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[SPEAKER_02]: set my sights on filmmaking pretty early in life.
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[SPEAKER_02]: I entered into the field because I was like fascinated how stories shaped people's identities and I've always been drawn to people at the turning points in their lives.
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[SPEAKER_02]: I gravitate towards stories where someone reclaims agency.
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[SPEAKER_02]: So I think that led very naturally to silver screamers because today,
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[SPEAKER_02]: I'm particularly interested in stories that don't treat aging as decline necessarily.
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[SPEAKER_02]: It's more of an evolution, I would say.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Hello and welcome to AJ Matters, a program featuring aging related topics of interest to older adults and their families.
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[SPEAKER_01]: I'm Cheryl Beversdorf your host.
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[SPEAKER_01]: When a group of older adults is offered the opportunity to create their own horror film, a touching story about recovering creative autonomy, and lifelong learning, follows.
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[SPEAKER_01]: each participant draws from a life filled with experience, loss, skill, and perspective, and affirms that anyone can try something new at any age.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Today, my guest is Sean Sisterna, Canadian Film Director, producer and creator of a heartwarming and inspiring feature documentary called Silver Screamers.
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[SPEAKER_01]: He will talk about this intergenerational film production that created a chance for older adult actors and younger crew members to learn from each other.
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[SPEAKER_01]: He'll also explain how the process channel into some sense about aging, creativity, fear, and who gets to tell stories later in life.
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[SPEAKER_01]: So, welcome Shawna and thank you for joining me today.
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[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, I'm thrilled to be here, Cheryl.
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[SPEAKER_02]: Thank you for the opportunity.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Well, Sean, we're really eager to hear about this production that you were responsible for, but before doing so, tell us a little bit about your career.
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[SPEAKER_01]: What led you to become a feature film producer, a director and a writer?
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[SPEAKER_01]: What do we need to know about you first?
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[SPEAKER_02]: Well, I fell in love with filmmaking.
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[SPEAKER_02]: I think when I was four years old, so I remember seeing ET when I was a kid and when ET went home, I bald my eyes out and I knew at four years old that cinema had some sort of a power over an audience and was able to control their emotions.
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[SPEAKER_02]: So yeah, I set my sights on filmmaking pretty early in life.
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[SPEAKER_02]: I don't know if I entered filmmaking because I necessarily wanted a job.
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[SPEAKER_02]: I entered into the field because I was like fascinated how stories shape people's identities.
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[SPEAKER_02]: And I've always been drawn to people at the, like the turning points in their lives and found that very interesting to witness as an audience member and over time that led me to stories about character driven narratives.
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[SPEAKER_02]: I've done movies with Netflix, we did a movie called Kiss and Cry, Cancer Drama, did a movie called Full Out, a gymnastics movie with Jennifer Beals.
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[SPEAKER_02]: So, across by projects, you know, whether it's a cancer drama, sports biopic or a documentary, I keep kind of returning to this one idea of what happens when someone refuses to be defined by circumstance.
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[SPEAKER_02]: It's always fun to witness underdogs in stories, kind of achieving their dreams.
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[SPEAKER_01]: So is this really the themes that you focus on, you've mentioned various themes that you focused on in connection with your movies, but are these the ones that you always are looking for something new and why those?
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[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, I've always been drawn to, you know, I guess certain things that I love are like resilience, I love stories about dignity, about faith in oneself, and underestimated people.
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[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, I think those are the greatest characters when you think of characters through the history of cinema.
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[SPEAKER_02]: It's always those underestimated characters that have to overcome some sort of great obstacle throughout the film.
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[SPEAKER_02]: And
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[SPEAKER_02]: ultimately come to some sort of redemption story.
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[SPEAKER_02]: Whether it's someone facing illness or physical injury or social marginalization, all that sort of things.
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[SPEAKER_02]: I gravitate towards stories where someone reclaims agency.
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[SPEAKER_02]: So I think that through line led very naturally to silver screamers because today,
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[SPEAKER_01]: take us a little bit further on that because that was going to be my segue into you're telling us more about Silver Screemers.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Why did you decide to produce a documentary called Silver Screemers?
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[SPEAKER_01]: And what was the goal?
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[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, who is your target audience?
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[SPEAKER_01]: What did you want to accomplish by producing this particular documentary?
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[SPEAKER_02]: You know, if you want me to be honest, I never kind of set out to make this documentary, I wanted to make this horror film called The Rug.
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[SPEAKER_02]: And I kept getting denied funding from our system here in my country.
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[SPEAKER_02]: Every filmmaker applies for funding opportunities and we're more often than not met with rejection, you know, it's the rejection that's the no stamp every every filmmaker gets.
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[SPEAKER_02]: is the project kept getting turned down.
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[SPEAKER_02]: I came across this one.
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[SPEAKER_02]: It wasn't a film fund.
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[SPEAKER_02]: It was a fund called the New Horizons for Senior's Program.
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[SPEAKER_02]: And it's a fund meant to get older adults off their couches and doing something active and engaging with the community.
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[SPEAKER_02]: You know, the fund could be used to host a bingo night once a month or quilting club.
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[SPEAKER_02]: That sort of thing.
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[SPEAKER_02]: Those are what the fund has been typically used for.
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[SPEAKER_02]: So when that funding opportunity came across my desk, I sort of spun the application to what if this is a filmmaking workshop for older adults in my community and we were able to take those funds that the grant offered and turn that into a filmmaking experience where we had to go out into the community and find older adults willing to go on this horror film journey with us.
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[SPEAKER_02]: But it's all that all started with this creative question like what would happen if a group of older adults made a horror film.
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[SPEAKER_02]: And I knew that idea was so intriguing.
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[SPEAKER_02]: When I mentioned other people, it just kind of naturally led to shooting two projects at one.
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[SPEAKER_02]: We had to shoot the horror film on set for a very, very specific audience.
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[SPEAKER_02]: Like we wanted to make up a realistic horror movie.
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[SPEAKER_02]: But at the same time, we had a documentary crew following everybody as this project came to be.
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[SPEAKER_02]: And so it was shooting two movies at the same time.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you for mentioning that because you said that this particular story was originally called the rug.
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[SPEAKER_02]: Yes.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Am I correct?
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[SPEAKER_02]: That's the short horror movie within the documentary.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Tell us a little bit about that.
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[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, what was the story there?
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[SPEAKER_01]: And then how did you weave that into the participants of the older adult participants who were going to be performing?
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[SPEAKER_01]: How did this all come together?
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[SPEAKER_02]: So the rug is based on a short story by horror author Ado Van Belkum.
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[SPEAKER_02]: And it's the story of this 78-year-old woman who discovers a discarded throw rug on the side of a road and brings it home only to discover.
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[SPEAKER_02]: that the rug has this penchant for digesting anything that's left under it.
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[SPEAKER_02]: So the story always had a, you know, a senior focus to it and I thought if we're going to have an older adult leading the cast, then what would it be like if we had a whole crew of older adults on the project as well and had just became this, you know, synthesis of ideas from different generations kind of coming through and informing the nature of the film.
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[SPEAKER_02]: Her then silver screamers, the documentary is this heartwarming and spine tingling documentary that follows this group of older adults as they set out to make this horror film, the stepping out of their comfort zones and they learn to use cameras and fake blood and along the way they discover this newfound confidence and resilience and humor and heart and you know, just goes to prove that when these communities can kind of organically come together
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[SPEAKER_01]: I am wondering if there were ever any other horror films that you were aware of that featured older adults.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Or is this really a new genre that now, you know, given the fact that folks are getting older, not only in Canada, where you are, but here on the United States, that this might be a whole new generation of horror films that star older adults.
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[SPEAKER_00]: So I was just wondering if this is new ground for you and others?
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[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, if I go back to my memory, yeah, there are a few films I can think of that that have older adults as characters in films.
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[SPEAKER_02]: Certainly, you know, going back to Rosemary's baby, I mean, they were all often portrayed as like creepy cultists and there's a movie called whatever happened at Baby Jane had aging sisters and psychological torment.
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[SPEAKER_02]: But, you know, thinking of more into the 2000s, there was a movie called Baba Hotep, which is featured an elderly Elvis Presley in a retirement home battling with his partner at JFK, look alike, a star, and it's a horror comedy about Elvis battling a nursing home money.
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[SPEAKER_02]: And there's the visit by end night Shyamalan, one of our great horror filmmakers, it's about these two kids that spend a weekend at their eccentric grandparents' house.
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[SPEAKER_02]: But all the characters, all the older characters, they're not characters you want to strive to be like let's say.
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[SPEAKER_02]: They're not seen in the the best of light.
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[SPEAKER_02]: So we wanted to take that and spin it in our film.
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[SPEAKER_01]: also not only in terms of other films, but I was wondering often times when people decide to do something in connection with older adults, there might be some kind of personal family association.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Parents, perhaps, or grandparents, you've noticed certain factors about your relatives that might come into play when you do this movie was wondering if that had any
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[SPEAKER_02]: Are you a psychologist of some kind of like, yeah, I feel like you're in my head right now because that is a very apt observation, yes.
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[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I mean, I've, have older adults in my life.
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[SPEAKER_02]: I think I'm in that sandwich generation.
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[SPEAKER_02]: I have aging parents and I have young kids.
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[SPEAKER_02]: And so, I don't know, I'm at the point of my life where I'm starting to pay attention to, you know, friendly neighbors that seem to kind of come and go and, you know, my grandparents passed away.
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[SPEAKER_02]: So I'm at that age where I'm thinking about mortality more and more often.
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[SPEAKER_02]: So,
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[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, perhaps this film in some way is that it's like a correct of lens, I'd say.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Well, and I want to compliment you because you mentioned a little bit earlier about the fact that oftentimes movies really are very ageist and show older adults in very stereotypical ways.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And so I was just wondering if have a relatives or older that even some of these like
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[SPEAKER_01]: characteristics that you saw in your own family members may have come out in silver screamers.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And I was just wondering if you kept that in mind as you again began to produce the show and I want to start getting into that.
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[SPEAKER_01]: But I'm hearing that you were very sensitive to the fact that older adults have certain characteristics.
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[SPEAKER_01]: I'm good.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Some maybe not so good and that you wanted to incorporate some of those in your movie as well.
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[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I think you're well, age isn't even in its subtle forms as a big theme in our film, but there's also other topics we refer to our maybe social isolation.
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[SPEAKER_02]: That seems to be a big component in our film as well.
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[SPEAKER_02]: A lot of the protagonists that signed up to come on this filmmaking journey with us were met with some form of isolation in their communities.
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[SPEAKER_02]: And it was through this process of making the film that they were able to kind of shatter that isolation
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[SPEAKER_02]: a bit of a reprieve, you know, or film gave them a bit of a reprieve, but there's also like, you know, some of our participants mentioned the boss of purpose after retirement, the fear of technology as well, like a lot of our participants were kind of worried that they wouldn't be able to operate the equipment and so there was this fear of technology.
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[SPEAKER_02]: And sadly, the hunger for relevance, I didn't want the film to feel like a lecture necessarily, but I kind of wanted the audience to feel joy and inspiration first, and then maybe at the end, they realized they absorbed something a little bit more meaningful.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Well, good segue into actual selection of these participants in silver screeners talk a little bit more about that you mentioned a little bit earlier that there's some organization nearby where you are and that there was some contact there, but talk a little bit more in terms of characteristics male female what do we need to know about who you wanted in the stock inventory.
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[SPEAKER_02]: I feel like I went around to 10, 20, maybe even like 30 different organizations, like places of living in my community, just looking for interested participants to come on this journey with us.
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[SPEAKER_02]: We had a, you know, creative pitch which featured, we want to be honest, this was going to be the making of a horror film.
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[SPEAKER_02]: We mentioned that there would be blood and gore, and I was met with so many,
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[SPEAKER_02]: I don't know, people with just shocked expressions and nobody wanted to participate in our production.
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[SPEAKER_02]: I thought I would never get a willing volunteer.
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[SPEAKER_02]: I think it was just the words blood and gore that made people just kind of their faces just dropped in, like looked at me like I was in saying.
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[SPEAKER_02]: So, yeah, it wasn't until this 196 year old raised her hand and said, this sounds fun, I want to do this.
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[SPEAKER_02]: And that was Audrey.
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[SPEAKER_02]: She does not have a lot of opportunity to go out into the community and participate in events like these.
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[SPEAKER_02]: So, she was our first Gungho willing participant.
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[SPEAKER_02]: And once Audrey was on board, she brought along her 80 year old nephew, David.
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[SPEAKER_02]: So,
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[SPEAKER_02]: with David and Audrey on board, just the more and more people kept signing up.
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[SPEAKER_02]: But I think it just took one willing participant to say yes to this bizarre journey.
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[SPEAKER_02]: And once Audrey signed up, we were able to find our core group of eight protagonists that we follow throughout the making of silver screeners.
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[SPEAKER_02]: And, you know, that was for the production phase, but then we go into post-production, which is all the editing and music, and then we had a whole other group of interested participants.
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[SPEAKER_02]: So we were both to find like a senior's choir to help create the music for the film.
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[SPEAKER_02]: And so it was just a remarkable experience to like taking all this creativity from around our community that derived from older adults to infuse it into our film was the most inspiring thing that we witnessed.
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[SPEAKER_01]: I watched the trailer for this documentary and I was touched by the comment of one of the participants who as I understood it had recently lost her husband and she said, I just lost my husband not too long ago and I really have to do this and I was so touched by that because
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[SPEAKER_01]: One can only imagine the grief and the despair and the loneliness, the kinds of things that you're talking about.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And it was like, you, Sean, gave this woman a purpose to reason to get up in the morning.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And what a joy.
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[SPEAKER_01]: I can only imagine that all of these factors that these older adults are dealing with at this stage of their life
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[SPEAKER_01]: Maybe put aside while they were asked to do this something very special did you find that to be true as you worked with these folks?
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[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I think you're talking about Diane, so Diane, I only found this out recently at a film festival screening that Diane came along to, yeah, that's a touching scene in our documentary, but she told me that she saw this flyer at the local community center asking for older adults to sign up for this project on the day her husband passed away.
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[SPEAKER_02]: So she kind of took that as a sign.
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[SPEAKER_02]: I have to do this.
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[SPEAKER_02]: If I'm ever going to,
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[SPEAKER_02]: You know, get over my grief, this would be an opportunity to do that.
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[SPEAKER_02]: So she took it as a sign from above to to jump in and participate in this and this project.
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[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I mean, we weren't looking for actors.
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[SPEAKER_02]: You know, we were looking for people with a lot of courage and curiosity.
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[SPEAKER_02]: And I think our participants that signed up were the ones who said, yes, we're willing to look kind of up maybe a little inexperienced, I would say, or, you know, they were worried about looking foolish.
