Counterculture Utopia? Documentary Filmmaker Jonathan Berman discusses rereleasing Commune

Our special guest today is documentary filmmaker Jonathan Berman, who began his career as a stock footage researcher and assistant editor. He is director and producer of The Shvitz, a film about the last traditional steambaths in New York. His film My Friend Paul, about his relationship to his bipolar best friend, was produced for public television. Calling All Earthlings is an exploration of Joshua Tree and the area’s UFO-inspired dome, The Integratron. Berman co-wrote the story for On The Run, featuring Michael Imperioli and John Ventimiglia, and produced the NYC music documentary Sabbath in Paradise, which featured Harvey Pekar and John Zorn. Today we’ll discuss his film Commune, which is being rereleased 20 years after it was made.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 1:15

Today we are joined by our guest host, filmmaker Heather Lenz, best known for directing and producing the Sundance documentary Kusama Infinity. Our special guest today is documentary filmmaker Jonathan Berman, who began his career as a stock footage researcher and assistant editor. He's director and producer of The Twitch, a film about the last traditional steamboat in New York. His film, My Friend Paul, about his relationship to his bipolar best friend, was produced for public television. Calling All Earthlings is an exploration of Joshua Tree and the area's UFO-inspired dome, The Integration. Berman co-wrote the story for On the Run, featuring Michael Imperioli and John Ventimilia, and produced the New York City music documentary, Sabbath in Paradise, which featured Harvey Picard and John Zorn. Today we'll discuss his film Commune, which is being released 20 years, re-released 20 years after it was made.

SPEAKER_01 2:40

Well, thank you so much, Claire, for the introduction. And thank you, Jonathan, for joining us today. In your own words, can you please tell us what Commune is about for anyone who's not familiar with it?

SPEAKER_03 2:52

Well, Commune follows the um story of the Black Bear Ranch. Oh, and by the way, thanks for having me on your podcast. This is great. Yes, our pleasure. And uh it follows the story of the Black Bear Ranch, was an early experiment in group living from um 1968 and even on to today. And you know, it's a story of what you come up against when you try to transform the world through who you're being and being with.

SPEAKER_01 3:27

Well, that's a good explanation. Do you mind also just sort of explaining how um how it is that folks ended up on this land, um, you know, featured in this film, this group of people?

SPEAKER_03 3:42

Well, I don't want to give it away, but I will give you some, of course, I'll tell you some of it. Um, I'm not sure if if this is gonna be out by in time for our screenings in well, in San Francisco Bay Area this weekend, which is the 12th through the 14th, and then we're in LA on the 18th, so people can see it for themselves. Um, we have commune the movie.com. But the story of the Black Bear Ranch starts with Richard and Elsa Marley, uh, a San Francisco couple, very, very groovy, I would say, in my opinion, to use a term from that era, uh, who were traveling up in the northern, very rural parts of California. And they Elsa, who was an artist, saw a company called Big Sky Reality, and she liked the name. Uh, and they stopped in and she said, What's this? A ranch, 20, 20, I think it's$28,000,$24,000. And uh, this is interesting. So that's how it started. Richard had been a labor organizer on the docks in Brooklyn and Oakland, and uh went on to uh Richard Nelson became almost like the parents, uh, the leaders, but there were no leaders because it was very institutional of this experiment in living.

SPEAKER_01 5:09

Well, thanks for that extra information. And what I'm curious, what motivated you to make a film about this topic?

SPEAKER_03 5:17

You know, the initial motivation came because I was talking to a producer uh uh who became our our co-producer, and I was kind of pitching a film about barbecue in the Carolinas. Perfect place to start. And I wanted to do a film about that. This is before any of these food shows were on TV, so it was a long time ago. And um uh, and he said, Yeah, I'm not interested in that. Very straightforward. I was like, Well, what are you interested in, right? And then he said, Well, I am interested in stuff that is off the grid. I'm like, off the grid, off the grid. So I was like, hold on. Next day, I'm like, I found something really cool. Um, a group of people at Black Bear uh published a book called Freeland, Free Love. People are always pushing the free love aspect for sales, I guess. Um, Tales from a Wilderness Commune. And a number of people from the ranch wrote a few pages in that book, and I was really struck by their conviction and kind of the contradictions um in there. And uh we went ahead and met with the people at Black Bear, came out to California, they grilled us. We we attended a reunion and they grilled us. A hundred people circled me and uh Christian, a co-producer, in a circle and said, You're the media, why are you here? Because the media, to be fair, had been unfair, had been, you know, kind of uh sensationalizing and getting the story wrong often. Not always, but often. So they were rightly concerned, and we explained to them what we were up to, and that began our journey.

