S1: It's time for Midday Edition on Kpbs. Today we are telling you about the shows , film and artwork on display around San Diego this weekend. I'm Jade Hindman. Here's the conversations that keep you informed , inspired , and make you think. The host of NPR's hilarious current event show Wait , wait , Don't Tell Me will be in town for a night with Peter Sagal.
S2: In a weird way , telling fart jokes to a vast audience is is just as or , if not more important than , you know , trying to speak truth through my art.
S1: Plus , science and art come together in a new mural on display , and the San Diego International Film Festival will have an indie about love. That's ahead on Midday Edition. You might recognize Peter Sagal as the voice and host of NPR's hilarious news quiz show. Wait , wait , don't tell me. Well , he'll be taking the stage at Balboa Theater for An Evening with Peter Sagal on Sunday , October 15th. He'll share stories and insights about everything from his own career to his take on current events. And for a taste of what people might see and hear , here's a snippet of one of his recent live shows for Wait , Wait , Don't Tell Me. In L.A.
S2: Millions of people became football fans for the first time this week , because Taylor Swift was seen in a luxury box with tight end Travis Kelsey's mother at last Sunday's Kansas City Chiefs game. Everybody was like , oh my God. Travis and Taylor are dating , but it's all pure speculation. She could be dating his mom.
S1: And that voice you hear there. Joins me now. Peter , welcome to Midday Edition.
S2: It's a pleasure to be here. Thank you so much , Jade.
S1: So glad you're here.
S2: I'm at home this week as we talk , getting ready to come out to San Diego with my my , my wife and my two very young children , I have decided to spend my retirement reliving my 30s. So I've decided to have young children again , which is absolutely exhausting. Chances are , all I'm going to be able to do is on Sunday is just repeat things from Thomas the Tank Engine and stare blearily at the audience as I try to get over sleep deprivation so people come out. It should be great.
S1: I mean , Peter , the last time we spoke was like maybe four years ago when I introduced you to the stage here in San Diego for a wait , wait , don't tell me show. What have you been up to since then ? Well.
S3:
S2: Let's see. Other than helping to create said children , I'm trying to think. I can't remember if it was before or after I published a book about running the Incomplete Book of Running , which is about my very unlikely career as an amateur midlife crisis athlete , which led to some success and some adventures. But mainly I've been hosting wait , wait , Don't Tell Me. In fact , we this year , 2023 , have been celebrating in our own little way our 25th anniversary on the air. The show launched in January of 1998 and so I can't quite believe it , but it's turned into an entire career and a kind of a lifetime. And one of the things I'm actually going to be doing on Sunday with the lovely people who come out to the beautiful Balboa Theater is is sharing what I have figured out to the extent I figured out anything. After 25 years of reading and then making fun of the news , you know , I mean , you know , you could ask you could ask the hosts of , you know , this week in Washington or Meet the Press or , you know , a very respected pundits to tell you what they think about society. Or you can ask the guy who basically does stories about dumb criminals , ridiculous scandals , and people smuggling animals in their pants.
S1: I mean.
S2: I put it mildly , this is a week. I have to say that sometimes we get lucky , and the fact that we're not even going to attempt to show this week on a pre-scheduled break has been , well , I don't want to use the word good luck in regards to events , but yeah , it is a problem we grapple with because on the one hand , yeah , there's some news this week is a good example that's so terrible that , you know , you don't even make an attempt to make jokes about it. But on the other hand , that kind of news , I think makes our show even more necessary. I mean , so many people have told me certainly during the last few years , including the pandemic and beyond that , getting to the weekend to hear me and my friends just make fun of the news was one of the things that helped them get through a hard time. So it's both impossible but necessary to do it. And and our , our basic method is to take the stuff that we can work with , which generally speaking , does not involve , you know , mass casualty events , but instead is about human frailty. If there was a single theme to everything we do , it's people behaving badly or stupidly or foolishly , and that fortunately over 25 years that has been an inexhaustible resource. You know , there was a there was a saying attributed to an old Democratic Texas politician or I think his name is Jim Hightower. And he always said , you know , the higher. A monkey climbs , the uglier the view is. And sometimes that's often true , that giving people power and authority just brings out the funniest things about them. I mean , we started our show almost contemporaneously with Bill Clinton and the what we now call the Lewinsky scandal. We should call it the Clinton scandal. And that was like manna from heaven for a struggling show , looking for things to make fun of in the news. And perhaps it sometime we worried , you know , like , my God , this is such a hilarious , strange and silly and , you know , salacious scandal. Will there ever be anything like this or will we have to quit , you know , when this finally gets settled ? No. Like I said , the supply has been inexhaustible.
