Interview With Win Marks, Grip, Lighting Designer, and Filmmaker

The Rolling Tape spoke with Win Marks, an electrician, grip, lighting designer, and filmmaker about the process of lighting film sets and his involvement in making a short film Do You Say What You Mean? In conversation with Danny Jarabek and Sara Ciplickas, Win talks about the films that inspire him in a discussion about everything from the state of the industry and Hollywood imagery to Jordan Peele and Jean-Luc Godard.

The Headless Woman was the movie that opened my eyes to what movies could be and the fact that she was all the way in Argentina and not in Hollywood or New York, it’s you don’t have to be in these hot spots to make something really interesting really valuable in my opinion.

Win Marks

Danny Jarabek: Hello, this is Danny Jarabek here as the host of the Rolling Tape podcast and today we are hosting an interview, we are very excited to be speaking with Win Marks. Win. Welcome to the show!

Win Marks: Thank you very much. Thanks for having me.

DJ: And joining this interview, we also have fellow team member and podcaster Sara Ciplickas.

Sara Ciplickas: Hey, happy to be here.

DJ: So, Win just to get this conversation started, we know that you are a fellow alumni of Clemson University where I also graduated and Sara is currently attending too. And you are an aspiring filmmaker and doing work in film currently. And so, yeah, just why don’t you introduce yourself to our listeners, give a little bit of background on your interest in film and what you are doing and what you hope to be doing in the future as well.

WM: Yeah, I just I want to start off by saying that I saw that Dan Mirvish was on your show two episodes ago which is awesome. I just want to brace the listeners that I have not co-founded a major American film festival, so how far The Rolling Tape has fallen in two episodes. No, no, no, I’m kidding I work in film in Atlanta. I do mostly electric and grip work. I work at a rental house as well. And that’s sort of what I’ve been doing since I left school. Actually, moved down here, was lucky enough to get in with the rental house pretty early and then just kind of found my way on set from there. and grip do mostly, mostly lighting, which at first I thought was just going to be manual labor, which was cool with me, but it actually turns out it’s really creative. You can do a lot to the shot and to the sort of mood of the overall film, TV show, commercial, whatever you’re doing with how much your DP knows about lights. You can get away with a little bit more if the DP doesn’t really know what they’re doing, which happens more than you would think.

DJ: Oh yeah, that’s pretty funny. No, I mean lighting I feel it’s so underestimated how much lighting actually affects a scene of anything you’re working on., good lighting and bad lighting is, you can distinctly tell when you’re watching something.

WM: Totally, I mean, I feel the same way about sound too. It’s no one really complains if the camera movements look bad you can sort of be oh that was an artistic choice or something, but sound or the lights look bad you can tell, but if they look great it sort of sort of flies under the radar just, you’re not actively thinking about it so I kind of like how it’s sort of an undercover component.

DJ: I’m sure it’s also extremely challenging too. It’s, I mean, you’re working on probably sets indoors, in a closed sort of production scope. But building the lighting of a scene, what is that? I mean, the only short films we’ve done were super small productions, one of them we did completely outside, so the sun was our lighting. What are some of the challenges, some of the things that are interesting that you can have some control over?

WM: Yeah, I mean the coolest thing about the job. I think is that it totally depends on the set totally depends on the shot on the set on what project you’re working on so yeah, I mean I’ve done a lot of stuff on a stage like you’re talking about but also a lot of stuff on location and that’s completely different.

DJ: Oh, cool.

WM: Because you’re expected to bring the same number of lights, or amount of lights on location, you’re running that completely off of generators, so you got to figure it out. We did this Mercedes van commercial out in the middle of the woods in the middle of nowhere. And so, we’re lugging cable and generators out into the hundreds of yards into the woods. It was wild, but it’s sort of fun to your question about preparing or that I actually can’t remember what your original question is, but it depends totally depends on the situation.

DJ: Yeah, yeah, for sure. Are there any stages or locations that you found either particularly challenging or were like, wow, this one’s going to be, how are we going to do this? How are we going to achieve what we’re trying to go for here with this with this specific type of set?

