NOLA Film Scene with Tj & Plaideau
A podcast about acting, filmmaking, and the improv scene in New Orleans.
NOLA Film Scene with Tj & Plaideau
Matthew Carroll: Wet Paint And Open Wounds
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Some stories are heavy because they’re true. Wet Paint, Matt Carroll’s new film, follows three 17-year-old girls whose friend dies by suicide—and their decision to push back when the adults and institutions around them default to silence. We invited Matt on to talk about the project, and the conversation went deep fast: real loss, real stigma, and a real plan to make student mental health less of a whisper and more of a policy priority.
If you or someone you know is struggling with thoughts of suicide or self-harm, you are not alone.In the United States, you can call or text 988 any time to reach the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline for free, confidential support. You matter.
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
Welcome to the NOLA film team with TJ Play-Doh. I'm TJ. And as always, I'm Play-Doh.
SPEAKER_01:Thank you, Riverside. And thank you, Jana McCaffrey, for sponsoring this show. Thank you, Jana.
SPEAKER_02:Thank you, Janet. And thank you, Matt, for joining us for an impromptu live stream. Should we tell the people we're live?
SPEAKER_01:We're live. Live. Live. And we are here with John. Wait, wrong notes. Who have we? Oh, it's Matt Carroll. Matt Carroll. Actor, director, writer, producer, all-around good guy. Um makes movies. And um we're here to talk about his new endeavor, wet paint. Oh, I thought you were gonna talk about the other thing. Yeah, wet paint. Hi, Matt. Hello, hello.
SPEAKER_02:We all act and talk for a living.
SPEAKER_00:You can tell by the uh that's on that's been on purpose, though. It's all you, Matt. Speak. All right. Uh so wet paint is uh is a story that uh we're gonna be shooting from the 26th or the 31st in New Orleans, uh in some other areas, different locations. We are uh trying to currently raise money. We have a GoFundMe going on, uh, so check that out. Uh I'm sure it's on most of your local film pages because I'm on like 17 different film groups all across the U.S. And so I've been posting all over the place and getting people from like New Jersey and Florida and asking me, hey, is this filming in New Jersey? No, on the thing. It says New Orleans, but anyway, uh, so I'm sure you can find access to it if you if you really looked. Uh, but the story of Wet Paint is uh about three 17-year-old girls, and they are dealing with uh their last year of high school and all the pressures that come with that as a kid. And uh one of them ends up not being able to cope and takes their life. And what happens is the other two girls decide that they don't like the way that the authorities deal with uh the you know her her passing, and so they go on a crusade to start a movement uh that will allow open dialogue between students in school systems, and so they decide that they want to do this and they get a lot of pushback. There's uh expulsion, there's um jail time, there's a lot that uh that happens, but the story itself is to bring awareness for student mental health because it's something that is very prevalent today. Um, I work as a teacher, and uh it's it's there's a lot of young kids that are dealing with so much at such young ages nowadays, which is so crazy to think. Because when you know I was 10, 11, and 12, I was trying to go out and play basketball or go drive down the street or you know, stay out until after the streetlights came on. You know what I'm saying? Like I didn't, I what this wasn't things that were on my mind. Like I didn't grow up in this kind of environment that these kids are growing up in nowadays, that they seem like that they're at the end of their rope at 10, 11, and 12, which is really kind of sad, man. It's it makes me it makes me think that uh there needs to be some sort of change, and that's what wet pain is about.