S1: Yeah , I'll keep living. It's like , you know , it's like you got to laugh. You do have to laugh to keep from crying sometimes. But , you know , in the last 25 years , I mean , since 1998 , have you had to change the formula at all because so much has changed.
S2: We haven't changed the formula per se. I mean , I think if you were to go back and listen to one of our early shows from , say , I don't know , 2000 , 2002 , you would find that it's at least it looks like the same. We have , you know , at that time , of course , our co-host and scorekeeper was Carl Kasell. So we had Who's Carl this time , and we had limericks and questions for the panel. What has changed is our our caste , the quality of our material. When the show began , I wrote the show well , not entirely , but mostly by myself. That , fortunately , isn't the case anymore , believe me. And no one's gladder than I am that we have this amazing crew of writers and producers and researchers providing me very funny things to say , but we've also tried to update our cast. I'm. I am an aging white guy and my my opinions , shall we say , are not as freshies or useful as they used to be. So we have made sure to surround me on stage and on the air with a lot of younger people from much more diverse backgrounds and interesting perspectives , people who know things that I don't know , people who can see , things that I can't see , and frankly , people who can say things that I can't say. And I think it's that more than anything , just making sure that we always have fresh talent on our show with really interesting and funny things to say that as often as not surprising to me as much or more than the audience that's kept us , I think , relevant.
S1: All right , so now you're doing something different. You're talking a bit about your career and wait , wait , don't tell me.
S2: Grand revelation , I think is a little strong. But , you know , it's odd because I fell into this career by accident , and that's a story I can tell , along with some other things , and that I didn't mean to be a , well , public radio host or a comedian or somebody who did a comedy show for a living. I was supposed to be a serious artist. And one of the things that I've learned and I learned it , it was difficult , but I did eventually learn it. Is that in a weird way , telling fart jokes to a vast audience is is just as or , if not more important than , you know , trying to speak truth through my art. I mean , in a weird way , my life ended up recapitulating the movie Sullivan's Travels , where a Hollywood director known for his comedies decides he wants to do something serious and then , in the end finds out that comedies , you know , they're actually pretty good. And one of the things I can talk about and perhaps will this Sunday is the notion of fart jokes as service.
S1: Wait , did you say fart jokes ? Is service.
S2: I did , I said fart jokes as public service.
S1: I won't ask you to give the show away.
S2: I won't know. Oh , yeah , the big reveal about that. You're not going to believe how I punctuate that point. It's going to be great.
S1: I clear the room out , I mean , and , you know , you'll be giving really sort of a behind the scenes look at wait , wait , don't tell me as well.
S2: To a certain extent. Yeah. I mean , the stories I have to tell , I'll have to do with my career at wait , wait. And the things we've done and and the people I've met , you know , not only , of course , are wonderful cast of panelists , you know , ranging from , you know , OG panelists like Paula Poundstone or Roy Blunt to some of the amazing new comedians that we've had on the show , like Joel Kim Booster. But also , you know , the incredible array of people I've been able to speak to on my silly little radio show ranging. We've had two presidents , one woman , Hillary Clinton , who should have been president and is in another timeline. We've got an amazing array of scientists and politicians and artists and writers who've come through our show. And what's interesting about all of that is because we're not , you know , a serious show. Like All Things Considered , Morning Edition , we're able to talk to them about other things than what made them famous. You know , be it their political stances or even their work as artists. And sometimes we've had these amazing , wonderful revelations as we've done it , about what kind of people they are. So , yeah , a lot of the things I'm going to be talking about is about some of the amazing places and places I've gone , experiences I've had , and most importantly , people I've met doing this. Very silly. But as we've discussed , kind of important radio show.
S1: Yeah , I would imagine it's such a huge honor to be able to do all that. Yeah.