WM: Yeah, yes. The first thing that came to mind actually was we were working on this, we were doing a rigging for a Marvel thing at Tyler Perry Studios and it was one of the biggest studios I’ve been in. I’ve done some rigging in Trilith, formerly Pinewood where they shoot all the Marvel stuff, but it wasn’t for Marvel, it was just huge stages. So relatively new to stage work at this point. And, I mean, the stages are, what, the ceiling’s four stories high or something. So, we’re like, okay, we have to go clamp some lights to the ceiling. So you just get in the scissor lift and go all the way to the sky, it’s creepy, it’s scary actually. You’re swaying while you’re up there, trying to rig a light on the ceiling. But yeah, the other one I was thinking of was we did this commercial. We’re in a, it was some fast-food company. Might’ve been Chick-fil-A. We were in the restaurant and our main key light went out. We’re in the middle of our second or third shot. So, we’re, we are fully in it at this point. Actors are on, everyone’s moving, everyone’s doing their thing, lights are pretty much set up. Key light just cuts out and it’s you have 50 people staring at you and your four person G and E crew and they’re like, “Uh fix it,” but yeah I mean that to me is fun though because, not that obviously that was not fun but yeah, we just had to reroute the cable to a different generator and bring it closer to the set. And it was a mess, but it was fun.

SC: How much of your job is on the training ready, set, go? Or did you actually know what you were doing when you started? Because I can’t imagine being put on a scissor lift and just figuring it out.

WM: Yeah, yeah, no. Yeah, so for, yeah, for set work, no, I didn’t know anything. I mean, I did learn a little bit about the gear at the rental house, which is what I tell everybody, if you’re trying to get on set, great place to start is a rental house, the best. I think they do wonderful work. And yeah, so I had some familiarity with the gear, but it’s really you can, the speed at which you have to work on set, especially in lighting grip is you don’t have, you can’t train for that anywhere else. It’s you really, truly just have to get thrown into the fire and then you learn as you go. And hopefully, you work with someone who’s going to teach you, which is what I was lucky enough to have someone who was sort of investing in me, because they know that they’re going to hire me on more stuff and they want me to be competent at my job.

SC: Yeah, I mean, that’s kind of nice, right?

DJ: It’s always good to have it’s always good to have competency. No, I’m also I’m just imagining that situation where that light goes out and everyone turns around at you.

WM: What we joke, but you would not believe how many people in the industry are just totally incompetent, it’s people will call me and they’ll have this huge three prong. This is a true story. Huge three prong baits cable, which only goes into a baits adapter. And I had someone call me and they’re, why can’t I plug this into the wall? And I was like, you can’t. That will pull more power than your entire circuit is routed for. So don’t try to plug that into the wall.

SC: I mean in their defense I would make that phone call.

DJ: That’s what I’m thinking right now too. I’m, I remember, I have some 3D printers here for some of my schoolwork and stuff. And, when you set it up, it’s, it says you have to set it to 120 volts or 240 volts for what your wall is. And I’m looking around and I’m, I have no clue what that means. Am I going to blow something up like is this a 50-50 shot at my life right now?

WM: Probably. Fun fact, 240 is Europe. All their outlets are rated for 240. Ours are 120.

DJ: See, listeners, you learn something new every day on The Rolling Tape podcast.

SC: I’m learning.

DJ: No, I’m totally realizing though, I literally, so I talk about films every single day, I’ve done this for years now. And the fact that, I have no clue what goes into the light, the day-to-day lighting process of a set. So, what, you walk into a new job and what is your process to start lighting?

WM: Yeah, well a lot of it starts on the tech scout, you go out there with the DP and whoever else and look at the spot location and That’s when you sort of take notes and figure out what you’re going to need for the shoot what kinds of shots the DP wants and take all this with a grain of salt this is on low-level commercials what I was talking about fast food spots so I have no idea how it works in a big movie but yeah you go on tech scout, you look at things you look at the outlets you see if what outlets are on what circuits because when you start plugging stuff in you better know how much power you’re taking. Fun story, we’re on a set, whole thing is lit, we’re killing it, we’re doing great. And then a PA for, it might have been an art PA, they plugged in a vacuum to one of the outlets that had our key light on, and it just cut the whole thing. And, we look stupid, because it’s, why did the big light go out, but it’s, the guy with the vacuum. So, yeah, it’s you look at what you’re, where do you want the sun coming from? Where do you want, where are actors going to be? It’s the blocking of it all. And then, then you make a list, you make a package of what you’re going to use for the shoot based on what the DP wants and what you think you’re going to need. Rental house, will put it in the truck for you and pick up the truck in the morning, to the staging area and yeah, that’s when you start going. You start getting lights set up for your first shot and production will have a schedule for you so where you’re at and what the next shot you need to get is so you can be setting up for the next shot while you’re currently getting the current shot. Yeah, there’s always something to do.