SPEAKER_01:I agree that there needs to be change. I think there's never really been enough done about it. So I actually have a really close-to-home story related to this topic, if you'll permit me to tell this story. I haven't even told Brian this story. So in junior high, I lived in Slidell, and I was in seventh grade. Kid I played football with, he was the number one guy in everything. He was the star athlete in all the sports. He had the highest GPA. He came from I I don't know that they were wealthy, but they they did pretty well. His his dad was some kind of bigwig in the oil industry. I I don't know to what extent, but they were getting transferred to Houston. That's Houston's the big oil boom area, that's where a lot of the corporate offices are. And he had a a girlfriend that was you know the cutest girl in the school. They were, you know, they were like the the junior high equivalent of a power couple. And for about a week, and he and I played ball, he was the starting quarterback, like I said, the star of all the sports. We weren't really in the same circles, but we we knew each other, we were friends from that. And this week in particular, he had been riding my school bus every day. Uh he didn't live in my neighborhood, but was staying with uh a friend in my neighborhood while his parents were house hunting in Houston. And one morning I had whatever my it was shop. So the way it worked back then, you took you had to have an elective for one semester and then PE for the other semester. So I wasn't in the band, so I had to pick from either shop, home ec art or music, I think. And that particular year I had shop. A lot of my friends were in shop. The next year we all did home at because we wanted to learn how to sew. And that morning we got held in class. At the end of that hour, and it was first period. The shop teacher was like, All right, we're we're just gonna we're staying here a little bit longer, we're not changing classes, and he didn't tell us why. And one of my friends' mom was uh she worked in the front office, and she got him a note and said that something happened, and we got a little bit more information. He took his life in class that morning out on the playground. We had probably 20 minutes uh every morning before class started when people were waiting for all the buses to get there, I guess. And he went around to people telling them goodbye, and a couple of people he made a motion like a gun. And you know, we're 12 and 13 years old, people weren't really reading into that sort of thing. People assumed he was saying goodbye because they knew he was moving, they knew his parents were house hunting, and people just associated it with that. He brought a gun to school, a small revolver, and when class started, he walked in and sat in his desk and pulled it out and put it up to his head. And the other students were still up milling around, even though the the second bell had rung. Had they not been up out of their seats, the girl that sat next to him would have also been struck. So fortunately, she wasn't in her seat. And the sad part about it, it wasn't an immediate thing. He survived in a vegetative state for a couple of days, and so he was older, he was a year older than me, so he was eighth grade, I was seventh grade, and thirteen years old. Thirteen years old. And it was all because well, his so my our understanding was that his parents did put a lot of pressure on him to perform, but it was too much for him, leaving his girlfriend, all of his friends, everything he'd ever known, moving away. We all thought perfect, you know, he had the perfect life, he had everything, you know, they had money, he had nice stuff. You just never know. I mean, he was always in a good always in a good mood, he was funny, he was uh the popular kid, the likable guy. Everybody liked this guy. And it just goes to show you you never know what's going on in someone's head. And that's been 30 something years. And it's still, and when I started reading this script, it really uh I told you, I I told you when I started reading it, it was hitting really close to home. That's that's why. And the fact that he did it at school in class, back then, I I mean, I'm older than you, I'm closer to Brian's age. You back then you didn't hear about people, kids didn't bring guns to school. That just that didn't happen. You know, if you carried a pocket knife to school, it was to open your snuff can. It wasn't it it wasn't a weapon, you know? And that's something that I've always carried with me. And I remember the follow-up from that, there was no mental health stuff available back then. There just there wasn't. They brought in counselors, and they they had them set up in the cafeteria and and the gym, you know, different places where there could be bigger assemblies of people. And if you needed to talk to someone, you could be excused from class and get up and go talk to these people. But I mean, who's doing that? Are you going in there and talking about this affecting you in front of a bunch of people that are staring and maybe judging you for asking for help? There were people that went and talked and they would have big group sessions that you know people would talk and share their feelings or whatever, but there just wasn't a lot of options, and that only lasted for a couple of days, and then it was back to business, like nothing happened. The kids didn't feel like nothing happened, it was different, it was weird, the school was eerie, it was strange being there, and a lot of us, I mean, those of us that knew him remembered, but there I mean there was just there was nothing. What do you do? I mean, how do you from a mental health standpoint, how do you manage that? How do you help a bunch? And at that time, I don't know if it's still the same, but at that junior high, fifth, sixth, seventh, and eighth grade were all at the same physical location. So you had fifth graders through eighth graders at that school that knew what happened. And yeah, you can look it up. His name was Matt Cooper. What how? How do you help kids? Like what what's the mechanism to give them that mental health help? And I think this project is gonna go a long way to shining a light on on that deficiency.
