NOLA Film Scene with Tj & Plaideau
A podcast about acting, filmmaking, and the improv scene in New Orleans.
NOLA Film Scene with Tj & Plaideau
Season Five, New Milestones, Big Plans
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Season five kicks off with momentum and a bold plan: we’re celebrating roughly eighty episodes and taking the show to Cajun Con with a stacked slate of guests and a fan-first mission. We start by reflecting on the early grind—passing that fragile ten-episode mark, tightening our audio and lighting, and learning when to push and when to breathe—then pivot into a high-energy preview of the con that’s aiming to reset expectations.
Voiced by Brian Plaideau
Have you been injured? New Orleans based actor, Jana McCaffery, has been practicing law in Louisiana since 1999, specializing in personal injury since 2008. She takes helping others very seriously. If you have been injured, Jana is offering a free consultation AND a reduced fee for fellow members of the Lousiana film industry, and she will handle your case from start to finish. She can be reached at janamccaffery@gmail.com or 504-837-1234. Tell Her NOLA Film Scene sent you
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
Season five, TJ. Can you believe it? I can't believe it. I don't know. When we started this thing, I saw some stats about podcasts that said if you make it past ten episodes, then you're doing pretty good because most people just give up before they even get to ten. Right. And then the next big milestone, I think, is a hundred. We're getting pretty close. We're around eighty-ish somewhere in there. And we've been doing close to twenty give or take episodes per season. And I just can't believe that we're in the fifth season of this now. Yeah. I feel like we've grown a lot though from the very beginning. Looking back at those early ones, I've started publishing some of the videos from the early seasons on YouTube. Right. We've just come a long way with the video and even the audio setup, I think.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah. And our own personal lighting setups, like Billy said, he was like, oh, I'm all washed out and y'all are in mood lighting.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. That's right. We have Cage and Con coming up. So that's going to be the first part of the new season for us is actually being at the event. So far, we've had the opportunity to sit down with three people that will be at Cage Con: Billy Slaughter, Greg Berger, and Scott Ennis. One is the founder himself, Scott Ennis, who happens to be the voice of Scooby-Doo, unmistakable voice.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah. Rutro.
SPEAKER_02:Rutro Raggy. Then we had Greg Berger.
SPEAKER_03:Grivlock, that's right.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, do it one more time. Griplock.
SPEAKER_03:I just loved. He was my favorite transform. I mean, I loved Optimus, of course, but Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Here is a little preview of each of those guests.
SPEAKER_03:Billy Slaughter, how are you, my friend?
SPEAKER_00:I do very well. How are you guys? Doing good. We're here to talk about Cajun Con coming up with so many different guests, of which I'm a part of. But like Sergeant Slaughter is gonna be there. And uh being a kid from the 80s, I only met him. Uh I met him once before, and it was just at a con I had done uh a few years back. I was trying to not be, you know, a weird fan there, because it's like here, you know, we're we're we're peers, not in the pro wrestling realm, right? But just you know the world of entertainment. For those listening, anybody coming out to Cajun Con or thinking about it, for me, it's a really cool time because uh yeah, I just worked on two projects back to back. I did I did Faulkner, of course, and his stomping ground in um North Mississippi, and then I just got back from Atlanta working on scary movie six. So I'm I'm very excited about that. Obviously, yeah, the con world, another, you know, I mean, not just another like franchise IP pop culture, but you know, I think categorically it's like the definitive, you know, horror comedy. It's the Wayans Brothers and, you know, Anafaris and just the the original team that stepped away for a while. They're coming back. So as far as also things done like authoritatively. And then another news I can't talk too much about. So Cajun Con is on uh December 6th, right? We're all gonna be there. It's opening weekend of Five Nights at Freddy's 2, which I won't say anything more than uh there are terrible rumors online that I I may or may not be be in. So I'll be checking it out, fan. But what's cool about that is my very when I just started doing cons, that was when I was really getting into a more when when the first one came out. Uh came out doesn't do it justice, right? When it like blew up. Exploded, yeah. Yeah. And so every con was just clamoring to get, you know, all like any cast members they could, anyone associated from from the first one. That's who I was doing all like my my early cons with. This was right after uh the first season of Twisted Metal came out, which which I'm in the TV series. Fun stuff.