SC: It sounds you don’t really ever interact with a director. I know we’ve talked about this before, but the hierarchy of films really surprised me when we talked last, how you just don’t… You don’t know them.

WM: Yes. Yeah, and, it’s all relative. It depends on the project, depends on who is in charge. Jordan Peele on his, I’m sure he has a lot more to say about those kinds of things. I’m sure he’s on the tech scout? And it’s, we want to shoot it this and we want the camera over here. But, on commercials, the director isn’t, sometimes you don’t even have a director. If there’s no talent, you don’t really have a director or you’ll just have the AD and the DP act as the director. But yeah, just talking about the hierarchy, I mean, really AD is who runs the set. That’s the job of the assistant director is to do logistics, make sure everything’s running, yeah, the director is really just supposed to place the camera and direct the actors, which is actually not that much on a film set.

DJ: I’m just curious, being familiar with lighting and how it sort of operates in a scene. When you watch a movie, do you think about, how did they light that? Are you thinking about, where’s their key light? What are they using a three-light setup? Does anything go through your mind when you’re just watching a movie casually?

WM: Oh, absolutely. I mean, yes, I do. And they’re certain shots where I’m, how did they, how did they do that? Which is always kind of fun, because as an electrician, but also as a filmmaker, it’s like, how did they coordinate all those things with the camera and the lights and the actors? But honestly, lighting, but it’s one of the least things I’m concerned about in my own movies because I know I can’t afford them right now. But it’s also, it doesn’t, I said earlier that it’s really important, but it doesn’t make or break a movie. It can make the image look really good or really bad, but the overall tone and what I think you can sort of do that without lights. It’s more of a director of photography, image kind of thing. So, I don’t know, even I think looking at some American independents from the 2000s, they all have just terrible lighting, but I love a lot of those movies. That’s fine.

SC: You’re working on a film now, aren’t you? Or you’re getting ready to do that? Kind of pivoting to your other jobs.

WM: Yes, many, many jobs. We are, we’re going into production in 24 days. So, shouldn’t be too long at the end of March. Yeah, it’s, we’re in the heat of it right now.

SC: When you say we, is this, are you working with a team, a company, or just friends?

WM: Yeah, a team. Working with friends, I hope I always work with friends the rest of my life. But they’re all people I’ve met in the industry and they’re all really good at their jobs. And so, it’s great. There’s a lot of money to be made out there, but we’re all, we want to make something that we care about and is interesting to us. Coming out and so we’re sort of want to try our hand at making something that we think is interesting, stop talking the talk and try to walk the walk for once.

DJ: Can you shed any light on what you’re trying to do? Any insights that are openly available?

WM: Yeah, yeah, yeah. The movie is called Do You Say What You Mean? It’s about a relationship starting and ending within the movie. Spoiler, we haven’t even shot the movie, I just spoiled it for everybody.

DJ: Close your ears listeners.

WM: It doesn’t matter, part of the movie is sort of the decay of it, I guess. But I think, I don’t know, I’ve just seen so many independent moody movies that are slow and it’s just 45 minutes of someone staring out of a window that I was just kind of bored with. And so we were like, let’s make a movie that is real and impactful. It’s not always all happy and go lucky. So we’re like, let’s make a real movie, but let’s, let’s do it in an interesting way, not just, people, I don’t know, staring at grass for an hour and a half. So we’ll try to do something interesting, keep people entertained.

SC: It sounds very Godard-esque or Antonioni.

WM: Well, I don’t even want to compare myself to those people, I’d be just setting myself up for failure.

DJ: Do you have any sort of inspirations of movies, any favorite movies, favorite directors, anything that you really look up to and enjoy or hope to do something similar on a thematic level or idea?