S2: Yeah. Oh , it is , it absolutely is. And , you know , there are stories I could tell and might , in fact , this very Sunday about the ways I have learned that our show , our silly show , our hour of limericks and jokes and gags and too many terrible puns to mention has really brought some people necessary joy , necessary relief. You know , mean I met a woman just in Los Angeles after the , you know , the show that you played a clip from a little while ago , who came to me and , and said , oh , I'm here. You know , this was you was my wife's favorite. This was my wife's favorite show. And I looked at a woman standing next to her and I said , oh , was that your wife ? And expecting to say hello ? And she said , no , my wife actually passed away six months ago , but this was her favorite show , and I always told her that I'd bring her someday. And then she died and and I called and I got free tickets , and I just couldn't believe it happened. I thought it was Providence or her looking down at me. And so I decided to come. Even if I couldn't come with her , I'd come for her. And by this time , of course , she's crying and I'm crying and , you know , it's again , it's not the sort of thing you might expect when you're telling fart jokes that , you know , on weekend mornings. But it has happened , and it happens repeatedly enough to know that I am , in fact , the luckiest guy in the face of the earth.
S1: Yeah , you don't expect to touch people's lives like that , but but in fact , you do. You've said in interviews before that when you were younger , you were , quote , obsessed with the person you wanted to be.
S2: That's true. I was I was both very ambitious as a young man and a little nervous and , you know , insecure and wanted and just constantly focused on making it and getting to those levels of , I don't know , fame , wealth , respect , whatever you people , especially one young , aspire to. And there was a period in my life which I'm not particularly proud of , where I figured the achievements that I would , you know , inevitably get right given my talent. I'm being sarcastic , and I make that emoji on the radio that my achievements would justify anything I. To get them , including the way I treated people and the way I carried myself in the world. And it was later a little too much later , but still in time for me to to learn from this insight that this was all wrong , that I and these people like me , who are just focusing on the kind of person or the person they want to be , should rather focus on being the kind of person they want to be with , right ? Because you think about it. And that person I just described , that person who has those ambitions and is going to do anything to get them , sometimes they're praised , you know , and all these business books in the airports and we have these biographies of successful entrepreneurs , and we talk about , like , all the things they did and all the the people they stepped over to get there where they were. The power of the will. Yeah. I don't want to hang out with those people. The people I most love in this world and want to be with are like the kind people and the thoughtful people and the happy people who are not constantly worrying about the next thing , who aren't seeing other people as rungs in the ladder that they can use to get higher. But as other people who deserve compassion and kindness , and I've used that insight , often imperfectly , to guide my actions and choices for a while now. And maybe it's a luxury of also being kind of old and not having to worry so much , but at the same time , putting aside all those silly ambitions and instead aspiring to be again , the kind of person I'd want to be with has worked out pretty well.
S1: That's a great perspective. I've been speaking with Peter Sagal , host of wait , wait , Don't Tell Me you can see him take the stage at the Balboa Theater on Sunday , October 15th. Peter , it's really been a pleasure. Thank you so much.
S2: Oh , it has been absolutely a joy. And I'm looking forward to everybody who might want to come out on Sunday night. I promise it will be funny and I promise I will tell you all about Paula Poundstone.
S1: Up next. If you're looking for art this weekend , we'll tell you where you can find a science inspired mural.
S4: The mural looks like the start of a hiking trail. You're heading off towards mountains , walking past a variety of local plants , and then as you look up , the sky also looks like the ocean.
S1: That's ahead. You're listening to Kpbs Midday Edition. Welcome back to Midday Edition. I'm Jade Hindman for our weekend preview. We have a massive science inspired mural , a musical perfect for the spooky season and lots more. Joining me with all the details is Kpbs Arts producer and editor Julia Dixon Evans. Julia , welcome.
S4: Hi , Jade. Thanks for having me.
S1: Glad to have you here , as always. So let's start with a new mural at the San Diego Natural History Museum as they look towards their 150th anniversary next year. They've got this thing happening. What can you tell us about it ? Right.
S4: So this is a huge mural , and it's in the museum's main atrium , which is open and visible from three stories. It's by artist Eva Struble , who is this incredible local artist. She's a professor at CSU as well. The mural is called freesia , and it's inspired by specimens from the museum's collection. Like there's these beautiful endangered butterflies , rocks like like pegmatite , and botanicals like the namesake freesia Perry , and also yucca and oak. The mural looks like the start of a hiking trail. You're heading off towards mountains , walking past a variety of local plants , and then as you look up , the sky also looks like the ocean. So in some ways it's kind of disorienting , a little surreal , and in another sense , it's just this really cool amalgamation of the best of our region. And I recently went to the museum when she was installing it , there were families and museum goers passing by and stopping to watch , and I asked her to talk a little bit about the inspiration and what kind of triggered this mural.