SPEAKER_03:Very cool. What would you say is something that you experienced at cons that you didn't expect since you were kind of a newbie in this past year to cons what struck you as good or bad?
SPEAKER_00:I had attended cons, you know, as a as a guest, as a fan, and then I started doing them more. What was great was the the genuine connections, you know, just with people, not just among us, you know, colleagues across different mediums. Because like we were saying, you know, you might be a guest and then one of the other guests, you know, you're a huge fan of their work and vice versa, or meeting people where it goes so far beyond something as simple as like, okay, they they just want to snap your picture and move along, or you just want to sell them a picture and and and move them along. You get into just some really great conversations. You know, you see families and sort of things that have been passed on generationally that then you you get to be a part of. Yeah. So really, really great, I guess, the connectivity. Cause and I mean, we know there's like just an increasing amount of things that divide us in life. What's really nice with in the con world that sort of everything outside of that that building is put aside and it's like dude, we're all we're not just all fans of something. We're all fans of the same thing, you know, and so it's really great when you can when you can talk, trade stories, trade stuff, compare. I'm gonna give you a word you can use from now on community.
SPEAKER_03:There you go. You know, yeah, it absolutely is. Billy, we've enjoyed talking to you as we always do.
SPEAKER_00:But always so much fun.
SPEAKER_03:We have another great cast who's gonna join us for CajunCon, and you are, sir, me Grimlock, me Dynobot Leader.
SPEAKER_04:I mean, I mean, uh, it's me, Greg Berger. How's it going?
SPEAKER_03:That is so awesome.
SPEAKER_04:Greg, nice to have you.
SPEAKER_03:Hey, thanks. I always loved you know hearing your work. I think you did uh was it Mysterio?
SPEAKER_04:Yes, Quentin Beck, master of special effects and treachery.
SPEAKER_03:Always good, always good.
SPEAKER_04:I was Craven on the same show. I was two Spider-Man villains in Spider-Man the animated series. Yeah. Craven wants the Mount Spider-Man on the wall as his trophy.
SPEAKER_02:So, Greg, one of the things I like to ask voice actors particular, were you good at voices when you were a kid, or was that something that you developed into later on in life? How did that work out?
SPEAKER_04:It's a really cool question. My mother used to tell me that when she I would ride on the bus with her, and I guess I would take them with the way I thought people were going to sound, that I would engage strangers in conversation just to see if they sounded like they looked. So I've always I mean, I'm an actor, stage first, last, and always, but my characters tend to be voice driven. Not that they're not realized in three dimensions, but that's kind of a secret for those who want to be in the industry. They're not really casting voices, they're casting characters. And a character who's realized in three dimensions, you know immediately how they sound, or you find out in the audition process. Either way, you have to be sort of grounded in a character before the voice makes any believable sense. And once you're there, the goal in the audition is to surprise yourself while you're surprising them. Because no matter what you bring in, they're going to tinker with it to find out how directable you are. Sure. So to get, you know, and I'm all about in life in in animation on stage, in any pursuit, you try to make every effort collaborative. So if the writer's giving you a million clues, pay attention. If the artist is giving you a million more, pay attention. They got there way before we step into the booth. We're like the last in and the first out, and we get a disproportionate amount of the uh, you know, adoration, approval, pick a word. Anyway, I like the collaborative nature of it. So, yes, I've always been smitten by by voices and what they reveal about the people who have them.
SPEAKER_02:That's awesome. And you're not the first actor that has said that that's one of the things that they enjoy about voice work is the collaborative nature of it.
SPEAKER_03:When you were recording in the days of Transformers or Men in Black, any of those, was it the Andre Romano style where everyone was in the room, like a teleplay, or was it like nowadays where it's singular?