WM: Totally I mean honestly, I think a better question is just who’s not because I watch a lot of movies I try to watch a lot of movies and I think all of them sort of sink in in different ways, but I think the heavy hitters that the big ones recently have been Lucrecia Martel, one of the most singular voices of a director alive. I think everyone should watch their stuff. The Headless Woman is my favorite movie. Godard, I think he gets picked on, is a film school pick, but I think he did a lot for movies and a lot with color and one of my favorite shots, there’s a shot in Alphaville, I’m pretty sure.

DJ: Oh, I just watched that not that long ago.

WM: You’ve got to respect it, but it is not my favorite. Not really anywhere close, but this is late 60s, right? I think that was ‘67 or something I don’t know if you know better than me Danny.

DJ: Somewhere around there.

WM: I Mean he started in 1960 so he has 15 or 14 movies at this point and there’s a shot you can see him his legs wheeling the DP in a wheelchair to get a tracking shot. this man has made some of the biggest movies that have come out of France in the last decade and he’s still using a wheelchair to get a tracking shot. And I respect that so much. I think that’s so cool. I think there’s a problem with people who are, once they get it to a certain level, they need the bigger and bigger sets, down the whole city block so they can have their set there. And I love the sort of running gun aspect of one of the at the time an amazing artist and was just still just going for it, figuring out how to get the shot, not worried about the money or the prestige of having the whole dolly and having laying the track down.

SC: We should have a Godard episode.

DJ: Absolutely we should.

SC: Yeah, Win you should come talk about it, because I don’t share your sentiment. I can’t stand his movies.

DJ: Come on, Sara.

SC: I’m sorry!

WM: We should. We should talk about it because I think you have a totally valid side; I think there’s a lot to be said on that side of it.

SC: This is my downfall as someone who studies film. I cannot get behind his movies and I refuse at this point. It’s a hill I have to die on….

DJ: I mean, you got to respect to that side of it too.

WM: You do I mean Godard is definitely, can be a film schoolie, he’s one of the first directors that you recognize has a style and they’re in black and white and so you have all these 19 year olds that are “Oh Godard, I love him.”

SC: There is something to be said about getting my attention because I dislike you so much. I feel you’re a very successful director if you could make people talk about you for better or worse.

WM: And yeah, and he definitely has a stance, the fact that you dislike him there, there are a lot of directors that make movies that I watch and I’m like, yeah, and I never think about those movies ever again. So.

SC: Exactly.

WM: There is something to be said for them.

SC: Shoutout to Godard.

DJ: Well rest in peace rest in peace Jean-Luc.

WM: RIP to a real one.

DJ: He never got to hear Sara’s opinion of him.

SC: I’d like to think he knows.

WM: He probably does.

DJ: Well, Win a couple kind of closing questions before we let you go. Is there any advice you’d give to any sort of new graduates who are looking to become involved in film in some capacity you clearly, you are working in film, but also doing a lot of stuff on the side to keep yourself involved creatively in some stuff you want to do so what would you say to anyone who might want to write a film, might want to light a film, might want to shoot a film?

WM: Yeah, I would say watch everything. I think that’s the school right there is watch everything you can even movies that you dislike because I think you can’t really know what you dislike until or you can’t explain what you dislike until you see it. I have a reaction to this the right direction I found Lucretia Martell by going to Videodrome, which is one of the last video physical media rental stores in the country and I was just in her section and pulled it out. I was like this looks cool, who knows what this is going to be and watched it and loved it fell in love sort of, The Headless Woman was the movie that opened my eyes to what movies could be and the fact that she was all the way in Argentina and not in Hollywood or New York, it’s you don’t have to be in these hot spots to make something really interesting really valuable in my opinion. So that’s why she’s kind of a North Star for me. And I found a lot of really good movies that way. And I think same thing with the theater, just going to as many movies as you can, seeing on a big screen. I was at a friend’s house the other day. And he had this tiny TV, up in the corner, a good 20 feet away from the couch. And I was, we watched a good movie, but I couldn’t see it, so I’d say just find a big screen and make some popcorn and just keep watching.

DJ: That’s my plan for the evening. I don’t know about you guys.

WM: Heck yeah.

DJ: Maybe I’ll have to I’ll have to watch The Headless Woman maybe.