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[SPEAKER_02]: But that is, I think the fear of trying something new.
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[SPEAKER_02]: So the ones that came on board were really at that bravery factor, I think.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And given the fact that you were working now with folks who had never acted before, how did you structure your orientation activities to prepare these folks?
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[SPEAKER_01]: You mentioned the first of all, maybe a limited knowledge of technology, and as you said, they'd never acted before.
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[SPEAKER_01]: So how did you and your staff members decide, well, this is what we're going to do to make sure that they understand what they are supposed to do,
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[SPEAKER_01]: at a level that they could understand and adapt for the for their roles.
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[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, well, number one was we brand these hands on workshops as well.
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[SPEAKER_02]: We did kind of like a film school scene.
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[SPEAKER_02]: So we wanted to learn how to play with cameras and lighting and sound, but also these storytelling basics.
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[SPEAKER_02]: We all
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[SPEAKER_02]: sat around a room and read through the script and we're able to talk about how we would translate the words on the page of the script into something visual.
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[SPEAKER_02]: That's the beautiful thing about filmmaking is that you take a written word and you have to come up with some sort of creative camera move or camera language to translate the ideas on the page into cinema.
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[SPEAKER_02]: You know, but more importantly, we wanted to build trust.
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[SPEAKER_02]: So from the first day, there was obviously hesitation with everybody, but by like the third session, our older adults were pitching different creative ideas with confidence and witnessing that transformation was extraordinary.
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[SPEAKER_02]: And I wanted to spend time with every one of our participants.
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[SPEAKER_02]: They were like I said, they were eight key older adult crew members.
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[SPEAKER_02]: And each role on set was assigned to them based on their interest and their past work experience as well.
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[SPEAKER_02]: So David, he was a former teacher, puppeteer.
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[SPEAKER_02]: He used to make puppets out of a specialist powder with his class, you know, 60 years ago when a specialist was more I suppose more common.
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[SPEAKER_02]: But because David had this puppeteering experience, we thought he would be a natural fit for having our, you know, evil rug kind of come to life.
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[SPEAKER_02]: So David devises amazing Marionette system that he hooked up to the rug and kind of made our killer rug come to life through his creativity.
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[SPEAKER_02]: Sunny, Sunny's 70 year old, maybe he's probably our biggest technical wizard.
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[SPEAKER_02]: He's loved cameras throughout his life.
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[SPEAKER_02]: He makes little documentaries for the residents in his building, and so Sunny navigated to the camera department quite easily.
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[SPEAKER_02]: So he was our camera operator.
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[SPEAKER_02]: He's never used an Alexis Cinema camera before in Alexa cameras like the standard filmmaking
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[SPEAKER_02]: So once Sunny started playing with that and he and all the tools to push the camera in a dolly and change lenses, like these $100,000 lenses on the camera, Sunny was in heaven seeing his his visions sort of come to life through this new technology.
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[SPEAKER_01]: I've also curious to mention to male members and their technical expertise.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Anything in terms of the female members, because I'm looking at your poster behind you, and you had just to understand, you had four women and four men.
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[SPEAKER_02]: I think it was five, five women in three men.
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[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, so Lucia is a painter from Southern Italy and because she loves artwork, Lucia wanted to be the production designer of the film.
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[SPEAKER_02]: So she was responsible for,
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[SPEAKER_02]: taking a relatively normal looking room and using her artistry to paint within the frame that we set up.
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[SPEAKER_02]: So every frame was kind of looked over by Lucia and little elements were added that helped amplify the unsettling feeling of the location to make it as horrific as possible.
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[SPEAKER_02]: As I said, Audrey was our 96 year old.
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[SPEAKER_02]: She was the Sam recordist of the film.
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[SPEAKER_02]: Audrey has some mobility issues so she couldn't move around too much so sitting at a dedicated station with a sound recorder headphones and she was able to record sound for our film and capture crystal clear sound.
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[SPEAKER_02]: I was her passion.
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[SPEAKER_02]: She wanted to sit.
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[SPEAKER_02]: Listen to the actors through her headphones and record sound as effectively as she could.
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[SPEAKER_01]: sounds like everybody had a particular area of expertise which worked out well.
21:17.014 --> 21:26.028
[SPEAKER_01]: Another question that I had is I'm assuming that the crew members that you usually work with when you produce movies are younger.
21:26.990 --> 21:37.066
[SPEAKER_01]: And I was wondering what kind of an interaction occurred with these older adult participants and your crew members did they learn from each other?
21:37.126 --> 21:38.548
[SPEAKER_01]: What did that look like?
21:39.271 --> 21:44.577
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, when we started the documentary, we never envisioned having younger crew members.
21:44.637 --> 21:48.602
[SPEAKER_02]: This was solely supposed to be an older adult, driven documentary.
21:48.962 --> 21:58.953
[SPEAKER_02]: But at some point along the filmmaking journey, I'd say maybe a couple of weeks before the our seniors went into production mode on the making of the rug.
21:58.993 --> 22:03.979
[SPEAKER_02]: We got a call from our insurance companies and they said,
22:03.959 --> 22:13.714
[SPEAKER_02]: we just found out that your crew is composed of inexperienced older adults who have not used this equipment before and were not going to rent you the equipment.
22:13.734 --> 22:21.465
[SPEAKER_02]: We do not want older adults carrying and lifting $800,000 worth of film equipment when they have them in trained on it.
22:21.625 --> 22:23.368
[SPEAKER_02]: So we sort of
22:23.348 --> 22:39.113
[SPEAKER_02]: were dejected a little bit, you know, we didn't want to populate our film set with younger people and have some takeover, but we thought of a, we devised a way that the younger crew members could, you know, do the heavy lifting, but just be mentors for the older adults.
22:39.093 --> 22:43.821
[SPEAKER_02]: And then it became this really beautiful intergenerational tale that we didn't sort of expect.
22:43.941 --> 22:46.546
[SPEAKER_02]: We witnessed these friendships sort of blooming.
22:46.646 --> 22:49.611
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm thinking Diane, who was on on makeup.
22:49.631 --> 22:55.801
[SPEAKER_02]: She bonded with her younger film industry mentor Sarah through storytelling in makeup.
22:56.022 --> 22:58.526
[SPEAKER_02]: Diane contributed to all these wonderful ideas.
22:58.606 --> 22:59.127
[SPEAKER_02]: Like
22:59.107 --> 23:25.452
[SPEAKER_02]: She thought that the main character in the rug should start as a pleasant normal looking protagonist and then through the course of the film She wanted to tell a story through makeup that where she there were bags under her eyes and just kind of all the color from her face sort of dissipated throughout the film So Diane was using her creative ideas and Sarah our younger crew member was just sort of giving her the tools to achieve revision
23:25.651 --> 23:40.740
[SPEAKER_02]: So yeah, it just become this kind of beautiful sort of synthesis between two generations working alongside each other and supporting each other and as you were moving ahead on this in terms of the planning process was this.
23:40.720 --> 23:54.133
[SPEAKER_01]: A lot different than the way you usually produce movies or documentaries may given the again the age and the expertise of the participants and what you just said in terms of the insurance issues.
23:54.954 --> 24:03.342
[SPEAKER_01]: Sounds like the process was a little different than the way you usually approach making a movie or a documentary in my correct?
24:03.562 --> 24:06.385
[SPEAKER_02]: You are very correct, yeah.
24:06.425 --> 24:09.428
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean the process of
24:09.408 --> 24:20.506
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, usually on a film set efficiency dominates production here, in our case, the experience of the making of the film mattered as much as it didn't in the final cut.
24:21.067 --> 24:25.054
[SPEAKER_02]: So we built in space for conversation and reflection.
24:25.034 --> 24:30.181
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, like I said, usually, you know, we arrive on set, we set up lights, it's really fast.
24:30.302 --> 24:37.492
[SPEAKER_02]: We are waiting for the actors to get into their makeup and as soon as they're done, they're rushed onto set, we shoot a scene, we send them back to get changed for the next scene.
24:37.552 --> 24:41.337
[SPEAKER_02]: And then that's just this kind of well-oiled machine over the years.
24:41.437 --> 24:53.775
[SPEAKER_02]: But, you know, on a production like this, because everybody was new and nervous, we wanted to be a little slower-paced and ensure that everybody kind of felt comfortable and was able to give their ideas when they had one.
24:53.755 --> 25:02.627
[SPEAKER_02]: I'd say like, you know, because we're so used to production on my end, like that's kind of my life with my entire career is being on film sets.
25:03.347 --> 25:09.756
[SPEAKER_02]: I have to say to witness our protagonists kind of coming in and being so wide-eyed on the first day.
25:09.776 --> 25:14.682
[SPEAKER_02]: It was almost like reliving my first day on set, only through fresher eyes.
25:14.762 --> 25:23.053
[SPEAKER_02]: So to experience that joy of being on a film set through our older adults eyes was really special for all of us involved.
25:23.928 --> 25:27.172
[SPEAKER_01]: And did you have to say limit the time?
25:27.272 --> 25:30.516
[SPEAKER_01]: It sounds like usually again when you're producing movies.
25:30.576 --> 25:33.740
[SPEAKER_01]: There's brush rush rush and time is money and this kind of thing.
25:34.241 --> 25:44.333
[SPEAKER_01]: But for this particular participants and what you were doing was there a different kind of time span or that you had to adjust to?
25:44.313 --> 25:48.260
[SPEAKER_02]: It's like you were on set, Cheryl, you know everything that's happening behind the scenes.
25:48.740 --> 25:53.208
[SPEAKER_02]: So, yes, usually a film day is about maybe 14 hours long, let's say.
25:53.589 --> 26:00.120
[SPEAKER_02]: We knew we couldn't have newcomers who were maybe a little bit more advanced in age last that long.
26:00.260 --> 26:10.337
[SPEAKER_02]: So, what we did was we had the younger crew members show up first and load in the heavy gear and kind of take out the lights and kind of put them on stands.
26:10.317 --> 26:21.193
[SPEAKER_02]: So that allowed us an hour and a half just to get ready so that when our older adult participants showed up everything was sort of unloaded out of the boxes and just like the creative part could begin.
26:21.253 --> 26:27.242
[SPEAKER_02]: They didn't have to wait around while lights were being put on stands and lugged up and downstairs.
26:27.683 --> 26:37.658
[SPEAKER_02]: We sort of bypass that to make sure that we had the maximum amount of effort and creativity would allow the production to incorporate our older adults as much as possible.
26:37.638 --> 26:44.750
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, quite frankly, one of the things that you should know Sean is in addition to doing a podcast, I also produce a TV show.
26:45.311 --> 26:50.460
[SPEAKER_01]: So I'm somewhat aware of what's involved, whether it's audio or teleprompters.
26:50.801 --> 26:55.108
[SPEAKER_01]: I know that's not exactly what you do in movies, but cameras in that.
26:55.128 --> 27:03.122
[SPEAKER_01]: And so to that point, there are a lot of technical aspects, which are a little fascinating if one has never made a movie,
27:03.102 --> 27:17.700
[SPEAKER_01]: were there such things in Silver Screemers that needed more explanation because of the actors age or were they able to kind of grasp what was going on and just go with the flow.
27:18.181 --> 27:18.883
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I mean, we
27:18.863 --> 27:26.872
[SPEAKER_02]: certainly try to avoid, you know, filmmaking jargon as much as possible, like film sets can almost feel like a foreign language at times.
27:27.453 --> 27:33.801
[SPEAKER_02]: But once we demystified it a little bit that that fear or the apprehensions evaporated.
27:34.642 --> 27:40.389
[SPEAKER_02]: It was just like ever a reminder that it's not aged that limits people, it's exclusion.
27:40.449 --> 27:48.398
[SPEAKER_02]: And so to involve our protagonist in every sort of creative
27:48.378 --> 27:57.451
[SPEAKER_02]: some of the the technical know-how and distill it down into a more simpler fashion because we only had two or three days to shoot this horror movie.
27:57.872 --> 28:08.968
[SPEAKER_02]: We wanted to demystify the the technological aspects of the production and make the creative decisions more intuitive rather than based on any sort of technical formula that might arise.
28:08.948 --> 28:22.500
[SPEAKER_02]: Like I'm thinking like when you put on a different lens like two different lenses will make a scene feel different and lenses are used for whether you want a wide shot or a close up those lenses are used for those purposes.
28:22.600 --> 28:29.547
[SPEAKER_02]: So you know in speaking to a sunny hour camera person he wanted to use lenses to their maximum efficiency.
28:29.567 --> 28:38.955
[SPEAKER_02]: So he just needed a bit of help is to say wide angle lens like a 20 millimeter lens or as a close up an 85 millimeter lens.
28:38.935 --> 28:46.228
[SPEAKER_02]: But he told us what he wanted and we were able to just kind of present the technology for him to help his decision.
28:46.462 --> 29:10.275
[SPEAKER_01]: So I asked already about the timeline, was there also any adjustment, say, for pacing and structure, again, because of the fact that you were dealing with folks that, you know, were much older, anything that you said or discovered that you needed to do because of the age of the participants or once you got started were things going pretty well.
29:10.255 --> 29:13.360
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't think during the production we paste it any differently.
29:13.380 --> 29:23.858
[SPEAKER_02]: It still felt like every film production I've ever been on when we are running against the clock and trying to get as many shots in before we have to pull the plug.
29:24.379 --> 29:29.107
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, but I think a lot of the pacing and structure comes from the editing room afterwards.
29:29.768 --> 29:30.930
[SPEAKER_02]: We shot what
29:30.910 --> 29:34.835
[SPEAKER_02]: felt like hundreds of hours of footage that we had to kind of cut down to 90 minutes.
29:34.855 --> 29:38.279
[SPEAKER_02]: So in the editing room, we work on pacing and in structure.
29:38.359 --> 29:44.107
[SPEAKER_02]: But in this case, I want to structure the documentary like a coming of age sort of story.
29:44.587 --> 29:47.431
[SPEAKER_02]: But just happens to be a coming of age story later in life.
29:47.872 --> 29:51.837
[SPEAKER_02]: There's anticipation, there's doubt, there's breakthrough, there's triumph.
29:52.417 --> 30:00.748
[SPEAKER_02]: So I wanted the audience to forget that they're watching a film about seniors
30:01.049 --> 30:02.811
[SPEAKER_01]: Sean, take that one step further.
30:02.931 --> 30:24.410
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm curious to know if there were particular scenes or lines by the participants that hold special significance for you as you did this, were there times or particular, again, scenes that were just very special and that you smiled and said, I'm so glad I'm doing this.
30:24.430 --> 30:29.875
[SPEAKER_01]: For just curious as to how you felt as you produced this particular documentary.