SPEAKER_01 7:06

Well, that sounds interesting, having so many people question your intention from the beginning. So, after you got their approval, how how did you take it from there in terms of beginning the process of making the film and you know, starting to presumably bring camera equipment into the situation and so forth?

SPEAKER_03 7:26

Well, uh sorry, I was just stuck on something you said a second ago. You know, I'm just putting on myself back in that time. And you we think of like hippies in the 60s and all that, and flower power and grooviness. This is not a groovy um non-mistake kind of situation. This is a people interested in some kind of confrontation, uh, not in a negative way, but just to be super straightforward to get to the next level. So I kind of appreciated that actually, that aspect of Black Bear. So, you know what I mean? When we got there, there was no um passive aggressiveness to it. Like, who are you? What do you want to do here? Which is why when people always say, Oh, sometimes people will say New York City and people are rude or people are not nice, and like, oh, really nice. May seem a little rude to you, but just very straightforward. It's like, what do you want? Can I help you? If not, bye. So it had that aspect to it, that initial meeting.

SPEAKER_01 8:29

Sorry, what was your next uh oh, and then I was asking, so beyond that, after you got permission to make the film, how did you what were the first steps you took?

SPEAKER_03 8:38

Yeah, it's interesting with a group that's more anarchistic than anything else, uh, but I would say mostly benignly anarchistic, uh, because we think of anarchism and the pejorative, you know, definition of it is is negative often, but um in a good way. So the next step of making the film was starting to shoot, you know, right? And a lot of research and a lot of connecting with the people. Because you say getting permission, I mean, getting permission from a group of anarchists, there's no such thing. And even it's like continues to this day with the screenings we're coming up with. We will have people there, I believe, from Black Bear, but it's all it's like herding cats, it's really hard. Like they're coming, some are coming. It's not flaky, but it's just more like everybody's on their own path, you know. And that was one of the challenges of the Black Bear Ranch. And, you know, just to preface that, I'm not an I'm I guess I'm a little bit of an expert on it, but I'm really I didn't live there or anything. So I I could speak more from the media making aspect. I know you're asking me those questions, but um, you know, people did come there with different ideas of what this brave new world, oh not brave new world, that's almost authoritarian in a way. Um, but this new world would uh be like. And for some people it was about, you know, practicing the piano for five hours a day. That's what we need in the new world, right? Um, to break through, we need art and music. And other people, it was about exploring sexuality and gender, and we have to get equality and gender, right? At this point, think back. I mean, you guys probably weren't born. I was barely born, but uh at the point when this commune was developed, I don't believe women could have bank accounts or credit cards. So that was what they were up against, one of the many things. So so many people came there for different reasons. That's that's my point.

SPEAKER_01 10:36

I see. And uh thanks for explaining that. And what did you personally find most inspiring about the people who live there?

SPEAKER_03 10:46

Well, a lot of the people we interviewed weren't there anymore. Um, Black Bear, in a way, is like a school. People come and go. So there's many generations, obviously, that aren't featured in the film. I think someone is coming, not sure if this is her, but um, there's a whole effort to decolonize Black Bear. That's a whole nother modern thing that happened recently. Um, but um most inspired. I think just people living up to their potential and also the the facts that that most of the people, I think almost all the people in the film went on to work on making the world a better place through healing of medicinal, you know, acupuncture and medicine, social work, working with the native tribes who helped. It was a it was a an equal relationship working with the Crook Indians and other local people. Um you know, help helping with the Salmon River Restoration Council, which was you know, helping um keep the river healthy and the salmon around. So all kinds of great people doing uh good stuff. Not to say there weren't people at Black Bear who didn't go on to to you know get into the whole business world and all that, not that there's anything wrong with that, but that somehow just naturally did not become the people we focused on.

SPEAKER_01 12:16

I see. And uh what were some of the obstacles that people living at Black Bear Ranch had to overcome?