S5: So the museum sort of prompted me with the idea of bursting with biodiversity. And in this region in San Diego and the Baja region. And so I wanted to combine a lot of aspects of the landscape , large and small , in this piece. So going from Iron Mountain , a place where I love to go hiking down to the very small Kino checker spot butterfly , which is a tiny endangered butterfly that we have here and only exists in a few small areas locally. Yeah , I wanted to bring in a lot of the plants that I that I get to see hiking all throughout the year here in San Diego County , from Yucca to sages to , I mean the laurel sumac that's everywhere , but also something like the Frasier Apogee , which is a somewhat more unusual flower that lives here , that I'm trying to bring front and center. It's it's a tiny flower that's really big in the painting in the foreground. And then I wanted it to be an expressive painting that feels loose and doesn't feel like a photograph , like something that was just pasted up on the wall , but that has , you know , our hand in it.
S4: And , you know , it's also inspired by Eva Stable's love for nature. One of the classes that she teaches at San Diego State is an art class where she takes the class out hiking and they'll observe things and draw them. And she said that that kind of slow observation is kind of a shared characteristic of both the drawing process and field science. And she also mentioned there that she does a lot of hiking , and it's modeled after the trails up Iron Mountain. But there's also that playful element where she she plays with scale. The texture of the smaller rocks becomes these mountains. The ocean sub's in for the sky , and I can imagine kids seeing this and then being inspired to to make their own big scene , using like tufts of plants for trees or a little rocks that they found for mountains. And she talked a little bit about this when I asked her how different it felt working in a science museum versus an art space , or working on studio work , and she kind of touched on that pairing of science and of play.
S5: Well , it's such an amazing risk that they took to hire an artist to do something here , because I think obviously they don't want to portray anything. You know , that's not factual in the museum. And so this piece is more playful. And it's not just about facts per se. I mean , it's factual on certain levels , but it's also playing with scale , playing with color. So I was trying to walk that line between showing things that I found in the collection here and that I've talked to The Botanist about , while also letting it be loose , open , colorful , surprising. I guess it would be really nice if people can be surprised and see new things in it every time they walk by.
S4: And also , when I was there at the Natural History Museum , she had students from CSU as well as San Diego High School helping out. And yeah , it's just really great to see this large work from an artist like Eva Struble. She works with such a variety of formats , primarily textiles. So this is really , really special. And it's planned to be finished by Friday. But if not , it's a treat to see these things in progress.
S1: Oh , that sounds wonderful. So this is on view now at the Natural History Museum. And October also happens to be kids free month. Yeah.
S4: Yeah. And this is a program of the San Diego Museum Council. It's one of their annual arts accessibility months. And so throughout the month of October , dozens of museums offer free kids admission when they're with a paid adult. And I will point out that a bunch of the museums and the attractions in the the participating institutions list , they're already free for kids in the first place. But if you are looking for a deal , then that is one choice for you. So with every adult to the Natural History Museum , you get free admission for two kids 12 and under. There is a coupon you requested online. It's pretty instant and then you can either print it out or just show your phone at the admissions counter and also for kids free month. A couple of other standouts is probably the Birch Aquarium , Living Coast Discovery Center , the San Diego Zoo and Safari Park , and the new Children's Museum. The specific offer varies by by location , and you can get the vouchers online at San Diego Museum Council. Org. It all ends October 31st.
S1: Now let's talk about some visual art. You have some new contemporary art and a fresh look at a traditional art form.
S4: His exhibit is called Systemic Glitch , and it opens with a reception on Saturday from 5 to 7. Evan Tyler is a multidisciplinary artist who works primarily in fiber arts and traditional craft like dyeing and weaving textiles , and he was artist in residence at Art produce last summer. So we all kind of got a glimpse of his work for the first time there. This exhibit , though , has been brewing for for Tyler since June 2nd , 2020. And if you remember , that was when people were posting a black square on Instagram in the days following the murder of George Floyd , kind of as a way of protesting police brutality and systemic racism. And for Evan Tyler , he's he's remembering that and looking at now that we're in 2023 and it's hard to find connections to any meaningful change that happened as a result of those black squares. So he's asking all these questions about what that act meant. And he's manifested these black squares as these glitchy renderings on his woven textiles. So they're made of natural dyes and wool. And then he has these black stripes interrupting the piece. There's also this kind of like hyper digital look to it , which is a really thoughtful contrast to the softness of the materials and also the ancient craft of weaving. And it opens Saturday and it's on view through November 18th at Art produce that's in North Park.