30:30.428 --> 30:41.736
[SPEAKER_02]: Because we take the film from the idea phase, all the way through production and post-production, so we're witnessing the making of a film through these older adult eyes.
30:41.776 --> 30:47.931
[SPEAKER_02]: One of my fondest scenes I recall filming was the day of the premiere of The Rug.
30:47.911 --> 31:09.450
[SPEAKER_02]: So we rented a theater and the local community and we're just hoping somebody shows up to support our heroes They were very nervous that no one would want to show up to their movie and so we filmed a scene in the dressing room before hand We're just kind of reflecting on their experience and they just said regardless of who shows up You know, if anyone sees us, I just know that I'm inspired.
31:09.570 --> 31:12.315
[SPEAKER_02]: I went through this process and I'm inspired
31:12.295 --> 31:20.305
[SPEAKER_02]: at the work we did ourselves and, you know, one person said, I never thought that a scale I had 60 years ago would pay off today.
31:20.345 --> 31:28.656
[SPEAKER_02]: And so, yeah, there was just all these reflections on the nature of past life and incorporating it into a new sort of endeavor.
31:28.696 --> 31:38.168
[SPEAKER_02]: And what was heartwarming was when the entire community showed up in support of their film, and there was not a single seat left in the auditorium for our heroes.
31:38.367 --> 31:39.128
[SPEAKER_01]: nice story.
31:39.168 --> 31:47.683
[SPEAKER_01]: Also, I was interested to hear any kind of behind the scenes anecdotes from the production process.
31:48.104 --> 31:55.397
[SPEAKER_01]: Something that either didn't turn out well or you had to reshoot it because the idea that you had
31:55.377 --> 32:10.740
[SPEAKER_01]: didn't work out as well as you thought it was going to because sometimes we often hear for those of us who watch movies and that I'm sure there's take one and take two and take three because it's not going as well as it was expected anything like that happened for you.
32:11.060 --> 32:23.258
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah and it was you know I hate to say that loud but it's um we had an 87-year-old
32:23.238 --> 32:50.055
[SPEAKER_02]: And then we had a composer kind of write her some notations that she could follow, sorry, I'm not a musician, I don't know how to kind of explain this, but you know those music notes on a piece of paper that a penis can kind of play along to someone composed a score so that Gwyneth could play, but as she sat at the computer, like her hands were our our theoretic and she couldn't move and hit the octaves as well as she could in every younger days when she was practicing more.
32:50.035 --> 32:57.808
[SPEAKER_02]: And so the music, the first pass at the score for the movie didn't quite turn out the way she wanted to or the way the crew wanted to as well.
32:57.848 --> 33:03.337
[SPEAKER_02]: So we had to, you know, it happens all the time in the film world.
33:03.398 --> 33:06.643
[SPEAKER_02]: It's just something you have to get used to if you work in the creative field.
33:06.623 --> 33:23.631
[SPEAKER_02]: we weren't able to incorporate her music despite us filming a scene where we showed her working on the film and how much effort she put into it but in some cases we had to just say this isn't working and we had to move along to find a different solution for the horror film score.
33:23.671 --> 33:29.301
[SPEAKER_02]: So it's just seen out and we captured real life and it was disappointing but it's the filmmaking process.
33:30.242 --> 33:31.905
[SPEAKER_01]: Was that tough for her too?
33:32.037 --> 33:52.375
[SPEAKER_02]: I think so yeah she understood we put her music in the end credits of course so she did have that ability to look back up on the screen and see her work reflected back but you know she was great about it we included her her scene in the film and it was just you know a part breaking moment within the film where we couldn't use her work she totally understood.
33:53.300 --> 34:18.818
[SPEAKER_01]: Did you find any particular noteworthy changes or revisions that you had to make during the production that you had planted out a certain way and then such as what you just described, but anything else that was more in terms of the script or the way somebody was going to be acting or the scenes or something that you just had to
34:18.798 --> 34:24.108
[SPEAKER_01]: the lead or revise, this was wondering if there was a lot of changes.
34:24.990 --> 34:36.553
[SPEAKER_02]: I think when we first started showing the documentary, even in the rough cut stage, people wanted to know more about the back stories of each of our participants.
34:36.533 --> 34:52.350
[SPEAKER_02]: We weaved in one or two minutes, back stories on each of our participant, we get to know where they where they came from, their past career, what their interests are, if anything, sort of monumental happened that defined them as a person as they as they went on in their life.
34:52.550 --> 35:05.764
[SPEAKER_02]: So I think that was a wise idea to weave in these narratives behind the scenes so that when you see our protagonist being creative and contributing ideas on the film set,
35:05.744 --> 35:15.834
[SPEAKER_02]: We understand why they're making these creed decisions because it had something to do with the an element in their past, which I thought was a worthy addition of including in the documentary.
35:16.797 --> 35:19.365
[SPEAKER_01]: Is the documentary out yet?
35:19.463 --> 35:47.732
[SPEAKER_01]: or is it being shown only in Canada or in the United States or tell us a little bit about that because I'm wondering as our listeners are going to be wanting to see this documentary since we've been talking so much and to that point then so not only the logistics here and that but what message or emotions do you hope that the viewers will
35:47.712 --> 35:51.259
[SPEAKER_02]: So yeah, we're the early sort of release stage now.
35:51.339 --> 35:56.388
[SPEAKER_02]: So back in September, we premiered at different film festivals around the world.
35:56.549 --> 36:10.395
[SPEAKER_02]: So originally, I thought this was going to be a film for documentary film festival audiences, but I quickly realized that the genre community has responded strongly to this project.
36:10.375 --> 36:22.587
[SPEAKER_02]: meaning there's a variety of different horror film festivals around the world, and these are the festivals that are clamoring for this movie because it's not a documentary that you typically see in a genre festival.
36:23.167 --> 36:38.762
[SPEAKER_02]: So we premiered at Fantastic Fest in Austin, Texas, and you know this was more the demographic is mostly younger people wanting the latest horror film, this is
36:38.742 --> 36:52.720
[SPEAKER_02]: But by the end of the movie, this hardcore genre audience was wiping away tears and standing and clapping for our protagonist and just goes to show that the genre community has a big heart as well, they're very epithetic audience members.
36:53.361 --> 36:57.686
[SPEAKER_02]: So yes, right now we're at the stage where we're releasing our film theatrically.
36:57.887 --> 36:59.789
[SPEAKER_02]: So I'm from Canada, obviously.
36:59.829 --> 37:01.211
[SPEAKER_02]: So I can attend these screenings.
37:01.291 --> 37:05.897
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm going to the hot ducks cinema in Toronto where we open an April.
37:05.877 --> 37:07.699
[SPEAKER_02]: similarly in Vancouver as well.
37:08.300 --> 37:13.946
[SPEAKER_02]: And I'm partnering with all the different aging organizations across the country, these aging research centers at universities.
37:14.046 --> 37:25.459
[SPEAKER_02]: So I'm partnering our film with workshops for older adults to teach them filmmaking in a couple of hours so that they can come and touch cameras and learn some basic editing before they see the film.
37:25.499 --> 37:33.167
[SPEAKER_02]: So it's a wonderful way to to involve the local older adult community in every city that we screen the film in.
37:33.147 --> 37:35.692
[SPEAKER_02]: And also, we're starting to screen it in the U.S. as well.
37:35.732 --> 37:42.646
[SPEAKER_02]: So we have a screening and the University of Maine coming up and we're partnering with all these different gerontology departments throughout the country as well.
37:42.706 --> 37:44.569
[SPEAKER_02]: So we're in our early phases of doing that.
37:45.190 --> 37:48.557
[SPEAKER_02]: We need a screening book for tele-hassee, San Diego,
37:48.537 --> 38:05.736
[SPEAKER_02]: And as we make connections to all these different aging organizations, aging research centers, this is a way to get our film to the, I would say the gatekeepers in the gerontology world who can best speak about our film in their circles and it helps us kind of program across the country as well.
38:05.952 --> 38:13.547
[SPEAKER_01]: You mentioned about tears in the eyes of the viewers, which tells me about your message or emotions.
38:14.269 --> 38:15.331
[SPEAKER_01]: Did you expect that?
38:16.032 --> 38:19.479
[SPEAKER_01]: It sounded like what you were saying is that it was a younger audience.
38:20.080 --> 38:27.876
[SPEAKER_01]: So what I'm hearing you say is that you're also trying to promote this documentary for older adults,
38:27.856 --> 38:33.345
[SPEAKER_01]: but it sounds like at least initially it was the younger folks who were going to see this.
38:33.706 --> 38:35.790
[SPEAKER_01]: And so that's kind of a bonus.
38:36.351 --> 38:37.012
[SPEAKER_01]: Would you agree?
38:37.032 --> 38:38.695
[SPEAKER_02]: I definitely would agree.
38:38.815 --> 38:43.603
[SPEAKER_02]: I never thought it would connect to a younger audience, but they say we were
38:44.005 --> 38:48.314
[SPEAKER_02]: Growing up, loving the horror films, we were always the outsiders.
38:48.394 --> 38:56.831
[SPEAKER_02]: We spent a lot of time isolated in our room, watching these movies, and they kind of related it to what older adults must be going through now.
38:56.911 --> 39:00.478
[SPEAKER_02]: They spend a lot of time isolated, and it's all about.
39:00.458 --> 39:08.709
[SPEAKER_02]: being a part of this horror community that gets them excited and that this is where they can meet with like-minded people and share and experience.
39:08.769 --> 39:12.054
[SPEAKER_02]: So I think that's what these younger audiences are responding to.
39:12.074 --> 39:20.385
[SPEAKER_02]: And it's just, you know, it's a lovely story about hope and permission, and it's, I think it's reframing aging in some, in some sense.
39:20.425 --> 39:29.858
[SPEAKER_02]: So I hope that when someone in their 70s watches the film signs up for something new, I think that we've kind of achieved
39:29.838 --> 39:37.198
[SPEAKER_02]: And I hope that, you know, someone in their 30s who might be watching this, I hope that they rethink how they view older adults.
39:38.225 --> 40:01.617
[SPEAKER_01]: And I just wanted to make sure that our listeners were aware, Sean, that since it is going to also be coming into the United States, released in the United States, as well as in Canada, is there a particular website that people can log on to to find out when the documentary will be shown in their particular community.
40:01.597 --> 40:02.278
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
40:02.298 --> 40:04.623
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, we're really active on social media.
40:04.643 --> 40:12.240
[SPEAKER_02]: So if people want to follow at silver screamers duck on Facebook and Instagram, we post all our upcoming screenings on there.
40:12.961 --> 40:15.787
[SPEAKER_02]: We have a website to silver screamers.com.
40:16.248 --> 40:19.395
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, you can find all the information about the screenings on there.
40:19.856 --> 40:21.900
[SPEAKER_02]: But that being said, you know, if there's anybody
40:21.880 --> 40:36.902
[SPEAKER_02]: out there in the United States who is connected to an aging organization or a gerantology department, a senior's center sort of thing, anyone can kind of reach out to us through social media or media directly, you can look me up online, easy to find.
40:36.882 --> 40:45.334
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, you can feel free to book a screening for your own community and it'd be happy to kind of volunteer with a virtual Q&A for your community as well.
40:45.515 --> 40:53.146
[SPEAKER_02]: Like, we're very easy and simple to find and be want to screen this film as much as possible to inspire older adults in your community.
40:53.887 --> 40:56.351
[SPEAKER_02]: We think our target audience is pretty specific.
40:56.431 --> 40:57.372
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean,
40:57.352 --> 41:17.499
[SPEAKER_02]: We initially thought that this is a film for older adults and that's it, but it's really the it's the kind of the healthcare professionals, the ones responsible for booking programming for older adults in their communities, they're the ones that we seem to be interacting with the most because they have the ability or the maybe the funds to host a screening.
41:18.040 --> 41:25.570
[SPEAKER_02]: So we've learned that over the last few months that are very specific audience to engage with
41:25.550 --> 41:32.206
[SPEAKER_02]: activity directors at a retirement home who couldn't book our film and bring it to fair community of older adults.
41:32.607 --> 41:42.090
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, and since I'm broadcasting this from our Legion Virginia, just outside the nation's capital, I hope that you'll be coming to this area as well.
41:42.070 --> 41:45.098
[SPEAKER_01]: So maybe we'll have a chance to meet in person.
41:45.158 --> 41:53.160
[SPEAKER_01]: So Sean, I wanted to get back to you now in terms of this experience and what it means to you.
41:53.662 --> 41:57.733
[SPEAKER_01]: And if there's this is a turning point, do you think you'll direct
41:57.713 --> 42:18.105
[SPEAKER_01]: other films featuring older adults and if so, any possible themes, what did you learn from doing this that might generate another film or more than one film about older adults to continue to show them in the correct light rather than an ageist kind of theme?
42:18.465 --> 42:20.869
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, that's a great question.
42:21.068 --> 42:22.110
[SPEAKER_02]: I think so.
42:22.210 --> 42:27.658
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, every film I'm involved in is almost like getting entrenched into a new world.
42:27.738 --> 42:35.148
[SPEAKER_02]: I spent my life insulated in the film world and every time I make a film, I'm, I don't know, I get entrenched into that community.
42:35.188 --> 42:42.439
[SPEAKER_02]: So I did a movie, but a gymnast, for example, and that was, you know, it's a true story about a gymnast at UCLA.
42:42.459 --> 42:50.130
[SPEAKER_02]: And so for a couple of years, I was involved in the gymnastics community meeting with Olympians, gold medalists from the,
42:50.110 --> 42:56.804
[SPEAKER_02]: And we made a wine movie in Southern Italy, and that, then I spent a couple of years like learning all about wine and screening our film and vineyards.
42:57.345 --> 43:06.545
[SPEAKER_02]: And now with Silver Screemers, again, it's getting involved in this community, finding out as much as I can and try to connect our film to the audience.
43:06.565 --> 43:09.351
[SPEAKER_02]: But it's truly this has been the...
43:09.331 --> 43:25.720
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't want to say the easiest, but it has been the the most passionate sort of audience that I've encountered for sure, because there are so many advocates for older adults that want to see this this facet of society taking care of and happy and it's
43:25.700 --> 43:30.308
[SPEAKER_02]: remarkable how many supporters there are that just want to do good in this world.
43:30.709 --> 43:39.825
[SPEAKER_02]: I do feel like I want to stay in this and this lane for as long as I can because I'm enjoying it so much going to these screenings and interacting with audiences of older adults.
43:39.985 --> 43:47.298
[SPEAKER_02]: And I do think it's a community that's underserved, but it yields at least for me the best.
43:47.518 --> 43:48.400
[SPEAKER_02]: The best.
43:48.498 --> 43:50.161
[SPEAKER_02]: experience because I don't know.