SPEAKER_00:I uh I don't know the answer. First off, I'm sorry for your loss and that you dealt with all that. Uh thing I don't I don't know the answer to save it. Um, I just I know that if one person's thinking it, somebody else must have thought it, right? Yep. And if if it's a classroom full of kids, there needs to be some sort of open dialogue. There has to be some sort of summit that happens every year to discuss student mental health. Because there's so there's there's uh training we go through as teachers, uh, but it's mandatory from uh, I believe state level or it could be national level. I'm not 100% sure, but I know it is because of a situation that happened with a a young kid. And uh so we have to go through these trainings to see all these different like signs, right? But that's the extent. Like it doesn't, there's not like, hey, this is the signs. So then what happens is when you see those signs, you tell somebody and then they send them to somebody else. Like I feel like there's a disconnect there. Like, even if you see the sign and then you send them to a hospital, I feel like you're still there's still a disconnect. Like the kid is not really being understood. There's not really this open conversation that's happening. It's like, oh, you dyed your hair blue and you've been giving your things away, which are two signs, by the way, because if they change their appearance and they start to give their things away, then they're thinking that they're you know, they're contemplating the thought of taking their own life or self-harm in some way, shape, or form. And so if you see that, you say, Hey, look, this is what I saw, and then you go to the counselor, and if you they decide, then they send them to the hospital, and then the hospital helps them, and then they come back to school. Well, then they come back to school the same person, they come back to school, they may have been improved, but then when they come back to this environment, are they back in that same mindset?
SPEAKER_01:And is it and is there a stigma attached now? Kids see them leave, you know.
SPEAKER_00:What does he do with that? Exactly. Now they're the weird kid, the kid that has the the mental whatever uh instability, and like now they're looked at, like you said, with a stigma, and they don't want to talk to anybody, and they start isolating themselves even further.
SPEAKER_01:It makes it worse. That's absolutely right. I can tell you one thing from my training in the military in both branches I was in, every year we had to go through suicide awareness prevention training. And uh as an officer at my last command, I got assigned an investigation. Uh uh officers did in the Coast Guard officers did administrative investigations. You know, if uh somebody was breaking the rules or doing something that may not necessarily be criminal before any kind of action could be taken, an investigation had to be done. And I was assigned a guy that was showing up uh drunk on, you know, drinking on duty, alcohol in his breath. Uh there were a lot of things. He was late to muster all the time. Uh he was, for all intents and purposes, what uh they called in the Coast Guard a shipbag. And when I started talking to him going through the steps, there was more to it. There was more to it than this guy was just showing up. And the thing that triggered the big investigation, he lived in base housing. There was a domestic violence incident between him and his wife. And when I started talking to him, the bells are going off. All of the warning signs are there. And I I stopped, I I point blank asked him, I said, Are you have you are you thinking about killing yourself? And some people feel like you have to tiptoe around it because they're afraid if you ask them, it's gonna trigger something, and that's not the case. That's absolutely incorrect. If you suspect that somebody is suicidal, ask them because if they're already thinking it, asking them that is not gonna push them over the edge. If they were already there, they were already there. So you stop and you ask them, Do they need help? And that changed the stakes of that conversation because I felt like there was more going on. And I asked him, Are you thinking about killing yourself? And he started crying. And I said, All right, that's that's it. The investigation stopped right there. And that triggered another step. And so I I called the ambulance first, and then I notified my supervisor at the time was the the next person up for me was the commanding officer. And we took those steps and