S1: And speaking of ancient craft , there's a new exhibit at the Menge that gives new life to the Japanese art form washi. Tell me about that.
S4: So washi is a paper craft. They use strong natural fibers. It's primarily used for painting or origami or calligraphy. And for this exhibit , they're showcasing nine contemporary Japanese artists who are working with washi in multi dimensional ways. Lots of texture. They're sculptures and installation works , and the exhibit's called washi Transforms. So it's intended to reimagine and reframe how we think of this paper practice and what it can do. There's some abstract pieces and even filigree text , intricate , intricate works. One of my favorites is this they're like tangles of paper string that almost look like botanicals , or maybe even fiber optics. And there's some that are these. They're made into beautiful glowing light fixtures. It's it's an incredibly diverse exhibit. There's lots of things you wouldn't even imagine are paper. And it's a touring exhibit. It opens Saturday at the mené and it's on view until early January.
S1: It's also time for the 11th annual San Diego Zine Fest , which is happening all weekend at Bread and Salt and Logan Heights.
S4: And scenes are so diverse , you'll find some that are bound more looking like traditional books. And then there are some that are literally just folded pieces of paper. There's artworks and prints , and this fest has also a music program. They filled the entire day with DJs and then a few live performance spots. On Sunday it's going to be noon to six each day. There's tons of exhibitors 50 or more each day. Some of the ones that stood out to me are 31G. The artists hate paste , Sdsu club , Radical , History Club , Mi Vida , Logan , particle FM and like I said , so many. It's free , it's all ages. And also they said that dogs are welcome , I feel like. That's important.
S1: Well , everyone loves their dog. And so this is also in conjunction with the barrio Art crawl. Right ? Right.
S4: So the barrio art crawl runs from noon to eight. And after you're done at the Zen Fest , you can pop over to poor Vida Gallery. It's it's nearby. They're having a Zen library installation and then visual art by some of the Zen makers. And from there you can also tour all the other shops and galleries and restaurants along Logan Avenue. And you could also linger at breaking bread and salt. They're always open until 8:00 on barrio Art crawl nights , and this weekend in particular , it's the final day to see Aaron Estrada's works in his exhibit at Best Practice , and his work is really cool. And there's plenty on view in the other galleries.
S1: All right , so let's switch gears and talk about a couple of performances we can catch this weekend in theater. Here's a fun one that's just perfect for the Halloween season. The Addams Family Musical. Tell me about that. Right.
S4: So this is San Diego musical theater. They're producing this at their Kearny Mesa performance venue. It's it's a production of the 2009 Broadway musical where we're listening to the original Broadway cast recording. Now , when Nathan Lane had had the role of Gomez.
S6: Addams , we gather.
S7: To honor the great cycle of life and death to come. Every member of our clan living dead and undecided , and let us celebrate what it is to be an Addams when you're an Adam.
S4: The musical is inspired by the old comic series , the Comic strip in The New Yorker , it was by Charles Addams , and that was basically the source material for anything Addams Family , the movies , the TV show in the 1960s , and of course , Netflix's Wednesday. And the play follows a moment in The Addams Family life when Wednesday Addams brings home her fiance and his parents as as a surprise. So you can imagine how the Addams Family reacts. It's a big production. They have a huge cast in what is a pretty intimate venue , so it'll be a really great experience. It's on stage now through October 29th with shows Wednesday through Sunday.
S1: And next you have a concert of acoustic music.
S4: Right ? So this kicks off the Athenians acoustic evening series , which it's celebrating its 15 year anniversary. They're having four Friday nights in October and November. They include a wide range of acoustic musicians. There's jazz singer songwriters , Latin and folk performers , and this Friday night features singer songwriters Bree Schillings and Sierra martens , and also Jamie Shadow Light. I'm going to spotlight Jamie Chatelet a little here. She's known as as an electric violinist , but also performs acoustic guitar and piano , and she sings. This is her 2022 single called Flow to Fly I saw. Flowers.
