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The Creativity, Education, and Leadership Podcast with Ben Guest
They put in their cover letter, “Honestly, we're just gonna go up to Yellowstone around that time and we would love to swing by and show the movie.”Rudi Womack is the Director of the Wyoming International Film Festival and the creator of the YouTube channel The Film Festival Guide.In this conversation, Rudi talks about:* What watching thousands of film festival submissions has taught him about good storytelling* The biggest mistake filmmakers make when they submit to festivals* Why transparency matters and why he published all of the submission and acceptance stats for the Wyoming International Film Festival * The importance of a compelling poster and thumbnail* How to write a good description of your movie* The most important questions filmmakers must askHere is a link to Hiike, the new film festival submission platform that Rudi mentioned.If you enjoyed this episode please forward to a friend.Here is an AI-generated transcript of my interview with Rudi. Don't come for me.79. Film Festival Director Rudi WomackBEN: Hi everyone. This is Ben Guest and this is The Creativity Education and Leadership Podcast. My guest today is Rudy Womack, who is the director of the Wyoming International Film Festival, and also Rudy has a fantastic YouTube page called The Film Festival Guide. So for all my filmmakers out there who are interested in submitting to festivals in this interview and on Rudy's YouTube page, he breaks it down. Enjoy.Rudi, thank you so much for joining us.RUDI: Hey, it's my pleasure to be here. Thank you for having me.BEN: So I always start off with a fun question, and we're entering the holiday season, so very important holiday question. Is Die Hard a Christmas movie?RUDI: Absolutely. A hundred percent. Come on.BEN: I love it. So I, I told you this off Air, I found you through the Rate YouTube channel.You have the Film Festival Guide. Is that the right name? I wanna make sure I get the name right. Yeah. The filmRUDI: festival guide. Yep.BEN: On YouTube Film Festival Guide on YouTube. Please. Any filmmakers out there go and subscribe. The information is so helpful. What, why did you start the this YouTube page?RUDI: I, as a filmmaker have gone through the festival circuit several times and I made a lot of amateur mistakes. I didn't know what I was doing. Definitely fell on my face a couple of times, but I also had some successes. And as I did more film festivals, I started learning more about the circuit.I got invited by a film festival to become a programmer, and so I started reviewing a lot of films and seeing a lot of the submissions. And I think instantly that made me a better filmmaker just because I saw what was working, what wasn't working, and how other filmmakers really brought to, brought their stories to life on the screen.And it, it was truly inspirational. Very long story short, the Wyoming International Film Festival was started by a gentleman named Alan Oi, and he's a, he's a documentarian out of Wyoming, which is where I'm from. I'm from Wyoming. So Alan had the film festival and he had run it for some years and it was going great and everything.But then Alan retired and now he's retiring. He wants to move outta Wyoming and he doesn't wanna run a live event. ‘cause it is a lot of work in his words. And I quote, it's a young man's game. And at the same time, COVID hit and he didn't wanna do the whole online thing and it was just a big mess.So Alan was like, I'm done with the festival, it's done. I'm just gonna let it die. And I was begging him, no, Alan, you can't do it. It's so important for indie filmmakers. And at the time I'm just finding my feet in the festival circuit as well as both a filmmaker and now I'm a programmer.I'm begging him like don't let it die. It's important, maybe I can help out. And he was like, why don't you run it? And I was like, absolutely not, man. What are you talking about? That's crazy. No way. No way. And I was like, I'm going to be your director of programming. That's what I'm going to do.I'm gonna help you get films in so you don't have to do that work. Very long story short, I ended up running it. I ended up taking over the festival from Alan. I did so reluctantly. But when I started working with the festival, working with the community, working with my hometown filmmakers and my home state filmmakers, and just seeing how important a film festival can be for a local community to uplift indie filmmakers to help them along the way I fell in love with it and here I am now, I run the film festival.And your question was, how did I start the YouTube channel? Sorry, I'm getting there. But I got a lot of questions from filmmakers about festivals, like how to navigate ‘em. And there's just so much mystery behind film festivals ‘cause it's so opaque. There's not a lot of transparency from film festivals.Film festivals are sketchy about which films they do select and which they don't. And frankly, there's a lot of misinformation out there about festivals. So I started answering a lot of questions and I started repeatedly answering the same question again and again and again. And I had some friends who told me, you should write a book.But I was like, yeah, but books, there are books, like people have already written books, bluntly, frankly, people far more experienced