WM: You should, you absolutely should. Speaking of plan for the evening, I’ve been going through the Budd Boetticher westerns, and I was going to watch Ride Lonesome either tonight or tomorrow, and Sara is just fuming over there.

SC: Yeah. I have watched more westerns in the past two months than anything.

DJ: I know Sara’s going through the thick of it right now with the Western genre.

SC: God Almighty. They are all the same. Oh my God. It’s rough out there.

WM: You watched Ride Lonesome, right?

SC: I think I did. I don’t even remember. That’s the problem.

DJ: They blend together for you.

SC: They really are running together. That’s why we needed Letterboxd.

WM: Yes, we love Letterboxd.

SC: Win how are you feeling about the Oscars? I feel we’ve been talking about it. We haven’t asked you Do you have any favorites in there?

WM: No. I’m terrible I actually I’ve just been I’m in the season of life I feel everybody goes to this where you are just backlogging movies because there’s just an infinite number of movies out there and so I haven’t really watched a ton of new stuff in the last couple of years I’ve just been on these random deep dives, but I love the day for night stuff on Nope.

DJ: Oh my god. Brilliant

WM: I hope for that alone, I hope Nope wins a bunch of… And I think Jordan Peele is actually a voice in the studio system right now. So, I wish him all the luck and success in the world.

DJ: That DP, Hoyte van Hoytema, he’s my favorite DP, because he’s just always doing something so cool.

WM: Incredible. I mean, the whole, for the listeners who don’t know what we’re talking about, he took and he figured out that he could, they couldn’t get enough light in the desert where they were shooting. And this is a horribly summarized version of this. Go look it up. Really cool. But the camera movements and focus pulls had to be the exact same or it wouldn’t work and so he bought a decommissioned 3d camera platform where they would have three cameras to shoot. Also, if you talked about this on the show, then just tell me to shut up because everyone’s heard.

DJ: No, no, we actually haven’t.

WM: And so, he had a 65-millimeter film camera and an infrared next to each other so they could film everything during the day and then they overlaid the two. And the image, which again, I haven’t seen it, but I’ve seen stills from it, and it looks amazing. You can see all the little intricacies of the image, even though it’s nighttime and it is a convincing nighttime. You wouldn’t look at that and think, oh, they shot that during the day. Meanwhile, you have, going back to Westerns, Sara, They just obviously shot during the day and put a blue filter over it. Or you have shot during the night and the whole image is black and you can’t see anything and you’re falling asleep in the theater. Because you’re like, why is this so dark? So hats off to Hoyte and Jordan that that was quite the feat, I think.

DJ: There’s something about the old westerns where it’s clearly just bad technique. There’s something about that though.

WM: You kind of love it.

DJ: You do kind of love it yeah.

WM: It’s almost endearing. It’s, oh, you thought this was a good idea.

DJ: It’s they might not even thought that they would have been like this is just a bad idea, but we don’t have any other money to do anything about it

WM: Very true very true, but they but there’s also it doesn’t have to be that perfect, everyone watching is like okay It’s nighttime I can sort of suspend my disbelief a little bit which is fun.

SC: My favorite shots are when they light a candle and all of a sudden the candle is here and there’s just massive light comes over here. And I’m like, yeah, that makes sense.

WM: Yes. one half inch flame is lighting the entire room somehow.

DJ: Yeah. I actually do have a question for you before we wrap up.

WM: I got plenty of time. Let’s go.

DJ: Oh, I’m thinking of stuff on the spot now. So, when you watch a movie, do you have any sort of sensibility about whether a film is clearly using practical lights that are, setups. I always find it interesting, especially this happens a lot with horror movies a lot of times where they’ll be in the woods and the only light is clearly the flashlight that they’re using or something. I always am kind of drawn to when a film finds creative ways where practical, diegetic lights actually also light the scene in effective ways.