43:50.321 --> 43:55.869
[SPEAKER_02]: I feel inspired and motivated when I leave a screenings and that's always the best feeling.
43:56.270 --> 44:04.903
[SPEAKER_02]: I know that we've done some good and provided a couple of hours of smiles and entertainment for an audience that might not usually get it.
44:06.267 --> 44:11.094
[SPEAKER_01]: One thing that strikes me is just in terms of, again, your description of the participants.
44:11.454 --> 44:12.997
[SPEAKER_01]: There are so many stories out there.
44:13.417 --> 44:30.262
[SPEAKER_01]: These folks have lived their lives, and it's not only what they're experiencing now, but what they experienced before, and there are lots of stories that can be shared in some kind of a film to, again, appropriately portray these older adults.
44:30.802 --> 44:34.047
[SPEAKER_01]: And to that point, then, Sean, I was wondering,
44:34.027 --> 44:41.080
[SPEAKER_01]: Do you really believe that the film industry and movie goers are very interested in films about older adults?
44:41.340 --> 44:46.289
[SPEAKER_01]: Or is this going to change because say of what you did with silver screeners?
44:46.870 --> 44:56.107
[SPEAKER_01]: And my other people become enlightened and say, wow, maybe this isn't such a bad approach for future movies.
44:56.367 --> 44:57.469
[SPEAKER_01]: What are your thoughts?
44:57.449 --> 45:13.500
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I recall like I went to a film festival a couple of years ago and I always like to sit in on the industry panels and I recall one distributor distributor is the one that puts the films in theaters after a film is made a distributor puts it into the theater's across the country so
45:13.480 --> 45:42.323
[SPEAKER_02]: I always remember this panel is saying film is a very, it's very much driven towards what's popular these days for youth and it's well how do we get youth into theaters but they also mentioned that if you ever want to go on the the other side of things and make a film for an older audience they go to the cinemas with clubs and it's a such an underserved market and nobody is making films for older audiences and they just cited so many examples of what works
45:42.303 --> 45:55.301
[SPEAKER_02]: and they said, nobody is pitching us these stories but we are kind of craving them because it serves an audience that filmmakers for some reason don't find as as cool as the younger more dramatic sort of content out there.
45:55.902 --> 46:11.263
[SPEAKER_02]: So absolutely, I think I will stick with these stories of late stage reinvention and entrepreneurship and there could be older stories about older adult
46:11.243 --> 46:15.609
[SPEAKER_02]: interested in stories that don't treat aging as decline necessarily.
46:15.649 --> 46:17.892
[SPEAKER_02]: It's more of an evolution, I would say.
46:19.213 --> 46:21.096
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, congratulations.
46:21.276 --> 46:28.626
[SPEAKER_01]: And by the way, since aging matters has been on for nine years now, I can probably give you some topics too that you could consider.
46:28.866 --> 46:35.935
[SPEAKER_01]: So also, since you are in Canada, and we're broadcasting us from the United States,
46:35.915 --> 46:46.977
[SPEAKER_01]: Any comments that you'd like to share with us about how the number of films featuring older adults in Canada compares with those in the United States?
46:47.217 --> 46:53.890
[SPEAKER_01]: I was just wondering if you've made any observations as to what you see in your own country versus the U.S.
46:53.870 --> 47:18.038
[SPEAKER_02]: No, I think it's improving for sure, but I think use culture still dominates, I mean, they're the ones getting the latest round of funding and they're making films that, you know, there's a lot of youth driven stories that are being told now that maybe are all fighting for the same screen time, everyone sort of competing against each other in that same space.
47:18.018 --> 47:24.711
[SPEAKER_02]: I do think that appetite is out there, so when stories about older adults succeed, they succeed strongly.
47:25.212 --> 47:28.117
[SPEAKER_02]: The issue isn't necessarily audience resistance.
47:28.178 --> 47:30.302
[SPEAKER_02]: It's about these gatekeeping assumptions.
47:30.682 --> 47:32.426
[SPEAKER_02]: And we found that in our film as well.
47:32.506 --> 47:37.275
[SPEAKER_02]: We've had theater owners say this is a film for seniors,
47:37.255 --> 47:40.922
[SPEAKER_02]: It doesn't do well and so they're just they're not giving us a chance.
47:40.982 --> 48:00.057
[SPEAKER_02]: We have to kind of prove that there's a demand out there for our film and at every screening we go to we record video to show them look we filled a theater full of passionate audience members young and older and we really have to do our homework to convince these gatekeepers that yes there is an audience here's proof.
48:00.037 --> 48:17.623
[SPEAKER_02]: And if just kind of take a chance on a film for an older audience, you'll see that we can draw out a community of supporters to fill your theater and they'll buy popcorn and yeah, so I think that's all they're concerned about is that it might not play as well as a movie designed for younger audiences.
48:17.975 --> 48:34.634
[SPEAKER_01]: another aspect and it would be helpful for you to comment would be the fact that older adults are not just Caucasian and so there are many different older adults in different kinds of cultures and there's many even beyond that.
48:34.994 --> 48:43.003
[SPEAKER_01]: Has that also been of interest to you or to perhaps
48:42.983 --> 48:46.410
[SPEAKER_01]: that there are older adults in all different kinds of situations.
48:46.430 --> 48:49.316
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I'm even thinking about an email I got over the weekend.
48:49.376 --> 48:58.174
[SPEAKER_02]: This group of it's a Chinese organization, they run a Chinese musical theater group in Vancouver that wants to come out and book like a group.
48:58.154 --> 49:00.478
[SPEAKER_02]: outing for our screenings in Vancouver.
49:01.019 --> 49:23.554
[SPEAKER_02]: So you're right, there are multi-faceted organizations that represent a lot of key different demographics and that is something that we, and we love to kind of support those initiatives as well, so I'm going to fly to Vancouver and meet this group and do a custom kind of Q&A for them because I just so touched by their email that I just had to get out to the cinemas to kind of meet with them.
49:24.395 --> 49:52.512
[SPEAKER_01]: I suspect that oftentimes listeners don't realize how tough it is to pitch an idea if we don't have a lot of time yet, but it would be helpful just for listeners to understand that there's a lot of competition out there in terms of getting funding for movies.
49:52.492 --> 49:53.754
[SPEAKER_02]: Hmm.
49:53.774 --> 50:04.347
[SPEAKER_02]: What I think a lot of filmmakers do is that they pitch these projects that are very personal and sometimes like a personal film doesn't have an audience necessarily.
50:04.487 --> 50:13.758
[SPEAKER_02]: If you want to be a diligent filmmaker who makes a film with the intention of connecting to an audience, you kind of have to define that audience before you start a filmmaking process.
50:14.199 --> 50:17.723
[SPEAKER_02]: It's almost like reverse engineering a film, if I'm being honest, he up to you.
50:17.703 --> 50:25.915
[SPEAKER_02]: kind of envision who the audience is going to be and kind of work backwards to implement those themes into your film before you start rolling the camera.
50:26.275 --> 50:29.299
[SPEAKER_02]: That way you're kind of ensuring that the audience shows up thereafter.
50:29.339 --> 50:42.478
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, maybe I went on a tangent there and lost the essence of your question, but that's, well, I guess in terms of pitching, just wanted to ask you the question,
50:42.458 --> 51:07.099
[SPEAKER_01]: and I'm wondering if you anticipate that more new films were going to be written and produced about aging-related themes and that there might be more of a receptivity from the folks that you have to pitch it to or the ones that are going to fund it that they go, oh, maybe there is a merit to doing these kinds of movies because there's an audience out there, both young and old that are going to appreciate it.
51:07.079 --> 51:23.964
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, that's my hope for sure that would be the kind of ideal scenario I can kind of envision, but the fact the reality is like Hollywood isn't decline with this rise of artificial intelligence and the people that are going to be creating these new AI-driven films are youth.
51:24.045 --> 51:35.702
[SPEAKER_02]: Let's just admit that it's probably a youth-driven technology and so they're going to create these stories that are large and fantastic and full of explosions and
51:35.682 --> 51:59.057
[SPEAKER_02]: Things that you can't imagine and my worry is that a simpler, more adult driven story, those are going to be fewer and far between because if you can imagine a world and just kind of create it with a few keystrokes then maybe sort of a hopeful inspirational sort of tail about a group of
51:59.037 --> 52:17.788
[SPEAKER_02]: So that's my biggest fear kind of moving forward in this kind of new era of filmmaking is that people pushing the buttons are going to kind of focus on content for younger sort of audiences and those that mentality because that's whose creating prompts that will yield the projects that move forward.
52:19.118 --> 52:30.732
[SPEAKER_01]: Do you also think that since it's the younger people who are making the decisions that they don't have any realization of what older adults and the stories that they could tell?
52:30.796 --> 52:54.846
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I mean, and they don't have a lot of that lived life experience, so maybe they're just so focused on their world in which they grew up and they're surrounding themselves with it isn't until maybe you're kind of in the sandwich generation or I am or you're starting to pay attention and yearning the the guidance and wisdom of your your parents and grandparents and
52:54.826 --> 52:56.528
[SPEAKER_02]: older adults in your community.
52:57.630 --> 53:14.995
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I found that when I was younger, I wanted to slowly hang around my age group and kind of inform my culture through that, but it isn't until after some reflection that you truly realize the wisdom that is to be gained from the older people in your community.
53:14.975 --> 53:17.978
[SPEAKER_02]: So, I mean, our goal with this film is pretty simple.
53:18.018 --> 53:23.163
[SPEAKER_02]: We want to encourage older adults to be creative, and that's really the goal of this film.
53:23.243 --> 53:41.662
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, the project aims to challenge these ageist stereotypes and by showcasing older adults's vibrant and creative and imaginative and capable of producing meaningful artistic work and it just goes to show that creative engagement can foster community and purpose in this intergenerational dialogue.
53:41.682 --> 53:42.383
[SPEAKER_02]: So,
53:42.363 --> 53:57.908
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, that's kind of like those are the messages that we're focusing on because this film does provide a compelling case for the inclusion of like creative programming at retirement poems and these community building initiatives so we hope that our film kind of leads to more creativity being employed later in life.
53:58.664 --> 54:06.263
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, final question you did mention a little bit earlier about how folks can learn more about Silver Screamers.
54:06.564 --> 54:15.627
[SPEAKER_01]: So if you repeat that and then again, the opportunities for communities and organizations to see the documentary, what do they need to know?
54:15.742 --> 54:17.585
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, so you can reach out to us.
54:17.826 --> 54:19.569
[SPEAKER_02]: Probably the best ways through social media.
54:19.629 --> 54:22.535
[SPEAKER_02]: So either on Facebook or Instagram, we reply to everything.
54:22.655 --> 54:26.522
[SPEAKER_02]: So at SilverScreamers doc, you can email me directly.
54:26.542 --> 54:28.566
[SPEAKER_02]: It's just my name at gmail.com.
54:28.606 --> 54:30.750
[SPEAKER_02]: So Sean Sisterna at gmail.com.
54:30.771 --> 54:34.498
[SPEAKER_02]: If you want to reach out to me and book a screening for your own community.
54:34.598 --> 54:38.425
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm very happy to help support with a virtual Q and A and whatnot.
54:38.405 --> 54:42.352
[SPEAKER_02]: And I think those are the main ways to reach out to us.
54:42.472 --> 54:54.514
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm going to be glad to start a conversation with anyone who's interested in providing a bit of an entertainment and levity to an older adult community.
54:54.794 --> 55:02.067
[SPEAKER_02]: It's kind of like our dream sort of scenarios when someone reaches out to us and books this heartwarming film for their community.
55:02.249 --> 55:06.376
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, I am certainly anxious to see it when it becomes available.
55:06.576 --> 55:10.903
[SPEAKER_01]: So any final comments that you'd just like to share with us, Sean?
55:10.923 --> 55:21.220
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, I mean, I'm just thankful for like organizations out there who are buckling us because I get to travel to these unique spots places I haven't been to before.
55:21.200 --> 55:33.110
[SPEAKER_02]: In April, I'm headed to Brussels for the Brussels International Fantastic Film Festival and there we're making a short horror movie with a group of older adults in Belgium that I'll screen before we screen silver screeners.
55:33.711 --> 55:37.200
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm headed to Scotland to give a talk on
55:37.180 --> 55:42.467
[SPEAKER_02]: on silver screeners and screen the movie there at an aging conference in Dendi, Scotland.
55:42.727 --> 55:45.951
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, headed all over Canada in the U.S. later this year.
55:46.031 --> 55:50.797
[SPEAKER_02]: So it's just having our film like connect with an audience kind of one screening at a time.
55:50.817 --> 55:54.802
[SPEAKER_02]: It just it's never been a more heartwarming project that I've been a part of.
55:56.084 --> 56:00.129
[SPEAKER_01]: Sounds like there's been a lot of silver screeners in all parts of the world.
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[SPEAKER_01]: So I certainly wish you well.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And I want to thank Sean Sisterna, Canadian film, director, producer and creator of a documentary called Silver Screamers.
56:11.991 --> 56:14.013
[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you so much for joining me today, Sean.
56:14.073 --> 56:19.799
[SPEAKER_01]: It was a real pleasure to learn about your documentary and as I said, I hope I'll have a chance to see it.
56:20.200 --> 56:27.387
[SPEAKER_02]: And share all your fantastic host, excellent questions, and if you ever want to make a horror movie together, I'm going to take you up on that opportunity.
56:28.126 --> 56:29.769
[SPEAKER_01]: I will definitely keep that in mind.
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[SPEAKER_01]: So meanwhile, for our listeners who want to not only listen to this podcast, but any of them, you can learn more about aging matters by visiting our website.
56:41.246 --> 56:48.177
[SPEAKER_01]: It's at agingmattersonline.com, and of course, at that site, you can access all aging matters radio programs.
56:48.157 --> 56:57.308
[SPEAKER_01]: the TV show episodes that we produce each month, and of course the podcast, which are broadcast on Apple, Spotify, and Red Circle.
56:57.809 --> 57:01.052
[SPEAKER_01]: So again, Aging Matters Online.com.
57:01.072 --> 57:09.102
[SPEAKER_01]: Aging Matters is produced in a association with Steve Black Audio to learn more about that company, visit Steve Black Audio.com.
57:09.082 --> 57:16.228
[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you for listening to A.G. Matters today and remember, age is just a number, not a label.
57:16.831 --> 57:18.838
[SPEAKER_01]: I'll be back again with you next week.
00:00.031 --> 00:02.295
[SPEAKER_02]: set my sights on filmmaking pretty early in life.
00:02.575 --> 00:12.151
[SPEAKER_02]: I entered into the field because I was like fascinated how stories shaped people's identities and I've always been drawn to people at the turning points in their lives.