got him the help that he needed, and he actually didn't lose he didn't lose his job because of that, because he needed help. I I just could tell. I could tell there was something more going on than this guy was just a poor performer and showing up with alcohol in his breath. And he went and got the help that he needed and actually got back on track. He lost, you know, he lost some rank and he lost, you know, there was some punishment involved because of the things that he was doing at work or not doing at work. You you can't miss work and not have repercussions in the military. But he got the help he needed and salvaged his career as a result of that. And sometimes it just takes somebody noticing and asking. Just just ask them if there's something going on.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. And with that being said, like if you read the script or you see the film or whenever we film it, um the first up until the girl passes, nobody asks, How are you doing? Like they don't ask her, is there anything that I can do to help? Is there anything like it's just never, it's never a thing. Like they ask, like the mom says, Hey, can I help you with the essay? And she says, Oh no, no, no, I'm good. I got it. And she's like, You sure? Because I can always read. She's like, No, I got it. Because she's supposed to be at this echelon of intelligence and this echelon of greatness and all these things and these accolades that she's been given. And you know, it just it it builds, man. The pressure builds to be great. Some people will crumble under this pressure. And it it the kids, they're kids. At the end of the day, they're kids, man. Let them be kids. They'll eventually get to a point where they can, you know, exceed everybody's expectations and go on and create the greatest accomplishments, but they're kids, and it's it's the hardest part to see is that you know, when when somebody has such a big responsibility on their shoulders, be it taking care of their family, be it getting good grades, always making straight A's, um, doing well on a sports team, excelling in any sort of like mathematical quiz bowl, anything, right? There's so much pressure that goes into that that people don't understand. Acting. There's a ton of pressure that goes into acting, especially when you're leading a show and you're taking on a show. You have the responsibility to be the person that carries this whole thing, right? That's that's hard, that's really tough. And most of the time, a a good theater director will alleviate that pressure by helping with putting um a an ensemble together where you feel like you're not really the only person on stage doing it. Yeah. And that's usually where you go from being a you know, high school level production or community, not to not community theater, because community theater is great in certain places. But you know, a non a non-professional to a professional status. You'll see that that big difference because of the ensemble that's built around the leads. So it helps the leads and say, hey, you got a little cushion. You got somebody else lifting you up a little bit. Just know that they're there. And that helps a ton.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. And sorry, by the way, for your high for hijacking. We're supposed to be promoting the film, but I felt I felt it was relevant because when you reached out about this one after the other one, you said this one's different. This one this one hits hard. I've read a lot of your work. I've been in some of your work. And yeah, you were right. This one has a completely different feel. And I feel like I feel like it's going to make an impact, man. I feel like it's going to help somebody. And if it even helps one person that's feeling that way and thinking that way, just to know, just to know that they're not alone, that they're not the only person thinking like that, I feel like it's going to make a difference. And people need to get involved with this project. They need to we're going to get the information about your your Kickstarter or uh crowdsourcing that you're doing. Go go fund me. Go fund me. We're going to get the information on that and get it out there. But man, this project, people need to get involved with this. They really do. This is gonna it's gonna shine a light. I think so too. I really I really feel so I really feel like it's gonna if just one person realizes that they're not the only one that's feeling like that, it's gonna make a difference. And I didn't mean to take over.
SPEAKER_00:No, no, no.