UU: Flowers. Blooming. Prophecy and stream. Shift of this sweeper.
S4: And Jamie Chatelet has spent the last six months or so in and out of the hospital undergoing treatment for advanced stage cancer. This Friday , she'll be performing songs that she's written about this healing process and the year that she's gone through. She's a really dynamic and expressive performer and super gifted. And the way she talks about healing and her journey on social media , she's been posting regularly. It's really beautiful , so this should be a powerful experience seeing her return to the stage. That's Jamie Chatelet with Brian Schillings and Sierra martens at the Athenaeum in La Jolla on Friday at 730.
S1: Something to definitely check out. You can find details on these and more arts events , or sign up for Julia's weekly Kpbs arts newsletter at Kpbs Arts. I've been speaking with Julia Dixon Evans , Kpbs Arts editor. Thank you so much for joining us. Julia.
S4: Thank you for having me , Jade.
UU: Want to. Each other. We belong to the one coming up.
S1: Beth Accomando speaks with a local filmmaker ahead of this year's San Diego International Film Festival.
S2: She did this wonderful.
S8: Job of , you know , integrating the questions and their answers and then revealing these things about these characters. And that's what I loved about the story , was that it was like this , this peeling of the onion , you know , that you kept learning more about these characters.
S1: You're listening to Kpbs Midday Edition.
UU: In the middle.
S1: Welcome back to Midday Edition. I'm Jade Hindman. San Diego International Film Festival kicks off next Wednesday at the Museum of Photographic Arts , and then moves to the AMC 14 theaters at UTC. The festival showcases Hollywood and foreign films , but also carves out space for films with a San Diego connection. Kpbs film critic Beth Accomando speaks with local filmmaker Michael Foster about his romantic drama called To Fall in Love , which began as a play more than five years ago.
S9: Michael , you are going to be having the West Coast premiere of To Fall in Love at the San Diego International Film Festival , and while this is a new film , it has a long history. So give me a little background. Yeah.
S8: Yeah. So this story was originally written as a play by Jennifer Lane. And then we had done a table read with the two leading actors , and we had done the reading. And then in the reading , I was so moved by this story that I just said out loud , this should be a movie. And then we all got excited about the possibility of this being a movie. Then they took it to fringe and they did several performances at fringe , and we had a time limit because Beth Gallagher , who was the lead actress in this film , she had to go to Scotland. So we shot this as a no budget movie over two days , but it was like a feature length 48 hour film. So. So it was really rushed and as a result , it did suffer from technical issues all throughout. And nobody's fault is just we were moving so fast. I edited that version of it and eventually it caught the attention. The play caught the attention of somebody here from San Diego who wanted to know what Beth and Eric wanted to do next , and they wanted to remake the movie , and they knew I wanted to remake the movie for the technical reasons. And so they put that on the table. And so this person was willing to to finance this new version of it. And this is the version now that I'm proud of , and I'm proud of having the San Diego Film Festival , and I'm proud that it's going to be seen.
S9: And the initial kind of catalyst for this idea came from a New York Times article.
S8: It was called To Fall in Love with Anyone Do This ? And it acknowledged the New York Times article in the play. It acknowledged that the questions are not they're not owned by the New York Times. It's a separate thing. But The New York Times did an article about those questions and about the science behind those questions. So that was the inspiration for Jenny to write the play. And and she did this wonderful job of integrating the questions and their answers and then revealing these things about these characters. And that's what I loved about the story , was that it was like this , this peeling of the onion , you know , that you kept learning more about these characters as you should and as you if you did it in real life with your partner , you would learn lots of information about your partner.
S10: You just start , okay.
S11: Let's start.
S10: Ladies first.
S11: You could invite anyone in the world to dinner.
S10: Just kidding. Anyone ? I mean , do they have to be living or doesn't say ? Practically speaking , you can't invite a dead person to dinner.
S11: I mean , not with that attitude.
S10: George R.R. Martin. Really ? Yeah. So I could go all Kathy Bates misery on his ass , right ? Like , oh , hey , George , enjoy the operatives. But also , I'm going to chain you to this radiator until you finish your fucking books. He's , like , super old.
S11: That kind of stress might just send him in a cardiac arrest , but it's a good answer.
