NOLA Film Scene with Tj & Plaideau
A podcast about acting, filmmaking, and the improv scene in New Orleans.
NOLA Film Scene with Tj & Plaideau
Cowboys, Creeps, & Close Shaves: Our 48-Hour Film Adventures
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What would make you cut a beard you've grown for years? For TJ, it wasn't money—it was the right creative project. In this candid conversation, TJ and Plaideau break down their separate journeys through this year's 48-Hour Film Competition in New Orleans, revealing the surprising personal sacrifices and creative decisions that shaped their experiences.
Sponsored by Jana McCaffery Attorney at Law. Have you been injured? New Orleans based actor, Jana McCaffery, has been practicing law in Louisiana since 1999 focusing on personal injury since 2008. She takes helping others very seriously and, if you are a fellow member of the Louisiana film industry and have been injured, she is happy to offer you a free consultation and a reduced fee to handle your case from start to finish. She can be reached at Support the show
Follow us on IG @nolafilmscene, @kodaksbykojack, and @tjsebastianofficial. Check out our 48 Hour Film Project short film Waiting for Gateaux: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z5pFvn4cd1U . & check out our website: nolafilmscene.com
We are live. Oh no, we're not live.
Speaker 2:We're just recording. We're a-live but not live.
Speaker 1:It's not a live broadcast, but I guess it could have been. Yeah, hey, welcome back to Noah Film Scene with TJ and Plato. I'm TJ.
Speaker 2:I'm Plato.
Speaker 1:And we're just here talking about the 48-Hour Film Competition. This year, Brian and I were on different teams dun, dun, dun sort of sort of. We did do a 48 earlier in the year with michelle busquet and we were on the same team for that. That was the kickoff 48, but the local new orleans 48. We did different teams. I stayed with Michelle's team and had a great time. Brian, whose team were you on?
Speaker 2:I was on AJ Lytel. Ladies and gentlemen, you know how bad I am with names, but he and I have been trying to work on a short film or do some film for a couple of years now, and he reached out before we had cemented my participation on Michelle's team. He reached out and said do you want to be on my 48? I was like, yeah, sure, and then with these 48s, I'd love to work with a new director. Each time, not only do you get a chance to interact with different actors and the director, but you're making your contacts, you're making your friends, and he might know something better about editing than Michelle's team. So I like the variety and, tj, I loved your film.
Speaker 1:Oh, thank you. Project and didn't think that I would ever have the opportunity. It worked out pretty good.
Speaker 2:Michelle talked me into she convinced you to cut your beard, huh.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so early on our first guest was Hick Sheramy, for those that don't know, hick Hick also has a long beard and early on we had Hick Sheramy on and we had Tavon Francis on and they both have long beards. We asked them what their threshold would be, what it would take for them to cut their beard, and at the time I thought it would take a lot of money. I didn't really think that I would consider cutting my beard and it turns out it just took somebody asking me to do it for the right project. Michelle asked me if I'd be willing to cut it and we talked about options and for the project I said yeah. So we pulled my hair back and of course Dave her boyfriend also does her editing for the 48s is a professional barber, hence his nickname, dave the Barber.
Speaker 2:Yep.
Speaker 1:But I got to set an hour early before everybody else and Dave sat me down in the chair and trimmed the beard up, took probably three-fourths of it down, which for me is pretty significant. This is the shortest that my beard has been in years. It's probably still longer than the average bear, but for me it's pretty short and we had a great time doing that project. I won't give any spoilers because it hasn't. The film hasn't been made public yet, but it was a superhero support group and we had a good time with it. I made some new friends on that project, people I hadn't worked with before and it was.
Speaker 2:It was a lot of fun, awesome. But you posted that Saturday. You're like well, I never thought I'd do it, but I'm cutting a beard with no picture. Your circle of friends lit it up. I saw your post and they were like you can't just drop that. New People were panicking, they were freaking out. People were like wait what?
Speaker 1:Yeah. So what I said was I prefaced it with y'all remember that time on the podcast, I asked Hick what it would take for him to cut his beard. Well, now I know what it would take for me and I left it at that. I didn't post a picture, I didn't post a follow up and people started texting me like to my private phone number what, how are you going to post something like that? It wasn't five minutes and hick texted me and other people were hitting me up like wait, what is this about? What happened? What'd you do? I probably should have let it, let it soak overnight, but I went ahead and broke my silence and posted a picture. It's not, it's not drastic, but it for me it was a pretty significant change.
Speaker 2:I didn't realize how much they had cut, because it's still Santa Claus-y, your mustache isn't white, but you got the claws going on.
Speaker 1:Yeah, if I straighten it with heat it's a little bit longer, but when it's shorter it curls up and it just makes it look shorter than it is. I'm liking it, though. I mean, he did a nice, nice shape around my jawline.
Speaker 2:He edits movies and edits your face.
Speaker 1:He did edit my face. He's the barber.
Speaker 2:If you need to contact us, we'll get you in contact with him.
Speaker 1:That's right. And speaking of sponsors, we would just like to thank the Law of Jana McCaffrey for sponsoring the show.
Speaker 2:Thank you, Jana. Thank you, Jana. We know Jana from our 48 from last year. Tj's told you about his 48. Now I'm going to tell you about mine.
Speaker 1:Yeah, let's hear about that.
Speaker 2:I got to play a cowboy thug. You got to play a cowboy again. Again. Last year I was a bumbling sheriff and this time I'm a bully cowboy.
Speaker 1:Talk about extremes.
Speaker 2:Just in one year we worked at the Wind Dancer Equine Rescue Ranch, so Aubrey and I'm sorry I can't remember your last name at this moment rescues horses and takes care of them. There's donkeys, many donkeys, and she's got her dogs, so in between every take you had some animal to play with. The donkeys were so sweet.