00:12.752 --> 00:16.618
[SPEAKER_02]: I gravitate towards stories where someone reclaims agency.
00:16.979 --> 00:25.853
[SPEAKER_02]: So I think that led very naturally to silver screamers because today,
00:25.833 --> 00:31.758
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm particularly interested in stories that don't treat aging as decline necessarily.
00:31.799 --> 00:55.080
[SPEAKER_02]: It's more of an evolution, I would say.
00:59.077 --> 01:06.266
[SPEAKER_01]: Hello and welcome to AJ Matters, a program featuring aging related topics of interest to older adults and their families.
01:06.727 --> 01:08.269
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm Cheryl Beversdorf your host.
01:09.030 --> 01:21.827
[SPEAKER_01]: When a group of older adults is offered the opportunity to create their own horror film, a touching story about recovering creative autonomy, and lifelong learning, follows.
01:21.807 --> 01:33.083
[SPEAKER_01]: each participant draws from a life filled with experience, loss, skill, and perspective, and affirms that anyone can try something new at any age.
01:33.964 --> 01:44.980
[SPEAKER_01]: Today, my guest is Sean Sisterna, Canadian Film Director, producer and creator of a heartwarming and inspiring feature documentary called Silver Screamers.
01:44.960 --> 01:54.176
[SPEAKER_01]: He will talk about this intergenerational film production that created a chance for older adult actors and younger crew members to learn from each other.
01:54.758 --> 02:03.293
[SPEAKER_01]: He'll also explain how the process channel into some sense about aging, creativity, fear, and who gets to tell stories later in life.
02:03.473 --> 02:05.817
[SPEAKER_01]: So, welcome Shawna and thank you for joining me today.
02:06.298 --> 02:07.681
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, I'm thrilled to be here, Cheryl.
02:07.721 --> 02:09.043
[SPEAKER_02]: Thank you for the opportunity.
02:09.935 --> 02:19.573
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, Sean, we're really eager to hear about this production that you were responsible for, but before doing so, tell us a little bit about your career.
02:19.614 --> 02:24.262
[SPEAKER_01]: What led you to become a feature film producer, a director and a writer?
02:24.583 --> 02:26.627
[SPEAKER_01]: What do we need to know about you first?
02:26.827 --> 02:28.750
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, I fell in love with filmmaking.
02:28.770 --> 02:44.036
[SPEAKER_02]: I think when I was four years old, so I remember seeing ET when I was a kid and when ET went home, I bald my eyes out and I knew at four years old that cinema had some sort of a power over an audience and was able to control their emotions.
02:44.116 --> 02:47.822
[SPEAKER_02]: So yeah, I set my sights on filmmaking pretty early in life.
02:47.802 --> 02:51.469
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't know if I entered filmmaking because I necessarily wanted a job.
02:52.010 --> 02:57.942
[SPEAKER_02]: I entered into the field because I was like fascinated how stories shape people's identities.
02:58.102 --> 03:10.266
[SPEAKER_02]: And I've always been drawn to people at the, like the turning points in their lives and found that very interesting to witness as an audience member and over time that led me to stories about character driven narratives.
03:10.246 --> 03:18.038
[SPEAKER_02]: I've done movies with Netflix, we did a movie called Kiss and Cry, Cancer Drama, did a movie called Full Out, a gymnastics movie with Jennifer Beals.
03:18.719 --> 03:31.479
[SPEAKER_02]: So, across by projects, you know, whether it's a cancer drama, sports biopic or a documentary, I keep kind of returning to this one idea of what happens when someone refuses to be defined by circumstance.
03:31.540 --> 03:36.287
[SPEAKER_02]: It's always fun to witness underdogs in stories, kind of achieving their dreams.
03:36.605 --> 03:53.449
[SPEAKER_01]: So is this really the themes that you focus on, you've mentioned various themes that you focused on in connection with your movies, but are these the ones that you always are looking for something new and why those?
03:53.429 --> 04:03.985
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, I've always been drawn to, you know, I guess certain things that I love are like resilience, I love stories about dignity, about faith in oneself, and underestimated people.
04:04.045 --> 04:08.291
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, I think those are the greatest characters when you think of characters through the history of cinema.
04:08.692 --> 04:14.741
[SPEAKER_02]: It's always those underestimated characters that have to overcome some sort of great obstacle throughout the film.
04:14.781 --> 04:15.302
[SPEAKER_02]: And
04:15.282 --> 04:17.705
[SPEAKER_02]: ultimately come to some sort of redemption story.
04:18.125 --> 04:24.271
[SPEAKER_02]: Whether it's someone facing illness or physical injury or social marginalization, all that sort of things.
04:24.331 --> 04:29.076
[SPEAKER_02]: I gravitate towards stories where someone reclaims agency.
04:29.417 --> 04:39.147
[SPEAKER_02]: So I think that through line led very naturally to silver screamers because today,
04:39.548 --> 04:46.562
[SPEAKER_01]: take us a little bit further on that because that was going to be my segue into you're telling us more about Silver Screemers.
04:47.123 --> 04:52.234
[SPEAKER_01]: Why did you decide to produce a documentary called Silver Screemers?
04:52.595 --> 04:53.997
[SPEAKER_01]: And what was the goal?
04:54.298 --> 04:56.082
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, who is your target audience?
04:56.643 --> 05:01.152
[SPEAKER_01]: What did you want to accomplish by producing this particular documentary?
05:01.132 --> 05:08.686
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, if you want me to be honest, I never kind of set out to make this documentary, I wanted to make this horror film called The Rug.
05:09.268 --> 05:13.456
[SPEAKER_02]: And I kept getting denied funding from our system here in my country.
05:13.676 --> 05:23.595
[SPEAKER_02]: Every filmmaker applies for funding opportunities and we're more often than not met with rejection, you know, it's the rejection that's the no stamp every every filmmaker gets.
05:23.575 --> 05:25.438
[SPEAKER_02]: is the project kept getting turned down.
05:25.478 --> 05:26.980
[SPEAKER_02]: I came across this one.
05:27.000 --> 05:29.244
[SPEAKER_02]: It wasn't a film fund.
05:29.284 --> 05:33.150
[SPEAKER_02]: It was a fund called the New Horizons for Senior's Program.
05:33.190 --> 05:40.100
[SPEAKER_02]: And it's a fund meant to get older adults off their couches and doing something active and engaging with the community.
05:40.120 --> 05:45.348
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, the fund could be used to host a bingo night once a month or quilting club.
05:45.388 --> 05:45.949
[SPEAKER_02]: That sort of thing.
05:45.969 --> 05:48.553
[SPEAKER_02]: Those are what the fund has been typically used for.
05:48.533 --> 06:10.828
[SPEAKER_02]: So when that funding opportunity came across my desk, I sort of spun the application to what if this is a filmmaking workshop for older adults in my community and we were able to take those funds that the grant offered and turn that into a filmmaking experience where we had to go out into the community and find older adults willing to go on this horror film journey with us.
06:10.808 --> 06:16.176
[SPEAKER_02]: But it's all that all started with this creative question like what would happen if a group of older adults made a horror film.
06:16.196 --> 06:18.560
[SPEAKER_02]: And I knew that idea was so intriguing.
06:18.640 --> 06:23.648
[SPEAKER_02]: When I mentioned other people, it just kind of naturally led to shooting two projects at one.
06:23.748 --> 06:27.654
[SPEAKER_02]: We had to shoot the horror film on set for a very, very specific audience.
06:27.674 --> 06:30.638
[SPEAKER_02]: Like we wanted to make up a realistic horror movie.
06:30.658 --> 06:35.586
[SPEAKER_02]: But at the same time, we had a documentary crew following everybody as this project came to be.
06:35.686 --> 06:38.470
[SPEAKER_02]: And so it was shooting two movies at the same time.
06:38.922 --> 06:46.094
[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you for mentioning that because you said that this particular story was originally called the rug.
06:46.454 --> 06:46.695
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes.
06:46.955 --> 06:47.636
[SPEAKER_01]: Am I correct?
06:47.836 --> 06:50.340
[SPEAKER_02]: That's the short horror movie within the documentary.
06:50.961 --> 06:52.524
[SPEAKER_01]: Tell us a little bit about that.
06:52.764 --> 06:54.487
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, what was the story there?
06:54.507 --> 07:04.163
[SPEAKER_01]: And then how did you weave that into the participants of the older adult participants who were going to be performing?
07:04.563 --> 07:06.246
[SPEAKER_01]: How did this all come together?
07:06.412 --> 07:11.383
[SPEAKER_02]: So the rug is based on a short story by horror author Ado Van Belkum.
07:11.563 --> 07:21.484
[SPEAKER_02]: And it's the story of this 78-year-old woman who discovers a discarded throw rug on the side of a road and brings it home only to discover.
07:21.464 --> 07:26.010
[SPEAKER_02]: that the rug has this penchant for digesting anything that's left under it.
07:26.691 --> 07:47.978
[SPEAKER_02]: So the story always had a, you know, a senior focus to it and I thought if we're going to have an older adult leading the cast, then what would it be like if we had a whole crew of older adults on the project as well and had just became this, you know, synthesis of ideas from different generations kind of coming through and informing the nature of the film.
07:47.958 --> 08:17.290
[SPEAKER_02]: Her then silver screamers, the documentary is this heartwarming and spine tingling documentary that follows this group of older adults as they set out to make this horror film, the stepping out of their comfort zones and they learn to use cameras and fake blood and along the way they discover this newfound confidence and resilience and humor and heart and you know, just goes to prove that when these communities can kind of organically come together
08:18.198 --> 08:25.667
[SPEAKER_01]: I am wondering if there were ever any other horror films that you were aware of that featured older adults.
08:25.747 --> 08:43.047
[SPEAKER_01]: Or is this really a new genre that now, you know, given the fact that folks are getting older, not only in Canada, where you are, but here on the United States, that this might be a whole new generation of horror films that star older adults.
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[SPEAKER_00]: So I was just wondering if this is new ground for you and others?
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[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, if I go back to my memory, yeah, there are a few films I can think of that that have older adults as characters in films.
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[SPEAKER_02]: Certainly, you know, going back to Rosemary's baby, I mean, they were all often portrayed as like creepy cultists and there's a movie called whatever happened at Baby Jane had aging sisters and psychological torment.
09:10.713 --> 09:28.452
[SPEAKER_02]: But, you know, thinking of more into the 2000s, there was a movie called Baba Hotep, which is featured an elderly Elvis Presley in a retirement home battling with his partner at JFK, look alike, a star, and it's a horror comedy about Elvis battling a nursing home money.
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[SPEAKER_02]: And there's the visit by end night Shyamalan, one of our great horror filmmakers, it's about these two kids that spend a weekend at their eccentric grandparents' house.
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[SPEAKER_02]: But all the characters, all the older characters, they're not characters you want to strive to be like let's say.
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[SPEAKER_02]: They're not seen in the the best of light.
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[SPEAKER_02]: So we wanted to take that and spin it in our film.
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[SPEAKER_01]: also not only in terms of other films, but I was wondering often times when people decide to do something in connection with older adults, there might be some kind of personal family association.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Parents, perhaps, or grandparents, you've noticed certain factors about your relatives that might come into play when you do this movie was wondering if that had any
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[SPEAKER_02]: Are you a psychologist of some kind of like, yeah, I feel like you're in my head right now because that is a very apt observation, yes.
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[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I mean, I've, have older adults in my life.
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[SPEAKER_02]: I think I'm in that sandwich generation.
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[SPEAKER_02]: I have aging parents and I have young kids.
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[SPEAKER_02]: And so, I don't know, I'm at the point of my life where I'm starting to pay attention to, you know, friendly neighbors that seem to kind of come and go and, you know, my grandparents passed away.
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[SPEAKER_02]: So I'm at that age where I'm thinking about mortality more and more often.
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[SPEAKER_02]: So,
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[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, perhaps this film in some way is that it's like a correct of lens, I'd say.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Well, and I want to compliment you because you mentioned a little bit earlier about the fact that oftentimes movies really are very ageist and show older adults in very stereotypical ways.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And so I was just wondering if have a relatives or older that even some of these like
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[SPEAKER_01]: characteristics that you saw in your own family members may have come out in silver screamers.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And I was just wondering if you kept that in mind as you again began to produce the show and I want to start getting into that.
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[SPEAKER_01]: But I'm hearing that you were very sensitive to the fact that older adults have certain characteristics.
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[SPEAKER_01]: I'm good.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Some maybe not so good and that you wanted to incorporate some of those in your movie as well.
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[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I think you're well, age isn't even in its subtle forms as a big theme in our film, but there's also other topics we refer to our maybe social isolation.
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[SPEAKER_02]: That seems to be a big component in our film as well.
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[SPEAKER_02]: A lot of the protagonists that signed up to come on this filmmaking journey with us were met with some form of isolation in their communities.
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[SPEAKER_02]: And it was through this process of making the film that they were able to kind of shatter that isolation
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[SPEAKER_02]: a bit of a reprieve, you know, or film gave them a bit of a reprieve, but there's also like, you know, some of our participants mentioned the boss of purpose after retirement, the fear of technology as well, like a lot of our participants were kind of worried that they wouldn't be able to operate the equipment and so there was this fear of technology.
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[SPEAKER_02]: And sadly, the hunger for relevance, I didn't want the film to feel like a lecture necessarily, but I kind of wanted the audience to feel joy and inspiration first, and then maybe at the end, they realized they absorbed something a little bit more meaningful.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Well, good segue into actual selection of these participants in silver screeners talk a little bit more about that you mentioned a little bit earlier that there's some organization nearby where you are and that there was some contact there, but talk a little bit more in terms of characteristics male female what do we need to know about who you wanted in the stock inventory.
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[SPEAKER_02]: I feel like I went around to 10, 20, maybe even like 30 different organizations, like places of living in my community, just looking for interested participants to come on this journey with us.
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[SPEAKER_02]: We had a, you know, creative pitch which featured, we want to be honest, this was going to be the making of a horror film.
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[SPEAKER_02]: We mentioned that there would be blood and gore, and I was met with so many,
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[SPEAKER_02]: I don't know, people with just shocked expressions and nobody wanted to participate in our production.
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[SPEAKER_02]: I thought I would never get a willing volunteer.
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[SPEAKER_02]: I think it was just the words blood and gore that made people just kind of their faces just dropped in, like looked at me like I was in saying.
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[SPEAKER_02]: So, yeah, it wasn't until this 196 year old raised her hand and said, this sounds fun, I want to do this.
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[SPEAKER_02]: And that was Audrey.
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[SPEAKER_02]: She does not have a lot of opportunity to go out into the community and participate in events like these.
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[SPEAKER_02]: So, she was our first Gungho willing participant.
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[SPEAKER_02]: And once Audrey was on board, she brought along her 80 year old nephew, David.