SPEAKER_04:For me, in those days, I was doing Transformers and G.I. Joe at the same time. Wally Burr was directing both, and he insisted that everybody in a scene be in the room at the same time. He said, and I absolutely agree, that whatever it is becomes more contagious when everybody's present. If it's if it's saving the galaxy, it becomes more urgent. If it's combat and and you know, G.I. Joe kind of reality, that becomes, you know what I'm saying, more contagious, more energetic, more more bonded. At the same time, I was doing Garfield and Friends, and everybody recorded ensemble at the same time in the same studio. That becomes contagiously silly and stupid and fun, but it also you know it builds chemistry between characters. In interactive gaming and more recent animation, it's become the exception rather than the rule. It you tend to record isolated with the relationship between you and the director on the other side of the glass. We see each other, but not the way we did in the golden days. I have made friends for life because we were spending as many hours in the studio, in the green room, in the parking lot, as we were, you know, with our families when we when we left. There was there was time to really get to know each other, and I bumped into those same people through the course of my career, you know. Friends for life, but we see each other in studios like regular, regular, because G.I. Joe and Transformers in particular, I think the casting launched a lot of careers, not just the gig, not just the series, but people who had thankfully, like me, uh, careers for a lifetime. A lot of versatility in the room.
SPEAKER_03:Let's switch to cons since we're here promoting Cajun Con, December 6th and 7th, Lamar, post center, Gonzalez, Louisiana. They had a few comic conventions back in the day in the 70s stuff, but it exploded so much more, you know, in this millennium. Let's explore that for what were your thoughts when it first started?
SPEAKER_04:I kind of became aware of the reach of the convention phenomenon at a bot con. It was me and Michael Bell, who you mentioned, and John Stevenson, all from Transformers. It was a bot con. It was my first bot con. And we were tired from travel, and we walked into the lobby of the hotel, and we might as well have been the Rolling Stones. It was it was rock star treatment from the minute we walked in. We were surrounded by people. It had been some years since I'd been involved with the franchise, and I was kind of not aware of the twists and turns that the storyline and even incarnations of Transformers had taken. People enveloped us. Uh, we checked in, and it was, I mean, it was kind of sensory overload. There was so much love coming at us that none of us were prepared for it. Anyway, it opened my eyes not only to fandom as sort of the invisible member of the ensemble. Earlier, I used the words humbling and empowering. It's both of those things, you know. You don't want to beat your chest too hard because you're you're just trying to exceed expectation when you walk into the studio. But these are all things I could never have foreseen, and it's just a real sort of fringe benefit that I didn't know that I was creating over the let's say decades, because it's been decades. But there are so many people as familiar with my work as I am that it it blows my freaking mind.
SPEAKER_03:So we talked with Billy Slaughter, he's our friend, and just he talked about that community building, that fan interaction where he has touched someone's lives and then they touch his at the cons, which not only does everybody a good boost, but it also, as actors, will get us through the lean time.
SPEAKER_04:More than you can possibly imagine. We don't know what the things we do mean to the people who embrace them.
SPEAKER_03:Can you think of one of your favorite, one of the most positive experiences you had with a fan?
SPEAKER_04:I'll give you a good one. Cool. I was tasked with spirit, the Native American member of the G.I. Joe, who who says possibility and impossibility are states of mind. In my mind, there is only the possible, that which can be done. And I tried to bring to him, I'm not Native American. My wife's my wife's family is, but that wasn't significant. I tried to, I mean, it's very significant, but I I couldn't claim that as my own. So I tried to invest Spirit, who has this epic battle over seasons with Storm Shadow and their respected adversaries and and esteemed opponents. Anyway, I was at a convention and someone came to my table and introduced himself as Navajo Nation. And I said, I know where this is going, thinking that he was going to talk about diversity in casting, which I approve of, I endorse. But he said he said, That's not why I'm here. He said, I grew up feeling invisible. And when Spirit appeared on camera, and all of the traits that you gave him made me feel seen, made me feel I said, get over here and give me a hug. And wow, you just made my day, my week, and my month. So things like that are just very, very powerful. Yeah. Well, we met we met as strangers and we leave as friends. Actually, that's right. I I look forward to seeing you there. I look forward to seeing everybody there.