SPEAKER_03 12:25

They had to overcome. Well, you uh Heather, you're a filmmaker, you understand this. Uh we had they had to overcome obstacles of the best cinematic kind, right? And I when I teach at Cal State San Marcos, I talk to my students often about this, that there's four levels of obstacle. I find this useful when you're making a film to look at those, right? Little filmmaking stuff, because that's really important to me, because I'm a filmmaker and not a not a professional anthropologist or anything. Um, the first level uh is the physical. So you have a winter where you could die from it being cold and or not having food, or you know, so they didn't know what they were doing. They were city people when they first went up to the remote wilderness in the late 60s. Luckily, uh, there were local people uh who helped them. Um, and then another level, of course, is interpersonal, right? As we were just talking about, you know, your idea of the brave new world is about having beautiful art. But like, why do you get to play the piano in your silk robe while I'm out with the crops in the field? Because I'm into architect agriculture. But you know, so there's that interpersonal conflict. Oh, you said obstacles, but I'm talking about obstacle conflict, very similar. Um, and then you have the inner level. Like the only problem with getting to utopia is you drag this suitcase full of crud with you, your neuroses and your patterns and history. And so there's that, and you know, can I do it? Am I worthwhile? All those kind of inner questions, you know. Should I be here? Oh no, I'm not I'm antisocial, I shouldn't be here. There was one guy we interviewed who's not in the film. I don't think we filmed him though. And he was like a hermit, and he lived at Blackberry, just lived in a cabin off in the woods. He was a writer. Um, and then of course, the biggest level, and I think why the film can hit on a lot of levels, besides the fact that it's a good story and we have good participants in it. Um, societal level, right? So, you know, the story representing something bigger. Um, yeah, I mean, that's I think pretty obvious.

SPEAKER_01 14:51

And with indie filmmaking, there are always obstacles. And I'm wondering if you could talk about some of the obstacles you had to overcome to make this film.

SPEAKER_03 15:01

Oh, okay. You're talking about that. Okay, or both. Um, well, there's always the money. You know, in a way, the film is an ode to the baby boom and their children. Uh, but I could also say that it was hard to raise money uh for a film that's dealing with what's perceived as maybe something social or maybe something old hat. You know, before this time, there hadn't really been films done on group living and cults and all that. Since that time, there's been a million. Um, 2006 when it came out. Um, so there's the fundraising. There is what we talked about before, getting people to buy in to be in it. Um, there was the editing process. You know, if you want conflict, become an independent filmmaker, right? All of it. Then we lucked out in that um slam dance, decided to show the film. Uh it's my second film at Slam Dance, and that helped a lot because it brought it to the attention of some uh city slicker distributors who who helped the film along too.

SPEAKER_01 16:17

I see. Well, since you brought up funding, how did you fund this film?

SPEAKER_03 16:23

We had some money from philanthropists, uh, from what I remember. Some from we didn't get a lot of money, some from the New York State. It, you know, ironically, the film was totally almost except for the shooting and and you know, background research, a New York City production. We should have gotten a New York City film grant if I have those. I think I might have gotten some money from NISCA, New York State Council and the Arts. Um, yeah, and just individual philanthropists. I'd have to look at the credits. It's been a long time, Heather.

SPEAKER_01 16:57

Yeah. How did it end up being a New York uh production? I mean, because you're based in California and the story's in California. So how how did that happen?

SPEAKER_03 17:08

Well, I actually am not based in California anymore, um, although I'm there part-time to be at Cal State.

SPEAKER_02 17:15

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_03 17:16

And I am a New Yorker. I grew up there, I lived there for a long time. And that's and that's also in my opinion, biased opinion, where you get the better. I mean, there's great filmmakers all over the world right now, right? But you get the whole tradition and community is more condensed and less commercial in documentary filmmaking. So that's where we're editing. We're editing in a building. Uh I knew we were in a cool building, but I didn't realize it was this cool. Like um as we were editing, David Bowie's offices moved in.

unknown 17:48

No.

SPEAKER_03 17:49

And they took another floor in the building. We were on an art floor. Um, it had been a uh a garment factory, and they were still making garments in that building in Chinatown in New York. So yeah, I lived in New York on Third Avenue. We edited there. I think there's something to be said for not being at the place you're writing about. So if you want to write about America, go to Europe or Africa or something. You know, if you grew up here, just that removal, I think, is helpful. This is, I think, why artists do artist colonies.