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[SPEAKER_02]: So,
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[SPEAKER_02]: with David and Audrey on board, just the more and more people kept signing up.
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[SPEAKER_02]: But I think it just took one willing participant to say yes to this bizarre journey.
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[SPEAKER_02]: And once Audrey signed up, we were able to find our core group of eight protagonists that we follow throughout the making of silver screeners.
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[SPEAKER_02]: And, you know, that was for the production phase, but then we go into post-production, which is all the editing and music, and then we had a whole other group of interested participants.
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[SPEAKER_02]: So we were both to find like a senior's choir to help create the music for the film.
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[SPEAKER_02]: And so it was just a remarkable experience to like taking all this creativity from around our community that derived from older adults to infuse it into our film was the most inspiring thing that we witnessed.
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[SPEAKER_01]: I watched the trailer for this documentary and I was touched by the comment of one of the participants who as I understood it had recently lost her husband and she said, I just lost my husband not too long ago and I really have to do this and I was so touched by that because
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[SPEAKER_01]: One can only imagine the grief and the despair and the loneliness, the kinds of things that you're talking about.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And it was like, you, Sean, gave this woman a purpose to reason to get up in the morning.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And what a joy.
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[SPEAKER_01]: I can only imagine that all of these factors that these older adults are dealing with at this stage of their life
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[SPEAKER_01]: Maybe put aside while they were asked to do this something very special did you find that to be true as you worked with these folks?
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[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I think you're talking about Diane, so Diane, I only found this out recently at a film festival screening that Diane came along to, yeah, that's a touching scene in our documentary, but she told me that she saw this flyer at the local community center asking for older adults to sign up for this project on the day her husband passed away.
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[SPEAKER_02]: So she kind of took that as a sign.
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[SPEAKER_02]: I have to do this.
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[SPEAKER_02]: If I'm ever going to,
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[SPEAKER_02]: You know, get over my grief, this would be an opportunity to do that.
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[SPEAKER_02]: So she took it as a sign from above to to jump in and participate in this and this project.
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[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I mean, we weren't looking for actors.
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[SPEAKER_02]: You know, we were looking for people with a lot of courage and curiosity.
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[SPEAKER_02]: And I think our participants that signed up were the ones who said, yes, we're willing to look kind of up maybe a little inexperienced, I would say, or, you know, they were worried about looking foolish.
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[SPEAKER_02]: But that is, I think the fear of trying something new.
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[SPEAKER_02]: So the ones that came on board were really at that bravery factor, I think.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And given the fact that you were working now with folks who had never acted before, how did you structure your orientation activities to prepare these folks?
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[SPEAKER_01]: You mentioned the first of all, maybe a limited knowledge of technology, and as you said, they'd never acted before.
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[SPEAKER_01]: So how did you and your staff members decide, well, this is what we're going to do to make sure that they understand what they are supposed to do,
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[SPEAKER_01]: at a level that they could understand and adapt for the for their roles.
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[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, well, number one was we brand these hands on workshops as well.
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[SPEAKER_02]: We did kind of like a film school scene.
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[SPEAKER_02]: So we wanted to learn how to play with cameras and lighting and sound, but also these storytelling basics.
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[SPEAKER_02]: We all
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[SPEAKER_02]: sat around a room and read through the script and we're able to talk about how we would translate the words on the page of the script into something visual.
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[SPEAKER_02]: That's the beautiful thing about filmmaking is that you take a written word and you have to come up with some sort of creative camera move or camera language to translate the ideas on the page into cinema.
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[SPEAKER_02]: You know, but more importantly, we wanted to build trust.
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[SPEAKER_02]: So from the first day, there was obviously hesitation with everybody, but by like the third session, our older adults were pitching different creative ideas with confidence and witnessing that transformation was extraordinary.
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[SPEAKER_02]: And I wanted to spend time with every one of our participants.
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[SPEAKER_02]: They were like I said, they were eight key older adult crew members.
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[SPEAKER_02]: And each role on set was assigned to them based on their interest and their past work experience as well.
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[SPEAKER_02]: So David, he was a former teacher, puppeteer.
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[SPEAKER_02]: He used to make puppets out of a specialist powder with his class, you know, 60 years ago when a specialist was more I suppose more common.
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[SPEAKER_02]: But because David had this puppeteering experience, we thought he would be a natural fit for having our, you know, evil rug kind of come to life.
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[SPEAKER_02]: So David devises amazing Marionette system that he hooked up to the rug and kind of made our killer rug come to life through his creativity.
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[SPEAKER_02]: Sunny, Sunny's 70 year old, maybe he's probably our biggest technical wizard.
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[SPEAKER_02]: He's loved cameras throughout his life.
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[SPEAKER_02]: He makes little documentaries for the residents in his building, and so Sunny navigated to the camera department quite easily.
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[SPEAKER_02]: So he was our camera operator.
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[SPEAKER_02]: He's never used an Alexis Cinema camera before in Alexa cameras like the standard filmmaking
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[SPEAKER_02]: So once Sunny started playing with that and he and all the tools to push the camera in a dolly and change lenses, like these $100,000 lenses on the camera, Sunny was in heaven seeing his his visions sort of come to life through this new technology.
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[SPEAKER_01]: I've also curious to mention to male members and their technical expertise.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Anything in terms of the female members, because I'm looking at your poster behind you, and you had just to understand, you had four women and four men.
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[SPEAKER_02]: I think it was five, five women in three men.
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[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, so Lucia is a painter from Southern Italy and because she loves artwork, Lucia wanted to be the production designer of the film.
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[SPEAKER_02]: So she was responsible for,
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[SPEAKER_02]: taking a relatively normal looking room and using her artistry to paint within the frame that we set up.
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[SPEAKER_02]: So every frame was kind of looked over by Lucia and little elements were added that helped amplify the unsettling feeling of the location to make it as horrific as possible.
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[SPEAKER_02]: As I said, Audrey was our 96 year old.
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[SPEAKER_02]: She was the Sam recordist of the film.
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[SPEAKER_02]: Audrey has some mobility issues so she couldn't move around too much so sitting at a dedicated station with a sound recorder headphones and she was able to record sound for our film and capture crystal clear sound.
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[SPEAKER_02]: I was her passion.
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[SPEAKER_02]: She wanted to sit.
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[SPEAKER_02]: Listen to the actors through her headphones and record sound as effectively as she could.
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[SPEAKER_01]: sounds like everybody had a particular area of expertise which worked out well.
21:17.014 --> 21:26.028
[SPEAKER_01]: Another question that I had is I'm assuming that the crew members that you usually work with when you produce movies are younger.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And I was wondering what kind of an interaction occurred with these older adult participants and your crew members did they learn from each other?
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[SPEAKER_01]: What did that look like?
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[SPEAKER_02]: Well, when we started the documentary, we never envisioned having younger crew members.
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[SPEAKER_02]: This was solely supposed to be an older adult, driven documentary.
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[SPEAKER_02]: But at some point along the filmmaking journey, I'd say maybe a couple of weeks before the our seniors went into production mode on the making of the rug.
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[SPEAKER_02]: We got a call from our insurance companies and they said,
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[SPEAKER_02]: we just found out that your crew is composed of inexperienced older adults who have not used this equipment before and were not going to rent you the equipment.
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[SPEAKER_02]: We do not want older adults carrying and lifting $800,000 worth of film equipment when they have them in trained on it.
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[SPEAKER_02]: So we sort of
22:23.348 --> 22:39.113
[SPEAKER_02]: were dejected a little bit, you know, we didn't want to populate our film set with younger people and have some takeover, but we thought of a, we devised a way that the younger crew members could, you know, do the heavy lifting, but just be mentors for the older adults.
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[SPEAKER_02]: And then it became this really beautiful intergenerational tale that we didn't sort of expect.
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[SPEAKER_02]: We witnessed these friendships sort of blooming.
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[SPEAKER_02]: I'm thinking Diane, who was on on makeup.
22:49.631 --> 22:55.801
[SPEAKER_02]: She bonded with her younger film industry mentor Sarah through storytelling in makeup.
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[SPEAKER_02]: Diane contributed to all these wonderful ideas.
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[SPEAKER_02]: Like
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[SPEAKER_02]: She thought that the main character in the rug should start as a pleasant normal looking protagonist and then through the course of the film She wanted to tell a story through makeup that where she there were bags under her eyes and just kind of all the color from her face sort of dissipated throughout the film So Diane was using her creative ideas and Sarah our younger crew member was just sort of giving her the tools to achieve revision
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[SPEAKER_02]: So yeah, it just become this kind of beautiful sort of synthesis between two generations working alongside each other and supporting each other and as you were moving ahead on this in terms of the planning process was this.
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[SPEAKER_01]: A lot different than the way you usually produce movies or documentaries may given the again the age and the expertise of the participants and what you just said in terms of the insurance issues.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Sounds like the process was a little different than the way you usually approach making a movie or a documentary in my correct?
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[SPEAKER_02]: You are very correct, yeah.
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[SPEAKER_02]: I mean the process of
24:09.408 --> 24:20.506
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, usually on a film set efficiency dominates production here, in our case, the experience of the making of the film mattered as much as it didn't in the final cut.
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[SPEAKER_02]: So we built in space for conversation and reflection.
24:25.034 --> 24:30.181
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, like I said, usually, you know, we arrive on set, we set up lights, it's really fast.
24:30.302 --> 24:37.492
[SPEAKER_02]: We are waiting for the actors to get into their makeup and as soon as they're done, they're rushed onto set, we shoot a scene, we send them back to get changed for the next scene.
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[SPEAKER_02]: And then that's just this kind of well-oiled machine over the years.
24:41.437 --> 24:53.775
[SPEAKER_02]: But, you know, on a production like this, because everybody was new and nervous, we wanted to be a little slower-paced and ensure that everybody kind of felt comfortable and was able to give their ideas when they had one.
24:53.755 --> 25:02.627
[SPEAKER_02]: I'd say like, you know, because we're so used to production on my end, like that's kind of my life with my entire career is being on film sets.
25:03.347 --> 25:09.756
[SPEAKER_02]: I have to say to witness our protagonists kind of coming in and being so wide-eyed on the first day.
25:09.776 --> 25:14.682
[SPEAKER_02]: It was almost like reliving my first day on set, only through fresher eyes.
25:14.762 --> 25:23.053
[SPEAKER_02]: So to experience that joy of being on a film set through our older adults eyes was really special for all of us involved.
25:23.928 --> 25:27.172
[SPEAKER_01]: And did you have to say limit the time?
25:27.272 --> 25:30.516
[SPEAKER_01]: It sounds like usually again when you're producing movies.
25:30.576 --> 25:33.740
[SPEAKER_01]: There's brush rush rush and time is money and this kind of thing.
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[SPEAKER_01]: But for this particular participants and what you were doing was there a different kind of time span or that you had to adjust to?
25:44.313 --> 25:48.260
[SPEAKER_02]: It's like you were on set, Cheryl, you know everything that's happening behind the scenes.
25:48.740 --> 25:53.208
[SPEAKER_02]: So, yes, usually a film day is about maybe 14 hours long, let's say.
25:53.589 --> 26:00.120
[SPEAKER_02]: We knew we couldn't have newcomers who were maybe a little bit more advanced in age last that long.
26:00.260 --> 26:10.337
[SPEAKER_02]: So, what we did was we had the younger crew members show up first and load in the heavy gear and kind of take out the lights and kind of put them on stands.
26:10.317 --> 26:21.193
[SPEAKER_02]: So that allowed us an hour and a half just to get ready so that when our older adult participants showed up everything was sort of unloaded out of the boxes and just like the creative part could begin.
26:21.253 --> 26:27.242
[SPEAKER_02]: They didn't have to wait around while lights were being put on stands and lugged up and downstairs.
26:27.683 --> 26:37.658
[SPEAKER_02]: We sort of bypass that to make sure that we had the maximum amount of effort and creativity would allow the production to incorporate our older adults as much as possible.
26:37.638 --> 26:44.750
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, quite frankly, one of the things that you should know Sean is in addition to doing a podcast, I also produce a TV show.
26:45.311 --> 26:50.460
[SPEAKER_01]: So I'm somewhat aware of what's involved, whether it's audio or teleprompters.
26:50.801 --> 26:55.108
[SPEAKER_01]: I know that's not exactly what you do in movies, but cameras in that.
26:55.128 --> 27:03.122
[SPEAKER_01]: And so to that point, there are a lot of technical aspects, which are a little fascinating if one has never made a movie,
27:03.102 --> 27:17.700
[SPEAKER_01]: were there such things in Silver Screemers that needed more explanation because of the actors age or were they able to kind of grasp what was going on and just go with the flow.
27:18.181 --> 27:18.883
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I mean, we
27:18.863 --> 27:26.872
[SPEAKER_02]: certainly try to avoid, you know, filmmaking jargon as much as possible, like film sets can almost feel like a foreign language at times.
27:27.453 --> 27:33.801
[SPEAKER_02]: But once we demystified it a little bit that that fear or the apprehensions evaporated.
27:34.642 --> 27:40.389
[SPEAKER_02]: It was just like ever a reminder that it's not aged that limits people, it's exclusion.
27:40.449 --> 27:48.398
[SPEAKER_02]: And so to involve our protagonist in every sort of creative
27:48.378 --> 27:57.451
[SPEAKER_02]: some of the the technical know-how and distill it down into a more simpler fashion because we only had two or three days to shoot this horror movie.
27:57.872 --> 28:08.968
[SPEAKER_02]: We wanted to demystify the the technological aspects of the production and make the creative decisions more intuitive rather than based on any sort of technical formula that might arise.
28:08.948 --> 28:22.500
[SPEAKER_02]: Like I'm thinking like when you put on a different lens like two different lenses will make a scene feel different and lenses are used for whether you want a wide shot or a close up those lenses are used for those purposes.
28:22.600 --> 28:29.547
[SPEAKER_02]: So you know in speaking to a sunny hour camera person he wanted to use lenses to their maximum efficiency.
28:29.567 --> 28:38.955
[SPEAKER_02]: So he just needed a bit of help is to say wide angle lens like a 20 millimeter lens or as a close up an 85 millimeter lens.
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[SPEAKER_02]: But he told us what he wanted and we were able to just kind of present the technology for him to help his decision.
28:46.462 --> 29:10.275
[SPEAKER_01]: So I asked already about the timeline, was there also any adjustment, say, for pacing and structure, again, because of the fact that you were dealing with folks that, you know, were much older, anything that you said or discovered that you needed to do because of the age of the participants or once you got started were things going pretty well.
29:10.255 --> 29:13.360
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't think during the production we paste it any differently.