SPEAKER_02:No, you're 100% what you're saying is true. You didn't hide it. I agree with you. It's it's just on topic. And as on topic, I don't know if I've mentioned this, but I in my youth I was suicidal. So first of all, growing up with the last name Play-Doh, you get teased every day. And even if it's genial, even if it's nice, it's daily. And we didn't have the internet back then, so once I got home, I didn't have to deal with that. But you hear about stories about kids having, you know, go kill yourself. Oh, you're terrible, like they're being attacked online. So in addition to that, and I think I've talked about this, um, in tenth grade, my mother was having breast cancer surgery, and the nun, one of my teachers, said that I was killing her with my antics. And my antics were I wasn't doing my homework. So uh that was quite an emotional bomb. And then uh we dealt with the nun with a meeting, and she tried to like my mom caught me crying, she had just got home from the hospital, and she's like, Tell me what's wrong, and how do I tell my mom that, right? I'm like, No, and I'm I gotta do my homework. And she got it out of me, and then my dad got home, and they made the meeting, and so we're sitting in the sister's roundhouse. And in and if you've ever been in in let's just call them institutions like that, they all look the same, the same lighting. And I'm across the couch from her, and my dad, who was six three, has his elbows on his knees. He got down on her level and he said, Well, what is he doing? Well, you know, when kids are bad. No, I don't know. Tell me. Well, you're a teacher when you have a kid, you know, you have a bad student. No, usually that means I'm a bad teacher. And I didn't catch any of that, you know what I mean? So we took care of her. But like I would see her when I was working at Wendy's after high school, and I would start shaking. You know, or she came into a grocery store I was working, and just seeing her, you know, so back up to as I was getting up around 13, I I had a gun to my head. You know, it was it was I didn't pull the trigger, you know, obviously, but you know, I was at that point of despair where even though with some therapy, it was still in there. It's like a like a ink in the water. And therapy you let some of it out, but it's it's a long process, you know. So my mom caught me, so to speak, and said, You have to promise me you'll never do that. And that's the only thing that kept me alive later. Because those thoughts came back. I was always very I guess you say needy, like needing people to like me. And that would push people away, as we know. So, um I wasn't planning on talking about this. It just welled up, so I'm hijacking. Vote for it. Yeah, I I thank you. I just we need in this country, because I've had this thought watching shows, and then we didn't know about other kids back then because we didn't have the internet, but I'm sure there were more gun incidents, at least kids bringing guns to school. And then once things like Pearl Jam Song of Jeremy, I don't want to say popularizing it, but making it known, and then we had all these incidents, we see these times and stresses like I was going through in these kids, you know. I don't even want to say mental breakdown, just the daily. And in our country, we don't talk about it. There's no like the minute you say therapist still, I think there's a oh, that person's a nut. And it's just mental health. It's like going to the doctor when you stubbed your toe. Same thing. Oh, I broke my leg. I go to the doctor. I can't deal with this. I need help. I need someone to teach me how to.
SPEAKER_01:Brian, let me interject. I'm sorry, we lost Matt for just a second. Okay. Let me um I can see back.
SPEAKER_00:Somebody called me.
SPEAKER_01:Oh.
SPEAKER_00:Sorry.
SPEAKER_01:Oh, yeah. I'm sorry. I should I forgot to tell you to put it on do not on do not disturb. Yeah, I'm sorry. No, no, it's all it's all good. We're back recording, Brian. Pick up where you left off. I'm sorry.
SPEAKER_02:Oh, okay. So um we we we look at mental health as the stigma of that that's a crazy person instead of that's just somebody going to the doctor. And we talk about in the schools, and this was in the 80s, we had retreats once a year. Excuse me, and then there's like a group session, and I relayed this kind of stuff, and I was breaking down, and there was a priest and a brother, because the school I went to was run by an order, so there's brothers. And for people who don't know, that's you know, you know that priests make vows and they get away from society. Same thing with brothers, they're just in an organization. And so I I laid it out there. Pin drop, you know, and obviously right now I'm a little, I can feel it heightened, even though I'm comfortable sharing, but you know, the emotions are there, and it was even more because I was a teenager, and they looked at me and went, Okay, thanks, and moved on. And I'm begging for help. I'm like, I need somebody to talk to, you know, nothing. So the counselors didn't recognize. And I'm not like pointing my finger at the whole thing, but like you said, we need a system for kids to talk, but we also need society and our ways to just go, this is acceptable. You know what I mean? And not not only the older generation, because I know people older who they could use some therapy, but they're like, no, I can't do that. So it may have it's it's come a long way, as I've seen in society. You know, a lot more people take therapy and they talk about it, but we still have a lot of ways to go, especially with teenagers.