SPEAKER_01 18:20

Well, this is all interesting insight. So um, so going back to making the film, uh, when you were interviewing people associated with Black Bear Ranch, what notable differences did you find between the experiences of the people who were adults that chose to move there and the people who were children that were raised there because that's where their parents decided to live?

SPEAKER_03 18:44

Right, right. Good question. Yeah. Well, uh, like in suburbia or other locations, there were a variety of experiences. Um, some of the children just became beautiful, you know, flowered into beautiful beings. No, it sounds like I'm winding up that the others didn't. Some some were like, Hey, um, Aaron, who's the son of Richard and Elsa, was like, I want to go eat bacon and live down with the uh Indian family down the road. And they're like, Okay, that was one aspect of the 60s that was bizarre. That like kids just almost have not in every person in the 60s for sure, but in the counterculture, kids were given a lot more um leeway as as we're winding into you, which turns tragic. But it did in this case, they said, Okay, Aaron, go live with uh I forgot her name, the Indian lady down the road. And he did and was not really so into it, you know. So um it is something when you don't choose your home, but none of us do in a way, right? Or if you're new agey, maybe we all do. We've chosen that.

SPEAKER_01 20:06

So um taking this a step further, um, as part of this documentary, you talked to people who belong to the Shiva Leela cult, who for a time stayed at Black Bear Ranch. Can you please describe their beliefs and comment on whether you've wrestled with any ethical concerns while interviewing them and deciding how to include them in the film? And the reason I said this is kind of taking off on the last question is because it it their beliefs also involved children, which I'll let you explain.

SPEAKER_03 20:36

Right. Absolutely. At this point, maybe at that point have certainly struck me, but no ethical concerns in any way. Again, you know, this is gets back to the heart of Black Bear who who came up against the Shiva Lila, as you see in the film. Um, that, you know, you gotta the only way to get through something is strike straight through the center, you know. So I wanted to have them in the film because uh just for those of you who are listening who haven't seen the film yet, if you haven't, um the um Shiva Lila or a a child uh worshiping cult that came to Black Bear and uh kind of uh uh antagonized or engaged, you know. When you engage with someone, you usually want to have their permission, but without permission with the Black Bear people and said you guys are just bourgeoisie and you just want to get high while you have people babysit your kids in that you know group setting where the kids maybe are raised together. Um, not sure about that. Uh um, but um and so um I thought it would be super important. I thought it was pretty actually brave of uh of the two um participants in the Shivalila to come into the film. Um, and I wanted to be empathetic, but still present this reality of, in my opinion, it being messed up. So I think that becomes comes across pretty clearly, but I'm not out to to do a number on anyone. Um I think you can be empathetic to your bad guy, right? When you're screenwriting, your bad guy better um have some empathetic qualities or your right, or or or not if you're writing a cartoon, you know, if you're writing a a more broad piece. But in general, if you can empathize with the dark forces, that's very helpful.

SPEAKER_01 22:32

Well, one of the people in your film was a child who who grew up in this situation, so she didn't she didn't choose it. And her situation was pretty rough. It's a very it was I found it hard to hear her story. I felt absolutely like it was a pretty tough childhood. So um, yeah. And um anyway, so uh moving forward, um, you've just wait, but I don't want to move forward.

SPEAKER_03 22:57

I want to stay on this for a second, if that's okay, Heather.

SPEAKER_01 22:59

Sure, sure.

SPEAKER_03 23:00

Yeah. So I mean, this is the key to it, right? I mean, it's not flowers and sunshine, um, life. I mean, it is what you make it, I suppose, but you're right. Um, to Celia didn't have a choice. I thought it was very brave of her to talk about her experiences in the film. And and has I saw a piece recently she did on uh public uh radio, I think in San Francisco. So I think that's really important um to share the dark and the light, because without the dark, there is no light. And um I certainly would now I believe there was a cut. I was talking to my co-producer, Christian Hattinger, and um that there was a cut where we had a lot more Shiva Lila stuff in there because it is fascinating, right? Uh although horrible. Uh but I think we lessened the amount of it to the point where there is a slight some stuff might be slightly, slightly unclear, but you get the idea. But yeah, you know, if I make a film and there's no dark side, I'm in big trouble.

SPEAKER_01 24:03

Well, that's that's an interesting way to look at it. I I uh I see your point. So um, in terms of editing this film, you talked about your cool location where you're editing and everything, but how how long did that process take? And do you have my have any idea how many hours of footage you had or anything like that?