SPEAKER_03:First Cajun Con. We're gonna blow the doors off. Scooby-Doo, where are you? And we're live with the man himself, Cajun Con founder, Scott Ennis. How are you, my friend?
SPEAKER_01:Well, doing pretty good. I gotta give a little credit to my uh sidekick, Nicole Elmore. She drives me all over to the cons, you know, all over the country. And uh, you know, people ask us what inspired us to uh really want to get Cajun Con going. And uh, you know, nothing against there's some great cons out there, man. I mean, some great people actually get it. But we go to a lot of cons that don't get it. And, you know, you walk in. I always say you can always tell you're in for a long weekend when you go, uh, where's the green room? And they go, What is that? And you're like, you know, the food and and stuff, and they're like, Yeah, we got a Keurig back there, and there may be some fruit, but I were we supposed to get you a green room? You're like, okay, yeah, that's gonna be a long weekend. So we we we would spend a lot of time going, that's wrong, this is wrong, this is set up wrong, because I'm a promoter by heart. Yeah, I do a lot of big concerts and all that stuff, and and uh I just said we should do our own con. And here we are. We started this two and a half years ago. And we started collecting Yeah, we started collecting vendors information like a year and a half ago, and uh maybe longer than that. And then last June, not this June, the June before, we launched the website. And you know, people are crazy because you know, we were calling and inviting our celebrity friends to be a part of this, and they'd be like, Oh, yeah, I'm not doing anything in December. And I'm like, now keep in mind this is December 2025, not four. And they'd go, dear God, that's a whole lifetime away. I don't even know what I'm doing next week, you know. So, you know, it was hard getting people to commit, but we did. And in one button, I kid you not, we made one email to mask email to vendors. And I remember going, God, I hope we sell a couple of vendors today. We sold out 200 vendors in one afternoon. Wow. I was like, okay, so I called Nicole, I said, Yeah, I guess we're doing a con officially now. So I'd be lying, guys, if I didn't say I wasn't a little bit fuckered.
SPEAKER_03:You're coming to the end, it's the finish line, and you got no gas, huh?
SPEAKER_01:Well, it's funny because I just I told Nicole we tease each other going to cons and everything. I said, You do like it'll be like three in the morning. We're driving back from Amarillo or something, you know, back to Baton Rouge. And I'll go, Well, you do know if we crash and burn on this deal, we'll never set foot in another con. She goes, Yep. And I go, I'm just letting you know. We're excited about it. I think uh, you know, we've been promoting it a long time. Tickets are free, so folks can go to Cajunconla dot com and download the free ticket. All you gotta do is screenshot it. You don't even had to download it, just screenshot it, show it at the front door, we'll put a two-day wristband on you, you're in Mike Flynn. I've always wanted to reunite the Wonka kids, and we're doing that. And so by doing that, I put together a Wonka set where they will be signing. And I'm not afraid to tell you this because it's kind of almost embarrassing that I did this, but it's my love for Wonka. We spent$10,000 just on the Wonka set that's coming down after two days. So people are like, wait, you spent$10,000 just to build a place for them to sign? And I'm like, Yep, I did. You know, I mean, we've got like 15 wrestlers. Yeah. You know, I mean, I had uh the million-dollar man call me just out of the blue yesterday, Ted Dibiassi, and we're friends. And he says, Man, I was just thinking about that Cajun con, man. He he goes, Man, I was looking at the guest list. He goes, You have a lot of people there. I said, Yeah. And he goes, Well, he goes, uh, I hope you do good, my friend. I hope you do good. And uh, so it's nice. We've been getting people, you know, of the our celebrity friends calling us, going, man, we're rooting for you.