SPEAKER_00:And the thing that you were saying, right? Like, all kids are dealing with something, dude. All of them. The the the great basketball player, the the student council president, the all every kid, every kid is dealing with the same thoughts or insecurities. You know, it may not be specifically the same, but they're dealing with an insecurity, and they believe that the end-all be-all is high school and school itself because they're worried about popularity and being cool and being a part of something, and they don't understand that once you get out of it, none of that mattered, and it's like it's crazy to me, like it's it's a hard thing to grasp that kids at you know, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14 want to take their life because this is they can't stand this anymore, and it's it's not me, you know, judging. I'm not at all by any means. I'm stating there's so much more for them to learn and have and live with and be a part of. It, I mean, it you're you, there's no better person to be you than you. You are you, whatever that means. You're you, and you will find a place for you because there's people that fit, there's something that you're going to be great at. There's something that you're gonna find that you fall in love with, be it a person, be it a video game, whatever it is. You are going to find something, and you're going to excel in this thing when you get older and you're gonna build a career around it, and you're going to go out and you're gonna keep striving because you're driven to do this, and that is because in at 10 years old, you didn't take your life, and it's it's it's so hard to think that 10-year-old kids, dude. 10 10-year-old kids are killing themselves, like they're taking their self-harm of any kind at 10? Yep. It's tough, man. It's it's a it's a really tough, it's really tough to hear. It's really, really tough to hear because I got a kid and my kid's about to be 15. And I'm I remember when he was 10. And it's it is hard, dude. It is hard. And I'm not trying to I'm not trying to go into that, but I could only imagine, dude. Like I I I'm proud of him. Everything he's done, everything he continues to do. Y'all met him, he's a great kid, he's fantastic.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, he is.
SPEAKER_00:And it's like it it I wish he knew how much love I have for him, and I wish all the other kids had that kind of love for them. Yeah. Sorry.
SPEAKER_02:No, no, no, it it needs to be said, man. One really does correction. I was 10 years old in fifth grade, not in 10th grade, so just uh not that anybody cares. But we also, with when you're in high school and before, your homerooms are changing, which magnifies every pain and every feeling so much that once you get past that and you look back and you can't imagine, you know what I mean? So maybe we as adults like, oh, it's just, and I'm you did not say this. Well, it's just high school, you'll get over it. But we can stop and say, Oh, let me remember that magnifying glass of oh, it's high school, you know. Exactly.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, and then it's it's it's it's lifted so high, it's it's so high, like in all aspects, because you want to be popular, everybody does. I mean, it's not a secret, everybody wants people to to to champion them and celebrate them uh to be a celebrity in this way, shape, or form, and even not just not just popular, but just accepted.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, you know what I mean? Because I was I was in the band by the time I got to high school, so I was in a group, but I didn't feel accepted. You know what I mean? So I totally agree with you. It's just it's not just popularity, it's not just you know, and that's all part of it, but it's it's that acceptance that once we later once I got past that and found my niche niches and found my tribes, made it so clear what I needed back then. You know? Yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00:I know, dude. I didn't I didn't intend for this to be so heavy. No, it's just a heavy, it's a heavy film, man. It's a heavy subject.
SPEAKER_02:It is, it really is, and that's why we need people's help.
SPEAKER_00:So much so people shy away from it. They they you know, they hear it and they go, I don't want to touch that. I don't want, but I t I I I cover it with kid gloves. Like I don't I'm very respectful of all of it. I'm very respectful as the writing is it looks at it from all these different perspectives. It's not just this is what happened. Oh my god, this is upsetting. It's not that, it is not that kind of film, yeah.
SPEAKER_02:I agree with we're kind of emotionally spent, folks, and that's what we want you to feel after this movie as I cover with humor. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Well, so why don't we talk about the ways that people can get involved from the the GoFundMe to uh performance crew, whatever. Let's talk about, let's talk about your needs for the project.