SPEAKER_03 24:22

Yeah, it's been a while, and we still have all the footage, and we actually have an archive of amazing Porta Pack. There's black and white footage that was shot back of the original video camera that's in the film. That's amazing. Um, and there's a bunch of footage that's not in the film, obviously. Uh, in fact, when we were editing and we got that footage, what happened was that Elsa was like, I think someone was wandering around with a video camera, kind of doing a Pony Express where each commune would talk to another commune, and then they would play the video tape at the other commune in Colorado, and you'd say hi to your friends and like that. And so we found this guy and he had rotting tapes, Portapack video tapes. And thanks to the Bay Area Video Coalition, they had one of the last machines we were able to resurrect those. And those include um uh American Indian ceremonies that I don't think people have seen. So you better pull out those tapes. The film's never done, it's only uh abandoned, right? But we didn't abandon it this time. Um, so in answer to your question, I don't I would say the editing was about seven or eight months, pretty six to eight months, typical on a film like this.

SPEAKER_01 25:30

And what kind of feedback did you get from the people in the documentary about about the film that you made?

SPEAKER_03 25:38

Oh, that's a that's a good question because I'm not doing that now. I'm doing a film now about the gondola in Los Angeles. It's a uh an idea to run a gondola, an aerial tramway from Union Station in Los Angeles to um Dodgers Stadium. And it's maybe a little more in the journalistic world that I'm I'm looking at it that way. So I'm not showing any cuts or anything, but uh to the people who are participating in the film who are involved in the story, which is uh you know, a classic uh billionaire against the working class people, in my opinion. Um, but um we showed the cut to people at Black Bear, like I think we bailed around the VHS or something, and we were getting every kind of comment like, um, oh, well, if you can get a video camera and start again, I think you should do it this way. And then we got a comment like, well, if you take the middle part and cut that in half and put it a little bit at the front and a little bit, and another person, you know, finally also, um, I was tearing my hair out because you know, this is crazy. But uh finally also said, Leave Jonathan alone, he's doing his art. So, in that in that case, we had a real experience of almost being at Black Bear, that kind of anarchism.

SPEAKER_01 27:02

Well, one thing's for sure, you can never please any everyone, you know.

SPEAKER_03 27:06

Right. And in a case like that, uh in the new film, for example, I might I'm gonna show the film to participants in it and experts just to make sure I don't get any of the facts wrong. That's I think that was one of the main reasons we were sharing it from a kind of journal that on that level of fact checking.

SPEAKER_01 27:28

Right, right, right. Yeah, that is important. So this documentary, it's being re-released 20 years after it was made. And this isn't common with documentaries. And I wonder what led to the decision to re-release the film and what made you think there'd be an appetite for the film at this particular time.

SPEAKER_03 27:48

Right, right. Um, so we were uprezzing, uprezzing, right? You have a lot of filmmakers, making the film look better and applicable to play on every streaming format, which where it'll eventually return. Um, it might be a while and it might be bigger platforms. Uh, but uh in the process of doing that, I was like, wait a minute, we should we should pull this out because what's happening right now, in my opinion, and I think in a lot of people's, I think two-thirds of the country's opinion, is that we're under siege for an authoritarian government, and it's very worrying. And whereas when the film came out in 2005, it was almost a curio, you know. Hey, this guy, and this story is like a re-examination of what we think happened in the 60s, and it's suggesting that there were a lot of successes that just got became trends and they got absorbed into commercial entities in some ways. Uh, but um now I feel like it's back to the 60s and worse, you know, like just from that political perspective. And even though the film is not explicitly political, uh uh there's obviously political ramifications about every choice you make on the personal. That was a saying from that era. The personal is political. So given that we were making the film look better and more playable on every kind of device, I thought, well, let's just put it out in theaters and kind of get a little more, a little more um a little more speed on the ball, you know?

SPEAKER_01 29:31

Mm-hmm. And so how what's it? I know you're in the middle of doing these screenings, but you've already had some. So how are audiences reacting to your screenings you've been doing recently versus the initial screenings 20 years ago?