SPEAKER_03:You are so overstuffed with stars, like an overstuffed po-boy.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, we won't do this again. You know, we we've already got the dates for next year for the, I think it's the fifth and sixth, I think, or fourth and fifth, I forget. It's the first Saturday and Sunday of December, 25th. Of December, yeah. I think it's fourth and fifth. You see, this year it's sixth, fifth and sixth, I think. But anyway, we've already got a bunch of stars that are signed on with us. A couple that we lost this year due to filming and other things, they're coming back, you know. And so we're gonna make that announcement when we're in the middle of Cajun Con. We're gonna have this thing come up. You're gonna be surprised. Some really cool uh celebrities are coming, but we won't do 85 celebrities again. I've learned my lesson. We'll probably keep it around 40. It's a lot to undertake. We hired Eight Lugs Circus, which I got to give them a plug because I met them at Smoky Mountain Fan Fest up in Tennessee. They're a women-ran organization. Thank God, because men can't pull their heads out of their asses. Anyway, and they go into cons and they basically go, give me your list. We'll work with your travel agent. Here's who we're picking up. They do cards, they move them around, and they figure, okay, this guy's coming in at this. Oh, this guy's coming in like five minutes later. Let's just wait for him. We'll pick them all up. Dude, they walk away and you're like, fucking breathe. They pick them up from the airport, they bring them to the hotel, they bring them from the hotel to the venue, and uh, and then they take them back. So that's been a blessing. And I gotta hats off to those ladies. Eight Lug Circus, if you're a con listening to this, man, look them up. They are wonderful and they're funny as all get out.
SPEAKER_02:You said you locked in vendors really fast. And I mean, certainly wrangling that many celebrities can't be easy. What's been the what's been the most challenging part to put all this together?
SPEAKER_01:Seeing two people doing the work of uh, you know, it's like you know, Jay Branch, who has VXV, good friend of ours. He's got like 30 cons. And I go into his cons and we sign at his cons and set up, and I'm looking at all these volunteers and just his staff, just his paid staff. You know, he's got 30 people, and he's got a hundred volunteers, and I'm going. So he goes, How many you how many you got? And I go, uh, what what what do you mean? I goes, how many you got have you got on staff? What are you doing? I go, you're looking at them. Two. So our MO, our whole thing about our con is this. I think people sometimes walk into some of these cons and they get overwhelmed. We're stimulated. There's so much to do. You don't even know what to do. And I think cons have gotten away from what they really were scheduled, they were put out there to do. It was fans, vendors, stars. So now we've got gaming, we've got TV, we got after parties, we got and you're like, okay, I don't even know where to start. We're gonna need to scan your wristband. Then you scan this, you do this, you got this, and then blah blah blah. Man, I'm like, I don't even know what to do. I don't even know which door to go into, you know? And I said, we got to get back to simplicity, man. We got to get back to vendors, stars, fans. Boom. That's let's do that.
SPEAKER_02:And Brian's going, yes, finally.