SPEAKER_00:Sure. Uh so I am looking for uh anybody who wants to come and volunteer some time on set. They can be PAs if you have some background in film. We'd love to have you. Uh, unfortunately, because we're trying to raise funding, we don't have funding to pay everybody. It's I it's not because I don't want to, trust me, I really want to. Uh, I did a budget and everything. I reached out to all these investors. I sat down with them. I went and talked to distributors, and everybody says, Well, after it's made, I'm good. But prior to that, I don't want anything to do with it. Or they go, man, that's a great concept, and they just kind of let the conversation trickle off and then they ghost me. So it's like, okay, but it it is asking people to volunteer their time, uh, which is something hard to do because everybody's time is precious, but so is mine and Kevin's and you guys, and we're giving our time for it. You know, it's because it's it's the the project is important, and the film itself, I want it to be as great as it can be. Um, I think we can do it. I know we can do it. We're going to do it regardless. Uh, we do need a couple of more roles to be filled. Uh, there's a few. There's one that's a really hard challenging role, and I've reached out to some different people. Actually, there's three really hard challenging roles. I reached out to some different people, and unfortunately, uh their schedules don't line up, so I'm still looking, right? Uh, but two of them are the main leads. Um, they have to look 17, 16, 17, but they have to be 18 plus because we're probably gonna work over eight hours, and it's a sag film, so it can't be you can't work uh minors past eight hours. So uh I that's why I'm looking for 18 plus. Um, and I I found some people. I found some really talented people. I'm really glad with the cast I have so far. I have some uh some really, really talented folks that agreed to do this and and to volunteer their time. Uh also we're looking for locations. Uh, we have some locations in mind. Uh, we have a couple of bedrooms that we have already. Uh, we have uh location by a waterside that we have already, uh, but we're looking for a couple more locations. Um, one of the hardest things to find when you're filming something, especially low budget, is a bank, a police station, a casino. Those are three of the ones that are like, ah, it's really tough. Well, I found out this week that uh a high school is very tough to get as well. So I can add that to the list. So now there's four things that's really tough. Um, but yeah, so we're looking for a high school that uh we can shoot in uh abandoned, preferably. Uh, but if it's still, you know, going, that'd be great. Uh, the reason I asked for abandon so that we didn't have to go through different red tape signing all these paperworks and stuff. But if we have to sign whatever we have to sign, I'm happy to sign it. And since it's the Christmas break, they shouldn't have kids, so we could go in and just kind of shoot, hopefully. Uh, but uh, you know, all that being said, uh he's gonna put one of them are gonna put the the GoFundMe stuff on their page or on the the website. If you can't donate, cool. We just ask you to like it and share it and just be a part of the movement, especially if you feel like this is something that you you want to, you know, back.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. So and we'll also we'll get we'll have you send the information to us and I will add it into the description on the YouTube video. And I think we might also turn around and publish this on Facebook. We normally don't publish on Facebook. Uh we've been having trouble getting it to live stream to Facebook. I it's just a it's a riverside thing. I it it's not working right. We're able to stream to YouTube and Twitch and stuff, but for some reason Facebook just doesn't and uh Instagram just doesn't work right. But we'll publish this to Facebook as well, try to get some traffic, some interest going.
SPEAKER_00:Could I run to the restroom real quick? Is that a possibility? Yep, absolutely. All right, I'll be right back. I'm gonna talk about the headphones out. Uh perfect. Uh I'm gonna take the headphones out so you don't hear anything.
SPEAKER_02:Okay, now we can talk about them and say say what we really feel.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. I I I think with the emotional tone, we'll probably we'll not bring that other cast member in that we were talking about doing.
SPEAKER_02:We'll we'll just are we still live? Yes. Okay. The way you were talking was almost behind the scenes comfort.
SPEAKER_01:So we can show the we can show viewers some behind the scenes stuff. Oh, look at that.
SPEAKER_02:Oh man. So, you know, the first time I met him, he was such a oh hey, Matt, how are you? He goes, Oh man, when you came back. Oh man. I almost got it out there. Ladies and gentlemen, we we need help. Matt's got us.