SPEAKER_03 29:47

Well, many of them are walking out in disgust and asking for their money back. And I don't know why. No, I'm kidding. Um, the the audiences are um great. People want to talk afterwards, right? Which is always a good sign of a meeting or an event. So, for example, we had a wonderful screening in uh not Hudson. We did Hudson, but we did another Beacon, New York. Um, this area uh where I am now is um kind of upstate New York, has always been a hotbed for some reason of communal stuff and movements. And um and we still sit around and talked afterwards for an hour with with people. And we did the QA for 20 minutes and then we kept going. So it's been really heartening. People want to talk. People, I think, you know, one of the reasons also to do screenings, it's a film about being together. So you're gonna watch the film huddled in your corner in your hoodie on an iPhone, or are you gonna watch it with a group of people? So that just seemed to make more sense.

SPEAKER_01 30:48

And when you say you're in upstate New York, which where are you located?

SPEAKER_03 30:53

Oh, uh right near Woodstock. Oh, I see. Well, that's not the festival of the town.

SPEAKER_01 30:58

Right, right, right. Okay. So as the filmmaker, watching the film with fresh eyes, you know, after many years, is there anything about the film that you think you would have done differently?

SPEAKER_03 31:11

Yeah, well, as you know, as a filmmaker yourself, you know, I said this before, I forgot it's from some some old-time Smartie. The poem is never finished, it's only abandoned. Have you ever heard that one, Heather?

SPEAKER_01 31:25

Not that one, but the variation you said earlier.

SPEAKER_03 31:27

But the Yeah, exactly. So mostly with the fact that it plays narratively speaking, like you know, our first screening was at Upstate Films in Rhinebeck, New York, and uh and I could tell that the film still played, you know what I mean? Like people weren't like checking their phones or anything. That's always the thing when you're doing test screenings. Like, are people just like you can feel when people are getting bored? I don't and that can be a strategy in filmmaking, boring people. So they're so you know, so they hit another level, but that's not the way I do my film. So um, I was happy on that level. The things that I might change, I might add a couple of minutes to clarify the whole story of Cecilia and her mom, Meredith, um, because it's a little hazy, Cecilia's journey. Um, and then uh maybe a touch more about how they made money, although it's in there. At one point we had a title card that said how they made money, but you really don't need that much money to live in the woods off the land. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 32:32

Yeah. And I'm I'm sure you know that a few years ago, a high school teacher named Tad Cummings kidnapped a student and for a while they hit at Black Bear Ranch. As someone familiar with the ranch, how did you react when that was in the news?

SPEAKER_03 32:46

Yeah, I just saw that in the last few months. I mean, obviously, it's terrible. Um, when you make films about counterculture and stuff that's off the grid, you tend to run into this. I'll give you a weird example is um when I did my first film on the Russian baths of the Schwitz, about the old-timey steam baths and urban life. Uh, I found a film in the archives, I think it was at the Library of Congress, called Ladies' Night in the Russian Baths. And in that film, it's a silent film, uh, gangsters uh decide to hide out at the Russian baths. So this idea of hiding out in these off-the-grid spaces uh is very popular. This is one of the reasons, by the way, that blackbearranch.org, I'm not their publicist, but they a couple of people asked me to say this. You can't just show up there anymore. Um, you have to write a paragraph and on their website, you know, send send it in. So they make sure that this doesn't happen again. Um, right? Because what happened was when the film came out, it was in theaters, it was on Netflix for like a year, I think. So some people may have seen it there. Um, and Jerry Garcia of The Grateful Dead died. Um, great musician. And uh uh all these deadheads who some of whom traveled kind of with the band, you know, selling sandwiches and t-shirts and stuff, they didn't have any place to go. So somehow they got it in their heads to come to Black Bear and uh because the film had come out, and apparently like like scores of people came at that point. So they just want to vet people a little bit, which I get, especially. Yeah, so that's I I'm not fully familiar with that story, but obviously um doesn't sound very wholesome.

SPEAKER_01 34:36

Yeah. And um as both a filmmaker and you, you know, you mentioned your professor. What advice would you give to aspiring documentary filmmakers?