S10: It's your turn.
S11: Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
S8: They came back to us , their attorneys came back and said , you know what ? You guys didn't do anything wrong. You mentioned the New York Times article. You give us credit for that. Great. But you know what ? We're not comfortable with you using the title of our article. So then we just shorten it , then call it to Fall in Love. So the original version was actually to fall in love with anyone do this ? This one is called To Fall in Love.
S9:
S8: I mean , I heard the reading twice , and I actually found myself tearing up at the second reading because they were Beth and Eric were a little bit more into character , and they were really kind of like adding some emotion to the reading. And then fringe was kind of like for me , I wanted to see how the audience responded to it , and the audience responded amazingly well to it. Like they I could hear sniffling in the audience , and I was like , oh , wow. It's like it's. Really hitting the right marks , and they were laughing at all the right places. And I thought , okay , this this has potential to be a very small independent film because the story is what's great , right ? And so it was validation for me that it could work as a movie because it's it's the same story. So the only thing I asked Jenny to do for the movie is just open it up , because the play took place in a single apartment.
S9: Well , one of the things I appreciate about the film is that when you are an independent filmmaker and you don't have a lot of money , your ability to have a big cast or lots of locations is very limited. But the format for this allows you to work with limited locations and a small cast without it feeling like that is a limitation.
S8: I'm glad you feel that way. I will also tell you that it's somewhat deliberate because another inspiration for me is the original Rocky. And if you remember that movie , you remember that any time that he is with Adrian , they didn't have a lot of extras around them. They shot their scenes very isolated to right ice rink. Nobody around , even on the street. One guy walks by so that Rocky can make a comment about him , but it's almost like those two are in their own world , and that nothing around them exists because they're just into each other. They're focused on each other. And I've always liked that idea. And so that was kind of what I was going to go for , too. It was like , we'll start it in this coffee shop with people in there. But as they begin to have these conversations and answer these questions , I wanted to have less and less people around them. Just the idea was that they were going to be in their own world and isolated from the world.
S9: Well , you bring up this idea of isolation , and this film was shot right after the pandemic , when all of us had been going through isolation. So talk a little bit about the process of making a film coming right out of the pandemic.
S8: That was I haven't really thought about this for a long time , but it was very nerve wracking and even frustrating because the woman who financed the entire movie , she understood the difficulties of the pandemic. She understood the , the severity of , of the virus. But she was also convinced that we could be safe enough to do this during the pandemic. And not everybody on our cast and crew felt comfortable with it because we were still hearing about people dying and and being hospitalized. So we kind of kept holding her off and telling her that we weren't comfortable and we weren't going to move forward with it. And she would say , you know , it's just going to be in a in a living room or whatever. So , you know , we have to explain to her that there's a crew. So there's more than just the two people in the camera. Eventually she understood and eventually she she was okay with us pushing back the shoot date. We waited until we were all vaccinated and then we all still masked behind the camera. But that was difficult. It was difficult to wear those masks. It was difficult to make sure everybody felt comfortable because it was I mean , I was still at that point where I didn't want to shake anybody's hand. I didn't want to touch anybody. But at the same time , you kind of wanted that connection , right ? And I think it was the first time I'd been out of the house for a while , making this movie , so. But yeah , very strange , awkward time. But it also works because it's a small story with a very intimate story , which just for the most part , two characters. So it kind of worked out for the best.
S9:
S8: In the movie , though , because it's a camera and there's a microphone , they didn't have to be as big as they had to be on the stage. So the only adjustments I made as a director for the movie was , let's be quieter , let's be more intimate. Like when they're in the bedroom , it's okay to like , just sit there , as opposed to getting up and gesturing and saying , saying your thing and then sitting back down. Or I mean , it was very , very lively on stage , but for a camera and for two people in a room , it just felt unnatural to have them move around so much. So I encourage them to just kind of stay put. And we found places that they could move around on the bed and or around the room , but for the most part , I kind of liked the stillness of things. And when things were getting kind of serious , I liked them to be as still as possible. But as far as like the mood , yes , there was definitely a quietness on the set of pretty much at all times because we're wearing those masks and it's hard to communicate to the other crew members , you know , with a mask on. And it was just difficult. So from that perspective , it was I think there was still a little bit of concern. We were all vaccinated , but we didn't really know what that meant. We were hoping that we were okay. And for the most part , I don't know. One on the set got sick. So for the most part , I think the masks and the vaccinations worked. So.