SPEAKER_01:Hey! Don't tell him that we're planning to take over the project. Oh, he's he can hear us.
SPEAKER_02:Oh no, he can hear us. While Matt gets that back, I think that this project. I think it's gonna be very f special. Uh please help if you can. And like Matt said, if you can't, like, share, and and spread the word on social media with us. And even even if you just want to put in the comments and oh I share your experience like we did. We're not if you feel like we got too in-depth, but you know, oh I I knew somebody. And you don't have to give details. But I think this is something that has touched us all in different ways. Yeah. You know, and it's hard to say, yeah, we'd like to hear your story, but we would, not not being glib about it. But at the same time, it's tough to share. You know, even just typing in the comments. But you know, let's let's take the stigma away from that and you know, and if you need someone to talk to, you know.
SPEAKER_01:reach out to there's us there's hotlines you know and we'll put that information in our stuff too yeah I and I'm actually gonna put the uh I'm gonna put the notice in it as well you know if you're if you're struggling and I'm gonna put the phone the hotline phone number. My my wife actually worked volunteered for a a hotline when she was in college for a little bit.
SPEAKER_00:At the end of the film Edwin before the credits roll I give a list of all the different places they can call uh but now listening to you guys talk and knowing that everybody really has a story have you guys ever seen the way they start love actually so it's basically all these different pictures of people are videos of people you know that are meeting their loved ones or falling in love and all these other things right and I think that's how it opens and closes the show. So what we could do is we could open it with all these different people talking about their stories and just overlap them. And then from there we go into the shot of above that comes down into the parking lot where he's painting the the thing and smoking the cigarette and then we go back eight months earlier. Yeah yeah that could be cool that's actually that's pretty cool I just had the idea thanks to you guys' stories I was like man everybody's got a tale to tell so it's definitely uh something that I think would be interesting especially starting like that and just hearing people's voices over overlapping each other telling different stories I think would be you know because they're significant stories and you know they need to be told even if it's about someone else like TJ your story was super sad and super you know emotional but it it hit you and it's been with you for years there's gotta be other people out there that have experienced something like that. And Brian your story it it's it's it's something that affected you specifically like personally and that's a story that you'll never forget but like it wasn't TJ's personal experience it was somebody else's experience but TJ experienced it as a secondhand situation which is still lingering with him so there's gotta be stories that people have come into contact with you know yeah and if if they want to record something or whatever they can post it to this this page and what we'll do is when I go to edit we'll pull out all the stuff and we'll start the story with everybody's stories over that. So it feels like everybody's a part of this because it's this ain't for me. This is this film isn't for me. This film is for everybody else.
SPEAKER_02:This film is for the world hopefully what we could also do is once you make your social media pages for it ask people to share their videos there if they feel comfortable or even if they just want to type it maybe they're not comfortable being on camera which is hard for us to understand.
SPEAKER_01:So it could be something uh uh not to get too grandiose about it but a point where people can come together and start saying oh it's okay for me to talk about this you know so that could be I don't want to say movement I don't want to overblow it yet but we would have ambitions and I would we want to help but we're not like hey we're the guys you know yeah agreed all right yeah I think we're I think we're spent we've had a couple of emotional ones this one's this one's up there between this one and and the one that we did with Eileen with yep with Eileen Gruba yeah all right well we'll go ahead and pull the pin here and we'll get that info from you and get that posted as well and we'll get this up well it's on I mean it's up now it's on YouTube now but we'll get we'll spread the word on social media. Yep without a doubt uh did you want Megan the high one or what? I I was thinking maybe not maybe okay may maybe not this time we can do a follow-up one yeah we'll to get we'll get together with actors and stuff this uh I yeah I'm kind of raw I need to go understand understand I completely get it I'm tired of talking to you Matt it's all good thank you for you know sharing man yeah yeah yeah of course thanks for coming on Matt and uh we'll see you next time folks thanks for letting us be a part of this anytime man I'm a phone call away hit me up cool see you folks
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