WM: Absolutely. I think it’s one of it’s a very interesting filmmaking technique because honestly the line is being blurred because a lot of, most gaffers would go in and if there’s a lamp in the room they’re going to put the exact lamp that they want they’re going to replace the bulb whatever bulb is in there with the bulb that they want. So, you might have a practical in a lamp in a room for a shot and the gaffer is going to go and switch that out with a 75 watt because they want a little more bump or a little more power. And so, it it’s sort of interesting because it is natural in that it’s a part of the scene but it is still tinkered with it’s still fictitious. Which is kind of interesting but and now with the B7C that are coming out with the aperture lights, you can get them exactly what you want. You can control the color temperature to the exact degree that you want it to be. So, it is sort of interesting how it looks real. It looks lived in in the scene, but it’s not. It’s very placed, particularly. As far as you’re saying flashlights and whatnot, yeah, I love looking for that stuff. I think it’s fun and it’s kind of a game in a way. I think you can really tell the biggest one is when people don’t want to pay for big, big lights that would recreate the sun. And then throughout the scene, you can see the sun moving, which is the classic lighting faux pas to not keep it.

DJ: The continuity of the sun.

WM: But those are the most expensive lights to rent, so not a lot of indie filmmakers can keep up with that.

DJ: Yeah, so I bring it up because there was I had been listening to kind of engaging with a conversation that I’d heard about recently because just a few days ago dropped the trailer for Peter Pan and Wendy, the new Peter Pan adaptation by David Lowry and a lot of people were saying they were like it’s been a conversation that’s been going on for a few years with the rise in CGI imagery in film where it feels a lot of people are saying that the image just feels so much flatter in color and light in recent years in comparison to movies from the 20th century. And yeah, I just find the conversation really fascinating because there’s so much, the technology is changing so much faster filmmakers are having to adapt to technology people are still trying to figure out how to blend practical lighting with CGI information and all of that. And people were defending the shot that looks super flat and dark, which you really couldn’t see much in the shot. And people were defending it, oh, that’s Lowery style. He only uses practical lights in his films, which is true, he does that a lot. And I think in some scenarios it does work. This one felt weird though, if you look at the old adaptations, so bright, so lively, so much color and saturation and lighting and everything. So, I don’t know if there’s a question in there somewhere, but that’s just why I brought up the topic.

WM: Oh yeah, I’ve got thoughts about this.

DJ: Go for it.

WM: Lowery is interesting because I saw The Green Knight. I thought The Green Knight was great. I that movie. I saw it in theater, but there’s whole scenes where you can’t tell what’s going on because it’s so dark. And I mean, that’s his choice. That’s cool that he has sort of creative control that. And we got to respect that to some degree. But on the other hand, I don’t know how much I can engage with it if I can’t see it. Now, that being said, you have the other end of the spectrum where I don’t know if y’all have felt this, but you watch some movies. a lot of Hollywood movies to me in the last couple of years are all starting to look the exact same.

DJ: Yeah, exactly.

WM: Everyone’s coming in, it’s the funnel was wide 10 years ago they’re all colored the same. I think that’s the big thing really is the cameras. Yeah, the cameras they’re using are, they’re all trying to meet this sort of industry standard and then the color graders are all sort of trying to hit the same target and you just have across the board movies looking the same. So that being said, I kind of come back to Lowery and I’m, okay, do your thing that is original because I’m tired of looking at movies and they all look the exact same. They all, to me, they look candy. You walk into a candy store and you just have all the colors and the reds and the greens, you know? And, I don’t know. I thought one movie I thought that did that well actually was Don’t Worry Darling, which, I…

SC: Hmm.

DJ: We have thoughts about that movie.

WM: I have problems with that movie. I have a lot of problems with that movie. But, if you’re going to color a movie to look exactly the same all other movies, what a cool premise to do it in where the whole world is constructed and fake, it, to me that image looks fake anyway, in all the Hollywood movies that are coming out right now. They all look like candy because it’s the world is constructed, the world is fake. And so then when it comes out in the end, if this is a spoiler for you, then you should catch up.

DJ: We’ve both seen it and that movie’s well past the spoiler territory.

WM: Cool cool. Yeah, it’s when the twist comes at the end is to me the best part of it was the color grade because you’re oh, they’re going for this thing that every Hollywood movie has gone for and then you realize no that’s just the constructed world that’s why it feels so fake whether they did that intentionally, who knows but it worked for me, so I’m going to go with it.

SC: Alright, that’s the only positive thing about that movie.

WM: That’s the only positive thing I have to say about that movie.

SC: Perfect.