SPEAKER_01:Yes, that that that's what we're doing. We're not doing people go, so who's on your panels? I'm like, there are no panels, okay? I uh now I'm not saying we won't add some panels down the road, but I talk to a lot of my celebrity friends and I ask them if you could delete anything from a con, and I'm not making this up, I'm just telling not everybody would say this, but I'd say 90%. Everybody says, Oh, I delete the panels in a heartbeat. And I'm like, why? And they go, Well, I'll tell you why. Because every time you do a panel, you got the same four people sitting out there asking the same question. Uh, what was it like uh to wear the glove? It was an honor. It was really, it was really, really nice. It was really an honor. Next question. Yeah, was it long putting the makeup on? It was. It was 20 hours a day. It was bad. Next question. Meanwhile, now not for somebody like Robert English, who's a monster star. I love this guy. But you know, for people like us, I mean, it's like you got the same six, seven people out there. Meanwhile, you have to leave your booth and you've got you know 20 people in line, and you're like, hey folks, I'll be right back. I gotta go do my panel. Well, you're gonna lose that money. They're gonna they only have so much money, and they're and if they don't want to go to your panel, they're gonna walk away and they're gonna go spend it. So basically, that panel costs you anybody on an average$1,000,$2,000 to go do a panel. Like, gone. Another thing we deleted was uh, and really the same principle works for the pro photos because most of those celebrities will get four people by their pro photos. Like mine, I get four or five people at a con. I told them, just take me off those things. I don't want to do it. I'll make more money standing there taking a selfie in front of my banner with a with a fan than I am walking halfway across the block to take a professional shot. So, nothing against the pro photos. I'm just saying, for me personally and the people I talk, it's it's the scenes. Now, we did do it because you have a lot of fans that want that professional photo with Ark the Clown. And he's gonna be in the Santa outfit. And so we're gonna do that. And then you've got the Willy Wonka, the whole reunion. So we decided, okay, we'll do the pro photos and mainly concentrate on Ark the Clown and the Wonka Kids. We did put uh some of the other big names in there, but again, it's been Ark the Clown and the Wonka kids that are getting the buys. Next year, I'll I can tell you right now, I probably will cancel. I won't do pro photo. All right, guys, I'm looking forward to seeing y'all. Yeah, likewise. I'm off to save the wizard.
SPEAKER_02:Well, thanks, uh Scott. Thank you so much for joining us.
SPEAKER_01:Uh, we'll see you in a couple of weeks at CajunCon. CajunConLA.com. Download the free ticket.
SPEAKER_03:And never forget, you're gonna see the Nola film scene there.
SPEAKER_01:We're there. They are gonna be there.
SPEAKER_03:Man, those were great interviews.
SPEAKER_02:They they were for sure. Scott certainly has a lot going on leading up to Cajun Con. I just can't imagine everything he's having to juggle to put that event at that scale, over 80 celebrities appearing and he's doing it uh alone, just him and his wife preparing all of that. So his he certainly has a full plate. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:And then just in what they spent on the Willy Wonka kids, the backdrop, the whatever I can't wait to see it.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, for just a one-time, one time event, it's gonna be incredible. The the whole event, it's gonna be a little bit of a different approach to doing a convention. Hopefully the the changes will be positive ones.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah. Like we started out with certain expectations for the podcast, and we we still strive for the best, but we probably overdid it, where we could relax on this and strive for more and whatever it was. And so I think he's going through those kind of growing pains with his first con.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, that's for sure. So hopefully we will see you at Lamar Dixon. If not, we hope you enjoyed the episode and look for the full versions. The the full versions of the live streams are out on YouTube already, and we will release the refined audio versions on the podcast in the coming weeks on Wednesday in our normal time slot. And we got a few more people who are going to be at the con. We're gonna show up. That's right. So we're talking to Ming Chen this weekend, we're talking to Jim Gleason, and we've got a couple more. We're hoping we can get scheduled, but we'll see. We'll see how schedules go. And if not, we'll hope to catch up with them at the event itself. Additionally, the merch store is open. I know we've touched on it a couple of times, so go to nolafilm scene.shop or you can go to our website, nolafilm scene.com, and then just click on the merch store, pick up a t-shirt or coffee cup or something. And if you want to support the show, you could go to buymeacoffee.com slash nolafilm scene and buy us a coffee. That aside, we hope to see you at Cajun Con. What's the date, Brian? It's December 6-7.
SPEAKER_03:I saw that the other day. I was like, oh man, I'm gonna have to do it.
SPEAKER_02:Oh, and I mean, even kids are starting to cringe at that now. You do that with my kid, you can just make the hand motion in front of my kids and they roll their eyes and they're like, Come on, come on.
SPEAKER_03:That's how we get them to stop. We just start doing it, and they'll be like, that's gross. Just under 6 7. That's right. Come see us. And if you come, you stop by our booth by our table, and you better get a selfie with me. See ya, folks. Have a good one.
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