and knowledgeable than myself have written books. And so if you're not reading those books, then you're probably not gonna read my book. So that's when I decided, you know what, the YouTube channel is a great way to just do very easy outreach.Take one single topic, break it down for 10 minutes, and hopefully help filmmakers along on their film festival journey.BEN: I love it. And you said something for all the filmmakers who are listening. I'm gonna come back to it. Don't worry. You said something about once you started programming and watching so many films, you got a good sense of what works and what doesn't.So I definitely wanna come back to that. I know the filmmakers listening want to hear that. But before that you mentioned 10 minute videos. You strike me as somebody who, does research and takes time to Yes. Before they do something. What did you discover about running a YouTube page?What things work, what things don't work?RUDI: I'm still very early on in my own YouTube development. I'm still trying to learn what does and doesn't work. So I'm probably the worst person on earth to give advice. Definitely that first 32nd hook is so important on YouTube, just like it is on a film that, that intro, how we come into the story, whatever, on YouTube, you can see a massive drop off and apparently it's that way on every channel.Again, I'm not a YouTube guru, so I don't give advice, but that first 32nd hook is a big deal, but also just my presence on camera. I come from the post world. I'm an editor, so I'm not just behind camera. I'm behind, behind the camera. So I'm very much not used to an on-camera presence, so I'm developing that and learning it as well.What kind of energy I can bring. How to make it engaging. But also I don't wanna be zany and too quirky or anything because I am trying to give good guidance to filmmakers, but I also don't want to lecture them and bore them to death. So it's finding that balance of information that's valuable, but also entertaining enough that people don't wanna click off.And it's actually quite a complex thing that I'm still unraveling one video at a time. But the best advice that I saw was some YouTube guru who is just focus on getting 1% better on every single video. So is that little bit better graphics or better delivery, or better audio, or better editing or whatever it is.And after a hundred videos, you're now a hundred percent better. So that's what I've been focusing on. Just very small baby steps.BEN: Yeah, that's such a great way to break it down, right? It just makes it bite-sized, get 1% better.RUDI: I think you can apply that to life in general. There's a lot of things in life just today be 1% better.That's it,BEN: so you mentioned once you start a programming scene, get enough feel for what works, what doesn't, especially with short films, both narrative and docs. What are you seeing that works and doesn't work?RUDI: In the shorts world I'm seeing a couple of things. One, a self-contained story, and this is something that I had a problem with because oftentimes I would go for more of a quote unquote scene instead of a full beginning, middle and in, in a story.So a self-contained story typically is gonna make your short film much more successful. This can be hard for some filmmakers because they're trying to make a proof of concept short film that they're gonna go and get financing for their future. So one of the things that they often do is they just take a scene outta their feature and then just shoot that, which has mixed results.And the problem is the films that have gotten financed and been made from shorts that have done that are the ones that you see. So it's actually a survivor bias, where it's like it, it works for those particular films and therefore everybody thinks it's gonna work for their film. But obviously the films that it doesn't work for, you're never going to see.So you don't understand, actually for the majority of films, it doesn't work. So if you have a proof of concept, I actually say, don't pull a scene outta your feature. I say write its own scene, or sorry, your own short film. That exists in the same world and universe with the same characters as what your feature film is.And I think that's gonna have much more success on the film festival circuit. And that will lean you or lead you to whatever your goal is, financing or distribution or whatever. So that's a big thing with short films that makes ‘em successful is make sure it is actually a self-contained story and it doesn't have any loose ends, so to speak.What doesn't work is something that I myself struggle with, ironically as an editor. And that's things being too long and you need to parse them down. Now a lot of people will say, shorter, the better, which is true, but I actually think that's a result of actually getting to the core of the problem.And that's make your film as concise as possible. Get the idea. The emotion, the story out as concise as you can. And what that does by happenstance is it makes your film shorter. So it's not that shorter is better. I know there's it almost sounds like I'm just splitting hairs here, but I've seen plenty of five minute films that didn't work.I've seen plenty of 10 minute films that board me to death. So shorter isn't necessarily better. It's more concise of your story is better. And sometimes that still manifests as a 20, 30, 40 minute film. But if it's a very interesting 20, 30, 40 minutes, that's not gonna matter.BEN: It's such a great point. And for me, when I get to a certain point in the edit, I like to just bring in a couple friends and have them watch it. And then I just sit there and watch them watch it and whatever feedback they're gonna provide afterwards. 