DJ: All right, well, to close out here, one thing we always to close out on these interviews with is, is there someone that you have either met in the industry or someone that you would recommend that we bring on the show to talk to you about what they’re doing, what work they’re doing, or if it’s someone that you just think would be fascinating for us to talk to?

WM: Yes, there’s filmmaker here in Atlanta by the name of Dan Christian, who I think would be great on this show. He’s done some really cool things. He worked a lot with the documentary filmmaker Robert Green, was an assistant editor and second camera and all this stuff and sold to Netflix and all that stuff. And he is currently working on a documentary that is going to be great. I’m also helping him out with it, but it’s really his movie. And yeah, he’s another sort of guy who’s up and coming and I think got a lot of great things

DJ: Awesome. Sounds great.

SC: What if he said Godard? And I was like, he’s not here. I was like, we could get an Oujia board. Go for it.

WM: That’ll be the next podcast. We break out the Ouija.

DJ: Yeah, next episode. We bring Win back, we bring a Ouija board, and we contact Godard from the grave.

SC: Could finally say it, one of us will say we don’t like you and one of us will say we love you.

DJ: Sara will have her peace with Jean-Luc at last.

SC: I’m trying to get haunted, that’s what this is.

DJ: Man, I would love to be haunted by Godard.

WM: Yeah, right? Exactly.

DJ: If someone can haunt me, please let it be Jean-Luc.

WM: Okay, Danny and Sara real quick. This I’ve heard this on your show before what are you guys watching these days?

SC: Westerns? What else?

DJ: Yeah, no, we probably should have kicked that off the way we start our normal episodes, but I am not watching Westerns. I can tell you that much.

SC: That’s nice.

DJ: Right now, I’m still knee deep in Oscars. No, this is actually what I’m really jealous of the, what it sounds the world of film watching that you live in Win, where you get to just go on these deep dives. I want to have that life again where I can just separate myself from the Oscars and just go watch all this old shit that’s been on my watch list for years I want to go back to, but alas, the podcast calls and so I’ve been just still knee deep with the Oscars coming up this upcoming week and yeah, so last night I actually, the last couple of nights, I’ve been watching all of the nominated short films, which is really cool. I always liked watching, checking out the shorts because I feel it’s an opportunity to see something different? You’re always, it’s always going to be the same sort of Oscar-y movies with all the features, but then you go into the shorts and you get a little bit more experimentation. You get to see some maybe upcoming voices doing some things in the future. That’s always interesting. So that’s what I’ve been doing the last couple of days. But yeah, and then I’ve watched the Avatar movies recently.

SC: Love.

WM: Nice, you go back through you start with the first one?

DJ: Yeah, so I talked about this couple episodes ago, but I had never seen the original and I just watched it last week for the first time and then went and saw the new one in theater before we did a podcast about it. So yeah I guess that’s the smallest end with the shorts and then the biggest end of film production that you could possibly imagine.

WM: Complete opposite.

DJ: Two sides of the scale there. But Win, we’ve taken up a good amount of your time now. I want to say, first of all, thank you for joining us. This was a super fun conversation. And Sara’s recommendation to bring you on, I feel, was a very successful one.

SC: Yeah, it was all me, guys.

WM: Yeah, thank you so much for having me. It was a great time. And Sara, your job is safe for now.

SC: Until next time, when I’m on the line again.

DJ: So, Win as we wrap up here, is there anything you want to promote anywhere our listeners can find that you want to just throw out there into the world, anything at all that you want to close out on?

WM: Yeah, like I said, I got that movie that we’re about to go into production on. So, it’ll be quite some time before it comes out. But yeah, Do You Say What You Mean? Hopefully it’ll be something half decent. And we’re definitely going to have a screening here in Atlanta and we’ll have a screening up in New York. So wherever you are, hopefully come find a theater.

DJ: I’ll be around New York, so hit me up. I’ll be there.

WM: I will. Heck yeah.

DJ: Well, maybe we’ll have to talk about it on the podcast down the line.

SC: Please.

WM: I would love to. That’s crazy that you bring that up.

DJ: All right, well, thank you so much, Win. Really appreciate it and look forward to everything that’s coming from you in the future and hope to have you back.

WM: Yeah, thank you very much, Danny, Sara. Appreciate it.