SPEAKER_03 34:48

Find another job. Um, no. Uh let's see. I guess uh the first thing is to live life, right? I think Werner Hertzog talks about this too, or look at his life. He was like welding and factories. Go uh study, um, don't study film, study um undergrad, study um humanities, history, art, philosophy. You know, ground yourself in knowledge and then go have applied knowledge and adventures and experiences in the world so that when you make your films, you've got something you want to talk about and some smarts, you know. Um but beyond that, find something that really you're passionate about and interested in because you're probably gonna, if you're doing like what they call one-off or feature documentaries, um, you're gonna be living with this for a while, right? In the best of cases, there's seven months of editing and five months of before and after, and a year of distribution, and you know, you're gonna be living with the story. So, yeah, some stories have come up, like for example, the Shiva Leela, like, yeah, that whole story deserves a full film, but I don't want to live in that darkness for that long, you know.

SPEAKER_01 36:08

Yeah, yeah. A lot of the true crime stuff to me also is so depressing. And I I feel like are we really just like training people how to commit more true crime by by all of these horrible stories, but or are we giving them an escape valve so they don't?

SPEAKER_03 36:25

I don't know about I don't know, but it is wild how the true crime thing is such a female-led genre. Interesting.

SPEAKER_01 36:32

I don't quite understand that, but um yeah, I mean either. Anyway, so for anyone in the audience who's interested in learning more about your film commune, um, your career, can you please share your social media handles and your website? I know um, you know, you've mentioned uh the upcoming screenings, but of course we're not exactly sure when people might listen to this. So I feel like if they could check your website, that'll be helpful.

SPEAKER_03 36:57

Yeah, if you go to commune the movie.com, that brings you to my website, which is called Open Signal Studios. Um, and then you can click around and find out about the other films and about what I'm currently up to. And even if you have a story idea, you can get in touch with me there. There's a there's a thing that says want to make a movie, and that allows you to uh contact us.

SPEAKER_01 37:25

Great. And um is there anything I didn't ask you that you'd like to share?

SPEAKER_03 37:33

You didn't ask me that I'd like to share. Well, no, I think we're good. I mean, you know, I was talking about gondola. If anyone wants to be an executive producer of a film or get involved on a fiscal level, or they're friends with Johnny Depp and he wants to be in a film, you know, executive producer type stuff, please let me know. This is uh again, it's like uh Davy and Goliath story of a billionaire up against the um working class kids in Chinatown who think this gondola is a bad idea. Um you know, and getting back to the whole thing about the the good guy, bad guy stuff. I would love that if the people involved in the in the pro-gondola side would talk in the film, but they they really are keeping a very close lid on their communications, uh, unfortunately. But you know, when we have a cut, we will show it to them and hopefully they'll join in. Because you know, the original idea to do something like that is pretty wild and pretty cool. So again, I want to be able to be fair and show both sides or all sides, there's always more than two, right? So uh yeah, if anyone's interested in getting involved and learning filmmaking from a filmmaker, that's one way. Also, I need interns all the time because you don't, as you know, you don't make films. I mean, some people do solo, but you always want to have like a team, you just can't do it all yourself. Like last night, I was struggling with doing because my intern went back to college. So I was struggling with uh Photoshop. I'm like, God, every time this comes up, I'm like, I gotta take a course on Photoshop. Even better is having some people really are good at it, you know.

SPEAKER_01 39:12

And do you uh you mentioned it at the beginning, but could you just tell us again when you're upcoming, when and where your upcoming screenings are happening?

SPEAKER_03 39:20

Sure. Um coming up very soon, in two days, actually, is uh well from the date of this recording, September 12th, 2025. It will be uh a series of three special screenings in the Bay Area. Um really exciting because that's kind of like the home of commune story, right? It's where it all started. Um, and um the first one in San Rafael in the evening of Friday, uh 12th, and then two mountainees, uh, one in Sebastopol, where I've never been. It's really exciting, beautiful Northern California stuff. And then, oh, northern, yeah. And then um then the last one there is in Berkeley on the 12th. And then we're gonna be down in LA at this really cool place. Someone can make a great film about this, um uh called the Philosophical Research Society, started by Manley Hall many probably 100 years ago, and uh that was like a kind of from that world of theosophy and all those great wild movements into personal growth and spirituality. So there's a building that's historic with this amazing library, and we're showing it there on the evening of the 18th. And we have special guests at all these people from Black Bear, people from other communes. So it's gonna be it's gonna be pretty wild.

SPEAKER_01 40:39

Well, cool. Well, thank you so much for your sharing all of this information and taking time out of your schedule to join us. Um yeah, so thank you.

SPEAKER_03 40:50

Thank you, Heather.

SPEAKER_01 40:52

Okay, and thanks everyone for listening.