29:13.380 --> 29:23.858
[SPEAKER_02]: It still felt like every film production I've ever been on when we are running against the clock and trying to get as many shots in before we have to pull the plug.
29:24.379 --> 29:29.107
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, but I think a lot of the pacing and structure comes from the editing room afterwards.
29:29.768 --> 29:30.930
[SPEAKER_02]: We shot what
29:30.910 --> 29:34.835
[SPEAKER_02]: felt like hundreds of hours of footage that we had to kind of cut down to 90 minutes.
29:34.855 --> 29:38.279
[SPEAKER_02]: So in the editing room, we work on pacing and in structure.
29:38.359 --> 29:44.107
[SPEAKER_02]: But in this case, I want to structure the documentary like a coming of age sort of story.
29:44.587 --> 29:47.431
[SPEAKER_02]: But just happens to be a coming of age story later in life.
29:47.872 --> 29:51.837
[SPEAKER_02]: There's anticipation, there's doubt, there's breakthrough, there's triumph.
29:52.417 --> 30:00.748
[SPEAKER_02]: So I wanted the audience to forget that they're watching a film about seniors
30:01.049 --> 30:02.811
[SPEAKER_01]: Sean, take that one step further.
30:02.931 --> 30:24.410
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm curious to know if there were particular scenes or lines by the participants that hold special significance for you as you did this, were there times or particular, again, scenes that were just very special and that you smiled and said, I'm so glad I'm doing this.
30:24.430 --> 30:29.875
[SPEAKER_01]: For just curious as to how you felt as you produced this particular documentary.
30:30.428 --> 30:41.736
[SPEAKER_02]: Because we take the film from the idea phase, all the way through production and post-production, so we're witnessing the making of a film through these older adult eyes.
30:41.776 --> 30:47.931
[SPEAKER_02]: One of my fondest scenes I recall filming was the day of the premiere of The Rug.
30:47.911 --> 31:09.450
[SPEAKER_02]: So we rented a theater and the local community and we're just hoping somebody shows up to support our heroes They were very nervous that no one would want to show up to their movie and so we filmed a scene in the dressing room before hand We're just kind of reflecting on their experience and they just said regardless of who shows up You know, if anyone sees us, I just know that I'm inspired.
31:09.570 --> 31:12.315
[SPEAKER_02]: I went through this process and I'm inspired
31:12.295 --> 31:20.305
[SPEAKER_02]: at the work we did ourselves and, you know, one person said, I never thought that a scale I had 60 years ago would pay off today.
31:20.345 --> 31:28.656
[SPEAKER_02]: And so, yeah, there was just all these reflections on the nature of past life and incorporating it into a new sort of endeavor.
31:28.696 --> 31:38.168
[SPEAKER_02]: And what was heartwarming was when the entire community showed up in support of their film, and there was not a single seat left in the auditorium for our heroes.
31:38.367 --> 31:39.128
[SPEAKER_01]: nice story.
31:39.168 --> 31:47.683
[SPEAKER_01]: Also, I was interested to hear any kind of behind the scenes anecdotes from the production process.
31:48.104 --> 31:55.397
[SPEAKER_01]: Something that either didn't turn out well or you had to reshoot it because the idea that you had
31:55.377 --> 32:10.740
[SPEAKER_01]: didn't work out as well as you thought it was going to because sometimes we often hear for those of us who watch movies and that I'm sure there's take one and take two and take three because it's not going as well as it was expected anything like that happened for you.
32:11.060 --> 32:23.258
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah and it was you know I hate to say that loud but it's um we had an 87-year-old
32:23.238 --> 32:50.055
[SPEAKER_02]: And then we had a composer kind of write her some notations that she could follow, sorry, I'm not a musician, I don't know how to kind of explain this, but you know those music notes on a piece of paper that a penis can kind of play along to someone composed a score so that Gwyneth could play, but as she sat at the computer, like her hands were our our theoretic and she couldn't move and hit the octaves as well as she could in every younger days when she was practicing more.
32:50.035 --> 32:57.808
[SPEAKER_02]: And so the music, the first pass at the score for the movie didn't quite turn out the way she wanted to or the way the crew wanted to as well.
32:57.848 --> 33:03.337
[SPEAKER_02]: So we had to, you know, it happens all the time in the film world.
33:03.398 --> 33:06.643
[SPEAKER_02]: It's just something you have to get used to if you work in the creative field.
33:06.623 --> 33:23.631
[SPEAKER_02]: we weren't able to incorporate her music despite us filming a scene where we showed her working on the film and how much effort she put into it but in some cases we had to just say this isn't working and we had to move along to find a different solution for the horror film score.
33:23.671 --> 33:29.301
[SPEAKER_02]: So it's just seen out and we captured real life and it was disappointing but it's the filmmaking process.
33:30.242 --> 33:31.905
[SPEAKER_01]: Was that tough for her too?
33:32.037 --> 33:52.375
[SPEAKER_02]: I think so yeah she understood we put her music in the end credits of course so she did have that ability to look back up on the screen and see her work reflected back but you know she was great about it we included her her scene in the film and it was just you know a part breaking moment within the film where we couldn't use her work she totally understood.
33:53.300 --> 34:18.818
[SPEAKER_01]: Did you find any particular noteworthy changes or revisions that you had to make during the production that you had planted out a certain way and then such as what you just described, but anything else that was more in terms of the script or the way somebody was going to be acting or the scenes or something that you just had to
34:18.798 --> 34:24.108
[SPEAKER_01]: the lead or revise, this was wondering if there was a lot of changes.
34:24.990 --> 34:36.553
[SPEAKER_02]: I think when we first started showing the documentary, even in the rough cut stage, people wanted to know more about the back stories of each of our participants.
34:36.533 --> 34:52.350
[SPEAKER_02]: We weaved in one or two minutes, back stories on each of our participant, we get to know where they where they came from, their past career, what their interests are, if anything, sort of monumental happened that defined them as a person as they as they went on in their life.
34:52.550 --> 35:05.764
[SPEAKER_02]: So I think that was a wise idea to weave in these narratives behind the scenes so that when you see our protagonist being creative and contributing ideas on the film set,
35:05.744 --> 35:15.834
[SPEAKER_02]: We understand why they're making these creed decisions because it had something to do with the an element in their past, which I thought was a worthy addition of including in the documentary.
35:16.797 --> 35:19.365
[SPEAKER_01]: Is the documentary out yet?
35:19.463 --> 35:47.732
[SPEAKER_01]: or is it being shown only in Canada or in the United States or tell us a little bit about that because I'm wondering as our listeners are going to be wanting to see this documentary since we've been talking so much and to that point then so not only the logistics here and that but what message or emotions do you hope that the viewers will
35:47.712 --> 35:51.259
[SPEAKER_02]: So yeah, we're the early sort of release stage now.
35:51.339 --> 35:56.388
[SPEAKER_02]: So back in September, we premiered at different film festivals around the world.
35:56.549 --> 36:10.395
[SPEAKER_02]: So originally, I thought this was going to be a film for documentary film festival audiences, but I quickly realized that the genre community has responded strongly to this project.
36:10.375 --> 36:22.587
[SPEAKER_02]: meaning there's a variety of different horror film festivals around the world, and these are the festivals that are clamoring for this movie because it's not a documentary that you typically see in a genre festival.
36:23.167 --> 36:38.762
[SPEAKER_02]: So we premiered at Fantastic Fest in Austin, Texas, and you know this was more the demographic is mostly younger people wanting the latest horror film, this is
36:38.742 --> 36:52.720
[SPEAKER_02]: But by the end of the movie, this hardcore genre audience was wiping away tears and standing and clapping for our protagonist and just goes to show that the genre community has a big heart as well, they're very epithetic audience members.
36:53.361 --> 36:57.686
[SPEAKER_02]: So yes, right now we're at the stage where we're releasing our film theatrically.
36:57.887 --> 36:59.789
[SPEAKER_02]: So I'm from Canada, obviously.
36:59.829 --> 37:01.211
[SPEAKER_02]: So I can attend these screenings.
37:01.291 --> 37:05.897
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm going to the hot ducks cinema in Toronto where we open an April.
37:05.877 --> 37:07.699
[SPEAKER_02]: similarly in Vancouver as well.
37:08.300 --> 37:13.946
[SPEAKER_02]: And I'm partnering with all the different aging organizations across the country, these aging research centers at universities.
37:14.046 --> 37:25.459
[SPEAKER_02]: So I'm partnering our film with workshops for older adults to teach them filmmaking in a couple of hours so that they can come and touch cameras and learn some basic editing before they see the film.
37:25.499 --> 37:33.167
[SPEAKER_02]: So it's a wonderful way to to involve the local older adult community in every city that we screen the film in.
37:33.147 --> 37:35.692
[SPEAKER_02]: And also, we're starting to screen it in the U.S. as well.
37:35.732 --> 37:42.646
[SPEAKER_02]: So we have a screening and the University of Maine coming up and we're partnering with all these different gerontology departments throughout the country as well.
37:42.706 --> 37:44.569
[SPEAKER_02]: So we're in our early phases of doing that.
37:45.190 --> 37:48.557
[SPEAKER_02]: We need a screening book for tele-hassee, San Diego,
37:48.537 --> 38:05.736
[SPEAKER_02]: And as we make connections to all these different aging organizations, aging research centers, this is a way to get our film to the, I would say the gatekeepers in the gerontology world who can best speak about our film in their circles and it helps us kind of program across the country as well.
38:05.952 --> 38:13.547
[SPEAKER_01]: You mentioned about tears in the eyes of the viewers, which tells me about your message or emotions.
38:14.269 --> 38:15.331
[SPEAKER_01]: Did you expect that?
38:16.032 --> 38:19.479
[SPEAKER_01]: It sounded like what you were saying is that it was a younger audience.
38:20.080 --> 38:27.876
[SPEAKER_01]: So what I'm hearing you say is that you're also trying to promote this documentary for older adults,
38:27.856 --> 38:33.345
[SPEAKER_01]: but it sounds like at least initially it was the younger folks who were going to see this.
38:33.706 --> 38:35.790
[SPEAKER_01]: And so that's kind of a bonus.
38:36.351 --> 38:37.012
[SPEAKER_01]: Would you agree?
38:37.032 --> 38:38.695
[SPEAKER_02]: I definitely would agree.
38:38.815 --> 38:43.603
[SPEAKER_02]: I never thought it would connect to a younger audience, but they say we were
38:44.005 --> 38:48.314
[SPEAKER_02]: Growing up, loving the horror films, we were always the outsiders.
38:48.394 --> 38:56.831
[SPEAKER_02]: We spent a lot of time isolated in our room, watching these movies, and they kind of related it to what older adults must be going through now.
38:56.911 --> 39:00.478
[SPEAKER_02]: They spend a lot of time isolated, and it's all about.
39:00.458 --> 39:08.709
[SPEAKER_02]: being a part of this horror community that gets them excited and that this is where they can meet with like-minded people and share and experience.
39:08.769 --> 39:12.054
[SPEAKER_02]: So I think that's what these younger audiences are responding to.
39:12.074 --> 39:20.385
[SPEAKER_02]: And it's just, you know, it's a lovely story about hope and permission, and it's, I think it's reframing aging in some, in some sense.
39:20.425 --> 39:29.858
[SPEAKER_02]: So I hope that when someone in their 70s watches the film signs up for something new, I think that we've kind of achieved
39:29.838 --> 39:37.198
[SPEAKER_02]: And I hope that, you know, someone in their 30s who might be watching this, I hope that they rethink how they view older adults.
39:38.225 --> 40:01.617
[SPEAKER_01]: And I just wanted to make sure that our listeners were aware, Sean, that since it is going to also be coming into the United States, released in the United States, as well as in Canada, is there a particular website that people can log on to to find out when the documentary will be shown in their particular community.
40:01.597 --> 40:02.278
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
40:02.298 --> 40:04.623
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, we're really active on social media.
40:04.643 --> 40:12.240
[SPEAKER_02]: So if people want to follow at silver screamers duck on Facebook and Instagram, we post all our upcoming screenings on there.
40:12.961 --> 40:15.787
[SPEAKER_02]: We have a website to silver screamers.com.
40:16.248 --> 40:19.395
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, you can find all the information about the screenings on there.
40:19.856 --> 40:21.900
[SPEAKER_02]: But that being said, you know, if there's anybody
40:21.880 --> 40:36.902
[SPEAKER_02]: out there in the United States who is connected to an aging organization or a gerantology department, a senior's center sort of thing, anyone can kind of reach out to us through social media or media directly, you can look me up online, easy to find.
40:36.882 --> 40:45.334
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, you can feel free to book a screening for your own community and it'd be happy to kind of volunteer with a virtual Q&A for your community as well.
40:45.515 --> 40:53.146
[SPEAKER_02]: Like, we're very easy and simple to find and be want to screen this film as much as possible to inspire older adults in your community.
40:53.887 --> 40:56.351
[SPEAKER_02]: We think our target audience is pretty specific.
40:56.431 --> 40:57.372
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean,
40:57.352 --> 41:17.499
[SPEAKER_02]: We initially thought that this is a film for older adults and that's it, but it's really the it's the kind of the healthcare professionals, the ones responsible for booking programming for older adults in their communities, they're the ones that we seem to be interacting with the most because they have the ability or the maybe the funds to host a screening.
41:18.040 --> 41:25.570
[SPEAKER_02]: So we've learned that over the last few months that are very specific audience to engage with
41:25.550 --> 41:32.206
[SPEAKER_02]: activity directors at a retirement home who couldn't book our film and bring it to fair community of older adults.
41:32.607 --> 41:42.090
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, and since I'm broadcasting this from our Legion Virginia, just outside the nation's capital, I hope that you'll be coming to this area as well.
41:42.070 --> 41:45.098
[SPEAKER_01]: So maybe we'll have a chance to meet in person.
41:45.158 --> 41:53.160
[SPEAKER_01]: So Sean, I wanted to get back to you now in terms of this experience and what it means to you.
41:53.662 --> 41:57.733
[SPEAKER_01]: And if there's this is a turning point, do you think you'll direct
41:57.713 --> 42:18.105
[SPEAKER_01]: other films featuring older adults and if so, any possible themes, what did you learn from doing this that might generate another film or more than one film about older adults to continue to show them in the correct light rather than an ageist kind of theme?
42:18.465 --> 42:20.869
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, that's a great question.
42:21.068 --> 42:22.110
[SPEAKER_02]: I think so.
42:22.210 --> 42:27.658
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, every film I'm involved in is almost like getting entrenched into a new world.
42:27.738 --> 42:35.148
[SPEAKER_02]: I spent my life insulated in the film world and every time I make a film, I'm, I don't know, I get entrenched into that community.
42:35.188 --> 42:42.439
[SPEAKER_02]: So I did a movie, but a gymnast, for example, and that was, you know, it's a true story about a gymnast at UCLA.