95% of what I need, I can just tell from Body Language as they're watching the film.RUDI: Yep.BEN: You come fromRUDI: theBEN: Go ahead.RUDI: Oh I was just gonna piggyback off that and just say, audience feedback is worth its weight and goal.BEN: Yeah.RUDI: And every filmmaker when you hit that fine cut stage, like you said, get your friends and family together, buy everybody some burgers and fries or whatever.Get ‘em all together. Gather ‘em up in a room, watch them, watch your film. That's gonna tell you more than anything else. We'll be able to about the success of your film and where it's strong, where it's weak, where you can still fix things. And I always suggest do it in your fine cut stage because nothing's locked in and you can still move things around and adjust, or whatever it is you need.BEN: Love it. And I think earlier what you are really getting at is telling a good story. Yes. And I'm amazed at, not amazed, but maybe a little disappointed, especially in today's world, the technical side of filmmaking. Even for an amateur, even for an indie filmmaker that you can, things can be d done so well technically, but there's no story.RUDI: Yes. All the time. So when I get onto Reddit, ‘cause you mentioned Reddit earlier if I go onto our filmmakers, right? Yeah. I don't have to look far to see people just geeking out over the newest Camerons. It's, and it's always cameras. Everybody always talks about. This camera is so fancy and it has so many stops above and this lens can do this and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.It has this big bit rate, whatever. Everybody gets so excited about cameras and I always say to myself, man, if they got this excited about audio, I wouldn't have to reject half the films that we have to reject because the audio is just blah. So if we're gonna talk tech, if we're gonna talk about the quote unquote quality of the filmmaking, I think what filmmakers need to understand is there are so many films out there we're that is just the foundation.It is the base level, it is the bare minimum that the film looks good. It sounds good. It feels good. So for us, festival guys, we see so many of these films. You're super gorgeous cinematography, you're really fancy, VFX, whatever it is that you think really separates your film from the pack. I don't wanna discourage you, I don't wanna sound jaded or anything, but it's not as impressive to us as you might believe it is, simply because we see hundreds and sometimes thousands of films like that.So for us it constantly falls back to originality and the story. Is the story well done? Is it well told? Is it a new and interesting story that we've never seen before? Is it a story that we've seen before but told in a very unique way, from a specific point of view, that is what is going to move us as festival people.‘cause when I put it into the theater and my audience walks in and they pay a ticket. My audience is used to going down to the theater and seeing a hundred million dollar movies. So for them, quality is just a given. It's just assumed they're not going to be thinking about it for them. They go and watch a movie ‘cause they're interested in, and I think if more filmmakers really dialed in on their story, they're going to find more success.BEN: So many great points there and a hundred percent agree with what you were saying about people get excited about the camera. And so I did my MFA at USC and there were three different times where I was on a set that, that I felt was unsafe. Not that I felt it was unsafe, what they were doing. Geez. And I walked off and it was always to get the cool shot.Like no one's ever hanging off a balcony to get room tone. You know what I mean? It's just, it's always to get the cool shot that, again, if you're not telling a good story, it doesn't matter. And to your point, I've always felt good audio is more important than good video.RUDI: Good image.BEN: Yeah.RUDI: Look at the documentary. Look at the nonfiction world. We see verite stuff all the time. We see stuff people recorded on their phone or, security camera footage or whatever, like at the end of the day in the nonfiction world is a great example of the quality of the shot doesn't necessarily matter so much as the quality of the story and how it's being told and how it's being revealed to us.And the audio is always gonna be very clean, very top notch, even if it's quote unquote found footage or. Veritate footage or whatever, the audio is always peak. I saw that Netflix doc recently, it was super heartbreaking. The perfect neighbor. And most of it is police body cam footage, but the audio is clean so we're able to follow the story so no one sits back and thinks of themselves this isn't a good shot.Of course it's not, it's police potty cam footage. Like it doesn't look good and it's not meant to,BEN: but it sounds good. And so you can follow it.RUDI: Yes.BEN: What what are some tropes that you think you've gotten tired of seeing in, especially in short films?RUDI: So every year it's a little bit different.You would be surprised what