Speaker 2:Had this little one walk up and he just he didn't like run into me, just walked up, put his head on my leg and waited to be petted. He was real sweet. So where, where's that? That is past Slidell, not all the way to Mississippi, but headed that way, so it's on your neck of the woods, going north. I gotcha, without giving anything away. I got to play, like I said, a bully and I saw an opportunity to be a creep, kind of like that stepdad role. I did so In the scene I walk up to the person I bully and his girlfriend, and I had the idea it wasn't totally in the script and I asked her look, I'm not going to do anything very bad, but can I drape my arm around your shoulders? Can I run my fingers through your hair if I do that, or touch your shoulder, like? I got permission, like if we had an intimacy coordinator on set. Well, we didn't.
Speaker 1:So she said yeah, that's right On set, what we didn't. So she said, yeah, that's right. That was some of the advice that she gave us was to talk. If you don't have an intimacy coordinator on set, talk it through with your scene partner. Yeah, just like an improv, you talk it through before to let everyone know what you're comfortable and not comfortable with.
Speaker 2:And that was Ashley Landry on. Her episode should be coming up soon.
Speaker 2:See a couple of weeks. So she said yes, and I come in and I'm trying to edit myself so I don't give anything away. But I lean over and I say my lines and I, you know, play with my hair, play with her hair, I don't play with mine. And then you say cut. And then the room went oh, and the lady shuddered. And you can tell when the energy of a scene touches people. That's a really weird way to put it after talking about that, but their excitement was like they couldn't stop talking. You know what I mean and I was really proud of that moment. Maybe I shouldn't be proud, whatever word. It felt good and that's that's my favorite scene in that show. So hopefully it's called Three Wise Men. Hopefully it'll be out soon. It may go to other festivals. A 48-hour film is four to seven minutes, not counting credits.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:We pretty much had a 12 to 15-minute film, so then that has to be cut down. So, since if we plan to take it to other festivals and you have to get a permission of the 48 film festival for a year, it will not come out on YouTube because you can't share it before you go to other festivals. Right, at some point we will share that with the public and I can't wait for you all to see it.
Speaker 1:And I think you have to leave. I think you have to leave the section about it being part of the 48 hour film project in there. I don't know if it's only for that. I don't, I haven't researched it enough to know if it's only for that first year, or if it's forever.
Speaker 2:I think it's for one year, cause we were talking about that last year with um waiting for good toe. Oh, I got you.
Speaker 1:Yeah, a 12 to 15 minute director's cut of that film. I yeah, a 12 to 15 minute director's cut of that film. I would like to see that, me too, and I'd like us. I really enjoyed your film. I don't know everybody that was in that film, but I thought everybody did a great job.
Speaker 2:Thank you. Like I said, I loved your film. It was concise and it held the story so well and I think that's what we lacked. I'm sorry to say that publicly and that happens. That happened a little bit. On Waiting for Good Toe, we had about a 10 minute film. We had to drop down Like our hero. There wanted to be more shots of him walking alone to show how lonely he was. Well, he had to abandon that. You know, I love what we have there, but now I love making 48 hour films in the seven and seven. That's great. Let's go make some films where we can take our time you know what I mean when we can plan it out a little more and do what we want to take two or three takes, you know, get the close up this time did.
Speaker 1:He wanted a lot more intimate shots, a lot closer up shots, character development, because just like the 48, you only have up to seven minutes to tell that story. So he did a lot of close up and single light work, something that I'm noticing with these films. You mentioned having to cut it down from 12 or 15 minutes. I find that if the script starts out longer than seven pages it's about a page a minute for film it's harder to cut that down and harder to make that story flow and be more concise when you have more script, versus filming more takes and you know longer sequences and then cutting. If you keep the script tight to be within that four to seven minute window, it's a little easier to keep it concise, at least from what I'm seeing from watching filmmakers that I've worked with I agree, I agree totally.
Speaker 2:But sometimes the creative process doesn't allow you to stop at seven.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I agree, you've got this outline. I know where I want the story to go. I want this to happen, you know, and there was footage that we shot that wasn't essential to the story, but it was very cool and I've got the chopping block. So a couple of my cast mates like their scenes got cut off. Uh, luckily for me, I was in the lead and I'm bullying the protagonist. I wasn't going anywhere, you know that's, but I still felt bad for them. You know what I mean. I want everybody to have their chance to shine. Can't always do it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I agree.
Speaker 2:But you do look good in gold, my friend.
Speaker 1:Thank you.
Speaker 2:We just want to give you a little taste of our 48-hour experience, a little sous-sant, a little touch. And on Thursday, august 14th, if you're in the New Orleans area, the finalists for the Audience Award 12 films will be shown at the Broad Theater and then you can help vote on it. We don't know when. The finals are probably a week or two after that, and then we'll find out and at some point they're going to announce the nominees Best actor, best picture.
Speaker 1:Sorry to interrupt.
Speaker 2:Go right ahead.
Speaker 1:As of this recording, we don't have the date for the finals yet, or the nominees, but it usually does come out before the second screening.
Speaker 2:So we should, within the next few days, know something. We should Not that awards are important, but they are fun.
Speaker 1:They are fun. I like the networking, getting to meet the other teams and talk about their films, and I've been able to get involved with other projects for meeting people at the 48 and 7 and 7 events.
Speaker 2:So that's always I mean.
Speaker 1:I've always had a good time with it. I look forward to it. It just feels cool to go in there and see yourself on the big screen and then see all of your friends in their films on the big screen as well. So it's always a good time Agreed and it's a good experience. So if you haven't gotten involved with a 48, I highly recommend it Coming soon to a town near you. All right, folks, we'll see you next time.
Speaker 2:See you later.