42:42.459 --> 42:50.130
[SPEAKER_02]: And so for a couple of years, I was involved in the gymnastics community meeting with Olympians, gold medalists from the,
42:50.110 --> 42:56.804
[SPEAKER_02]: And we made a wine movie in Southern Italy, and that, then I spent a couple of years like learning all about wine and screening our film and vineyards.
42:57.345 --> 43:06.545
[SPEAKER_02]: And now with Silver Screemers, again, it's getting involved in this community, finding out as much as I can and try to connect our film to the audience.
43:06.565 --> 43:09.351
[SPEAKER_02]: But it's truly this has been the...
43:09.331 --> 43:25.720
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't want to say the easiest, but it has been the the most passionate sort of audience that I've encountered for sure, because there are so many advocates for older adults that want to see this this facet of society taking care of and happy and it's
43:25.700 --> 43:30.308
[SPEAKER_02]: remarkable how many supporters there are that just want to do good in this world.
43:30.709 --> 43:39.825
[SPEAKER_02]: I do feel like I want to stay in this and this lane for as long as I can because I'm enjoying it so much going to these screenings and interacting with audiences of older adults.
43:39.985 --> 43:47.298
[SPEAKER_02]: And I do think it's a community that's underserved, but it yields at least for me the best.
43:47.518 --> 43:48.400
[SPEAKER_02]: The best.
43:48.498 --> 43:50.161
[SPEAKER_02]: experience because I don't know.
43:50.321 --> 43:55.869
[SPEAKER_02]: I feel inspired and motivated when I leave a screenings and that's always the best feeling.
43:56.270 --> 44:04.903
[SPEAKER_02]: I know that we've done some good and provided a couple of hours of smiles and entertainment for an audience that might not usually get it.
44:06.267 --> 44:11.094
[SPEAKER_01]: One thing that strikes me is just in terms of, again, your description of the participants.
44:11.454 --> 44:12.997
[SPEAKER_01]: There are so many stories out there.
44:13.417 --> 44:30.262
[SPEAKER_01]: These folks have lived their lives, and it's not only what they're experiencing now, but what they experienced before, and there are lots of stories that can be shared in some kind of a film to, again, appropriately portray these older adults.
44:30.802 --> 44:34.047
[SPEAKER_01]: And to that point, then, Sean, I was wondering,
44:34.027 --> 44:41.080
[SPEAKER_01]: Do you really believe that the film industry and movie goers are very interested in films about older adults?
44:41.340 --> 44:46.289
[SPEAKER_01]: Or is this going to change because say of what you did with silver screeners?
44:46.870 --> 44:56.107
[SPEAKER_01]: And my other people become enlightened and say, wow, maybe this isn't such a bad approach for future movies.
44:56.367 --> 44:57.469
[SPEAKER_01]: What are your thoughts?
44:57.449 --> 45:13.500
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I recall like I went to a film festival a couple of years ago and I always like to sit in on the industry panels and I recall one distributor distributor is the one that puts the films in theaters after a film is made a distributor puts it into the theater's across the country so
45:13.480 --> 45:42.323
[SPEAKER_02]: I always remember this panel is saying film is a very, it's very much driven towards what's popular these days for youth and it's well how do we get youth into theaters but they also mentioned that if you ever want to go on the the other side of things and make a film for an older audience they go to the cinemas with clubs and it's a such an underserved market and nobody is making films for older audiences and they just cited so many examples of what works
45:42.303 --> 45:55.301
[SPEAKER_02]: and they said, nobody is pitching us these stories but we are kind of craving them because it serves an audience that filmmakers for some reason don't find as as cool as the younger more dramatic sort of content out there.
45:55.902 --> 46:11.263
[SPEAKER_02]: So absolutely, I think I will stick with these stories of late stage reinvention and entrepreneurship and there could be older stories about older adult
46:11.243 --> 46:15.609
[SPEAKER_02]: interested in stories that don't treat aging as decline necessarily.
46:15.649 --> 46:17.892
[SPEAKER_02]: It's more of an evolution, I would say.
46:19.213 --> 46:21.096
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, congratulations.
46:21.276 --> 46:28.626
[SPEAKER_01]: And by the way, since aging matters has been on for nine years now, I can probably give you some topics too that you could consider.
46:28.866 --> 46:35.935
[SPEAKER_01]: So also, since you are in Canada, and we're broadcasting us from the United States,
46:35.915 --> 46:46.977
[SPEAKER_01]: Any comments that you'd like to share with us about how the number of films featuring older adults in Canada compares with those in the United States?
46:47.217 --> 46:53.890
[SPEAKER_01]: I was just wondering if you've made any observations as to what you see in your own country versus the U.S.
46:53.870 --> 47:18.038
[SPEAKER_02]: No, I think it's improving for sure, but I think use culture still dominates, I mean, they're the ones getting the latest round of funding and they're making films that, you know, there's a lot of youth driven stories that are being told now that maybe are all fighting for the same screen time, everyone sort of competing against each other in that same space.
47:18.018 --> 47:24.711
[SPEAKER_02]: I do think that appetite is out there, so when stories about older adults succeed, they succeed strongly.
47:25.212 --> 47:28.117
[SPEAKER_02]: The issue isn't necessarily audience resistance.
47:28.178 --> 47:30.302
[SPEAKER_02]: It's about these gatekeeping assumptions.
47:30.682 --> 47:32.426
[SPEAKER_02]: And we found that in our film as well.
47:32.506 --> 47:37.275
[SPEAKER_02]: We've had theater owners say this is a film for seniors,
47:37.255 --> 47:40.922
[SPEAKER_02]: It doesn't do well and so they're just they're not giving us a chance.
47:40.982 --> 48:00.057
[SPEAKER_02]: We have to kind of prove that there's a demand out there for our film and at every screening we go to we record video to show them look we filled a theater full of passionate audience members young and older and we really have to do our homework to convince these gatekeepers that yes there is an audience here's proof.
48:00.037 --> 48:17.623
[SPEAKER_02]: And if just kind of take a chance on a film for an older audience, you'll see that we can draw out a community of supporters to fill your theater and they'll buy popcorn and yeah, so I think that's all they're concerned about is that it might not play as well as a movie designed for younger audiences.
48:17.975 --> 48:34.634
[SPEAKER_01]: another aspect and it would be helpful for you to comment would be the fact that older adults are not just Caucasian and so there are many different older adults in different kinds of cultures and there's many even beyond that.
48:34.994 --> 48:43.003
[SPEAKER_01]: Has that also been of interest to you or to perhaps
48:42.983 --> 48:46.410
[SPEAKER_01]: that there are older adults in all different kinds of situations.
48:46.430 --> 48:49.316
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I'm even thinking about an email I got over the weekend.
48:49.376 --> 48:58.174
[SPEAKER_02]: This group of it's a Chinese organization, they run a Chinese musical theater group in Vancouver that wants to come out and book like a group.
48:58.154 --> 49:00.478
[SPEAKER_02]: outing for our screenings in Vancouver.
49:01.019 --> 49:23.554
[SPEAKER_02]: So you're right, there are multi-faceted organizations that represent a lot of key different demographics and that is something that we, and we love to kind of support those initiatives as well, so I'm going to fly to Vancouver and meet this group and do a custom kind of Q&A for them because I just so touched by their email that I just had to get out to the cinemas to kind of meet with them.
49:24.395 --> 49:52.512
[SPEAKER_01]: I suspect that oftentimes listeners don't realize how tough it is to pitch an idea if we don't have a lot of time yet, but it would be helpful just for listeners to understand that there's a lot of competition out there in terms of getting funding for movies.
49:52.492 --> 49:53.754
[SPEAKER_02]: Hmm.
49:53.774 --> 50:04.347
[SPEAKER_02]: What I think a lot of filmmakers do is that they pitch these projects that are very personal and sometimes like a personal film doesn't have an audience necessarily.
50:04.487 --> 50:13.758
[SPEAKER_02]: If you want to be a diligent filmmaker who makes a film with the intention of connecting to an audience, you kind of have to define that audience before you start a filmmaking process.
50:14.199 --> 50:17.723
[SPEAKER_02]: It's almost like reverse engineering a film, if I'm being honest, he up to you.
50:17.703 --> 50:25.915
[SPEAKER_02]: kind of envision who the audience is going to be and kind of work backwards to implement those themes into your film before you start rolling the camera.
50:26.275 --> 50:29.299
[SPEAKER_02]: That way you're kind of ensuring that the audience shows up thereafter.
50:29.339 --> 50:42.478
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, maybe I went on a tangent there and lost the essence of your question, but that's, well, I guess in terms of pitching, just wanted to ask you the question,
50:42.458 --> 51:07.099
[SPEAKER_01]: and I'm wondering if you anticipate that more new films were going to be written and produced about aging-related themes and that there might be more of a receptivity from the folks that you have to pitch it to or the ones that are going to fund it that they go, oh, maybe there is a merit to doing these kinds of movies because there's an audience out there, both young and old that are going to appreciate it.
51:07.079 --> 51:23.964
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, that's my hope for sure that would be the kind of ideal scenario I can kind of envision, but the fact the reality is like Hollywood isn't decline with this rise of artificial intelligence and the people that are going to be creating these new AI-driven films are youth.
51:24.045 --> 51:35.702
[SPEAKER_02]: Let's just admit that it's probably a youth-driven technology and so they're going to create these stories that are large and fantastic and full of explosions and
51:35.682 --> 51:59.057
[SPEAKER_02]: Things that you can't imagine and my worry is that a simpler, more adult driven story, those are going to be fewer and far between because if you can imagine a world and just kind of create it with a few keystrokes then maybe sort of a hopeful inspirational sort of tail about a group of
51:59.037 --> 52:17.788
[SPEAKER_02]: So that's my biggest fear kind of moving forward in this kind of new era of filmmaking is that people pushing the buttons are going to kind of focus on content for younger sort of audiences and those that mentality because that's whose creating prompts that will yield the projects that move forward.
52:19.118 --> 52:30.732
[SPEAKER_01]: Do you also think that since it's the younger people who are making the decisions that they don't have any realization of what older adults and the stories that they could tell?
52:30.796 --> 52:54.846
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I mean, and they don't have a lot of that lived life experience, so maybe they're just so focused on their world in which they grew up and they're surrounding themselves with it isn't until maybe you're kind of in the sandwich generation or I am or you're starting to pay attention and yearning the the guidance and wisdom of your your parents and grandparents and
52:54.826 --> 52:56.528
[SPEAKER_02]: older adults in your community.
52:57.630 --> 53:14.995
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I found that when I was younger, I wanted to slowly hang around my age group and kind of inform my culture through that, but it isn't until after some reflection that you truly realize the wisdom that is to be gained from the older people in your community.
53:14.975 --> 53:17.978
[SPEAKER_02]: So, I mean, our goal with this film is pretty simple.
53:18.018 --> 53:23.163
[SPEAKER_02]: We want to encourage older adults to be creative, and that's really the goal of this film.
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[SPEAKER_02]: You know, the project aims to challenge these ageist stereotypes and by showcasing older adults's vibrant and creative and imaginative and capable of producing meaningful artistic work and it just goes to show that creative engagement can foster community and purpose in this intergenerational dialogue.
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[SPEAKER_02]: So,
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[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, that's kind of like those are the messages that we're focusing on because this film does provide a compelling case for the inclusion of like creative programming at retirement poems and these community building initiatives so we hope that our film kind of leads to more creativity being employed later in life.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Well, final question you did mention a little bit earlier about how folks can learn more about Silver Screamers.
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[SPEAKER_01]: So if you repeat that and then again, the opportunities for communities and organizations to see the documentary, what do they need to know?
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[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, so you can reach out to us.
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[SPEAKER_02]: Probably the best ways through social media.
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[SPEAKER_02]: So either on Facebook or Instagram, we reply to everything.
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[SPEAKER_02]: So at SilverScreamers doc, you can email me directly.
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[SPEAKER_02]: It's just my name at gmail.com.
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[SPEAKER_02]: So Sean Sisterna at gmail.com.
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[SPEAKER_02]: If you want to reach out to me and book a screening for your own community.
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[SPEAKER_02]: I'm very happy to help support with a virtual Q and A and whatnot.
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[SPEAKER_02]: And I think those are the main ways to reach out to us.
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[SPEAKER_02]: I'm going to be glad to start a conversation with anyone who's interested in providing a bit of an entertainment and levity to an older adult community.
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[SPEAKER_02]: It's kind of like our dream sort of scenarios when someone reaches out to us and books this heartwarming film for their community.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Well, I am certainly anxious to see it when it becomes available.
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[SPEAKER_01]: So any final comments that you'd just like to share with us, Sean?
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[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, I mean, I'm just thankful for like organizations out there who are buckling us because I get to travel to these unique spots places I haven't been to before.
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[SPEAKER_02]: In April, I'm headed to Brussels for the Brussels International Fantastic Film Festival and there we're making a short horror movie with a group of older adults in Belgium that I'll screen before we screen silver screeners.
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[SPEAKER_02]: I'm headed to Scotland to give a talk on
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[SPEAKER_02]: on silver screeners and screen the movie there at an aging conference in Dendi, Scotland.
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[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, headed all over Canada in the U.S. later this year.
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[SPEAKER_02]: So it's just having our film like connect with an audience kind of one screening at a time.
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[SPEAKER_02]: It just it's never been a more heartwarming project that I've been a part of.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Sounds like there's been a lot of silver screeners in all parts of the world.
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[SPEAKER_01]: So I certainly wish you well.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And I want to thank Sean Sisterna, Canadian film, director, producer and creator of a documentary called Silver Screamers.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you so much for joining me today, Sean.
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[SPEAKER_01]: It was a real pleasure to learn about your documentary and as I said, I hope I'll have a chance to see it.
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[SPEAKER_02]: And share all your fantastic host, excellent questions, and if you ever want to make a horror movie together, I'm going to take you up on that opportunity.
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[SPEAKER_01]: I will definitely keep that in mind.
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[SPEAKER_01]: So meanwhile, for our listeners who want to not only listen to this podcast, but any of them, you can learn more about aging matters by visiting our website.
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[SPEAKER_01]: It's at agingmattersonline.com, and of course, at that site, you can access all aging matters radio programs.
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[SPEAKER_01]: the TV show episodes that we produce each month, and of course the podcast, which are broadcast on Apple, Spotify, and Red Circle.
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[SPEAKER_01]: So again, Aging Matters Online.com.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Aging Matters is produced in a association with Steve Black Audio to learn more about that company, visit Steve Black Audio.com.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you for listening to A.G. Matters today and remember, age is just a number, not a label.
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[SPEAKER_01]: I'll be back again with you next week.
