don't want to go out there with nothing to do.

- What are you doing here?

- Olympia: What do you mean?

- What are you doing? Why do you have to stay here?- I have a job.

- That you don't really--

- And I draw.

- You can do that from anywhere.

- Grace and Angie are gonna need help with the baby.

- People move away from their families all the time and start new ones.

There's nothing keeping you here.

And your mom.

- What about my mom?

- Is not here anymore, Lym.

And your dad is-- Who knows--

- He could come back any--- She wouldn't want you sitting around not doing anything.- You should just go to California. I'm really happy for you.

- Lym, please... what are you scared of?

- I'm not scared. You're scared. I'm not the one who bailed on your dream of a recording studio, the minute it got hard.

- I ran out of money. What choice did I have?

- You had a choice and you chose to quit; you're a quitter.

- Whoa, whoa, at least I got started at all. That's the first difference between you and me. And, yeah, I did have a choice and I chose to be a goddamn grown up, pick myself up, and figure out what to do next.

That's the second difference between you and me. 
[intense music]
- So okay. Otto, this question's for you. There's some really intense music right after they have this argument where a lot of films would choose like a more melancholy or sort of sad music. You have this kind of, like you said, grinding Link Wray. Was that an original creation? What about that scene made you choose music like that? Or maybe you can talk to this too, Greg. 
[silence]
 
[Pete laughs]

- Gregory: I think--

- You can do it through song if that's easier.

- Well, I think there's a level of frustration and anger after this scene. I think... she is not getting through to her partner and he's not getting through to her. And I think they're reaching this point where it's a make or break. Are they gonna stay together or are they not? So when she leaves his apartment here I think she's going down a path that she doesn't usually go down and it's out of pure frustration and anger. So I think the music totally leads her down that path, too.

- Greg, you have some really-- I mean-- I assume any indie film, we get a lot of them on the show where they're in remote locations, places where it is easier to shoot. You're shooting in the third-largest metropolitan area in America. You have a lot of aerial shots. If you could talk to that I'd love to hear how you got those. And then also how much of a challenge is it shooting in a city like Chicago? You got restaurants, walking by outside-- the peripheral goings on-- How difficult is that?

- Well, it's our home, so I think we naturally used a lot of resources that we already had available to us. But I also think that we had to shoot it in Chicago because we wanted to show the city that we love and see every day. But there is also a level of responsibility that we wanted to pay to the city. Because I think you see the city in various shows like Chicago Fire and Chicago Med, The Chi, going all the way back to ER for example. There's this kind of opinion and expectation of Chicago that's not necessarily true to the communities that we live in. So we wanted to do justice to our communities and show what everyday life looks like as a struggling artist for example. But in terms of actually shooting in the city, you know, we had one really big advantage to us is that we were students. Student permits is quite cheaper than a normal permit.

And we know the city like the back of our hand too, so we know how to work in ways that big studios might not be able to.

- That's great. Well, it's been great having you guys on, thank you.

- Thank you.

- Thank you for being our special guest, Otto. Continued success to both. You're both impeccably dressed I might add. 
[laughter]
 Not all guests-- The last guest we had on had a tank-top on and Crocs.

- Wow.

- So this is much-- This is much nicer. Thanks very much and good luck with the film. Yeah, it's exciting. Hey, thanks for watching Director's Cut. For more information on Olympia, please go to pbswisconsin.org and click on Director's Cut. While you're there, find out how to submit a film and don't forget to Like us on Facebook, and just in general. It’s nice to be liked, right? I'm off to do things that I hopefully will really regret one day and I'm gonna blame Olympia's mom. Half-kidding. We'll see you next time on Director's Cut. 
[upbeat music]

- I ever tell you why I named you Olympia? 
[Olympia sniffs]

- To provide focus and intention for my middle school bullies?- I think I wanted you to have a name that was...

How would you say it?

...epic. 
[emotional music]

[Olympia sighs]