S9:
S8: You pray that there isn't some weird thing that happened in the audio or something ? You know , to Eric and Beth's credit , they were always prepared with their lines. And so again , they know they knew these characters very well. Was fantastic because she , you know , she was operating the camera as well. And she was she understood that I wanted long takes , and I wanted to be able to have these ten minute takes. If it if it required that and I would , we would attempt to do these spielbergian type oners. That didn't always work out because I'm not Spielberg and I don't have his his eye for changing up compositions in a single take. But we worked with those types of things. We try to get those things , and Ellie was amazing because she would work with me and figure out how to pull off these oners and hold that camera as steady as possible. Because she wasn't on a gimbal , she was hand-holding this thing. And so it was amazing to watch her go through a ten minute take. And then at the end of it say , hey , we got a little out of focus or something happened , let's do another one. And it's like , wow , you want to go again ? Great. Okay , fantastic. So that was good.
S9: And you live here in San Diego and what is the filmmaking community like here ? How easy is it to make an independent film.
S8: In San Diego ? It can be pretty easy to make an independent film , I think , because you have several opportunities in this community , whether it's the 48 , 48 hour film festivals or just student projects , you know , there's Sdsu that has a film department or a media department. So I think for the most part , it's easy. I think what is hard in San Diego is to get a movie that has any money behind it. That's the challenge , right ? I think when you see the amount of films that come out of San Diego , most of them don't have a whole lot of money. But there's just no way to raise money in San Diego. At least not that I'm aware of. So for us to have this opportunity to have a little bit of money behind , it was just extraordinary for me. So this is definitely the biggest budget I've worked on , even though it's still small. But I think it's bigger than generally speaking , I think it's bigger than most San Diego productions.
S9: Well , I have to say that I got introduced to your work not because of a romantic drama that's a feature film , but because you made a horror short called hush , which was brilliant , I thought. And both Hush and To Fall in Love feature very strong female characters. Is that something that appeals to you as a filmmaker ? Absolutely.
S8: I have always been drawn to strong female characters through the works of other filmmakers that I , that I love. I'll start with Spielberg , right ? His early work Close Encounters , Sugarland express very strong female characters , and I've always been aware of that. Even Poltergeist , you know , even though he questionably didn't direct it. But the mother is like such a strong presence , right ? She's the one that she's the protector of those kids. But if you go through his filmography , his early filmography before he became a dad , like , even eat , eat. There's a mom who's there ? The father's not even present , but also the works of , like , Ridley Scott , right ? With alien and having a strong female lead played by Sigourney Weaver. But then Thelma and Louise , I've always. That's always appealed to me. It appeals to me to have women who can shine and play these incredible parts , not because they're women , but there's something different about that. It's a little it's a little unexpected because men tend to dominate the stories. So whenever you find a female lead , it's always exciting. And I and I just find that it it tends to like if you look at a movie like kill Bill , for instance , right ? You don't quite know what her capabilities are or what what she can do. But if that movie had starred , you know , Jean-Claude Van Damme or a guy or man , you know where this is going , you know that he's going to prevail. And I think the trick about having strong female leads is you don't always quite predict where it's going to go.
S9: All right. Well , I want to thank you very much for talking about to Fall in Love and good luck with the screening.
S8: Thank you very much , Beth. Thanks for having. Me.
S1: Me. That was Beth Accomando speaking with filmmaker Michael Foster. His feature To Fall in Love will have its West Coast premiere next Thursday at the San Diego International Film Festival. The festival runs October 18th through the 22nd. That's our show for today. Don't forget to watch Evening Edition tonight at five for in-depth reporting on San Diego issues. The roundtable is here tomorrow at noon. And , you know , if you ever miss a show , you can find the Midday Edition podcast on all platforms. Before we go , I want to thank the Midday Edition team. Brooke Ruth , Andrew Bracken , Giuliana Domingo , Laura McCaffrey and Ariana Clay are the producing team. Julia Dixon Evans and Beth Accomando contribute art segments. Our technical producers are Rebecca Chacon and Adrian Villalobos. The music you're hearing is from San Diego's own Surefire Soul Ensemble. I'm your host , Jade Hindman. Thanks for listening. We'll see you back here Monday.