things pop up and what don't. The one trope that kind of rubs me the wrong way, I, I don't know how to describe it any other way than filmmaker self therapy. Like they, they're definitely going through something at the moment and they're not focused on creating a good story.They're more focused on using their art form to emotionally process whatever it is they're going through, which fine, you are an artist that makes sense to do, but also I can't sell my audience on that. So while I don't wanna discourage someone from making a film that is very near and dear and personal to them, at the end of the day, it might not be a good fit for film festivals.And so I, I would really think twice about whether or not that is a story that an audience, frankly, needs to see. Filmmaker cell therapy is one that when I get it, I'm always eh I don't know what to do with it. I just, I don't know what to do. Some other tropes that we see very commonly are like.Obviously right now, tech and AI and stuff like that gives a lot of people anxiety. So there's a lot of like evil robot takes over or the big reveal at the end of the movie, they were a robot the whole time, or the whole thing was a simulation or whatever. That's being very well tread right now.For me, I'm I am not a political person and anytime some big thing is in the news, we see tons of films on it. So I understand politics do affect people's day to day and their lives, so I understand that manifest. But man, I probably have a hundred immigration films right now and that's a lot. And I'm not gonna screen that many, so I'm only gonna pick like one, maybe two, so that's a tough one to do.Anything that's like a hot button political issue. We always see a big wave of those come in. And then honestly, romance dramas get tough. It isn't evergreen. We do have an audience for it. We usually do have some kind of a selection of them. Romance dramas have existed since the beginning of time.It's always been a thing. But filmmaker broke up with his girlfriend, so now he has a character who breaks up with his girlfriend. It gets it, it doesn't get very original. I, it just it gets exhausted. So those are some of the kind of general tropes I would avoid. I have heard other festival directors talk about like cancer films and Alzheimer's films and stuff like that.This year I'm not seeing so much of those, but I have seen those in the past. So tho those are some other. Tread stories we'll see.BEN: One of the things that I appreciate about. Your series of videos is your transparency, and you have one video where you literally break down. Here are all the films the number of films, Wyoming International Film Festivals received. Here's how it breaks down, here's how many we, we accepted, et cetera, et cetera.You have another one where you literally show the viewer, this is what we see as a programmer on our film freeway portal. Here's the scoring sheet. I think it's a little bit different from the one you guys use internally, but basically here's what the scoring sheet on film freeway looks like. Why is transparency so important to you?RUDI: Because I'm a filmmaker, because I've been to so many festivals where I have no idea what the hell's going on. I've been to festivals where I think my film is gonna be a good fit. I think based on what I've been able to investigate on my own, digging through their website, digging through their archive.Seen what they've programmed before. I think I'm a good fit, but I don't actually know. And I've submitted to festivals where later on, I see what they programmed or I got rejected or even accepted and then gone to the festival itself and have been a little disappointed when was like I this festival didn't fit my goals the way that I thought it would, or, this festival wasn't going to do the things for me.Or this festival, like really promoted themselves very heavily as this big event. And then you get there and then it's not, and that's a little bothersome. So when I stepped into my role at the Wyoming International Film Festival, I made a whole bunch of changes. But one of the changes that I made was, we are going to be transparent.I don't ever want a filmmaker to submit to our festival, get in, get accepted to the festival, drive all the way out to Wyoming and be disappointed. I don't want them to do that. That's not good for them. It's not good for us. It's not good for the community. It's not good for indie film at large.What's better is if we just be what we are in Wyoming, we're straight shooters. We just say it as it is. So I'm going to tell you exactly how many films were submitted, which films we accepted, what the percentage rates are, how many shorts versus features, how many docs versus narratives, how many music videos, all of this stuff.And we've been releasing the data for the past couple of years. This year, like we went all out with the data it was much more thorough than what we've done in years past. And even me, the director of the festival, I sit back, I look at the data and I can see some weak spots in it. I can see where we need to improve as a festival, where we need to start, bringing in a certain type of film or where other films might be overrepresented or how we can give more of an experience to our filmmakers.Just by boiling it down to numbers and looking at it. I can start seeing some of our weak spots and I want to improve on that ‘cause I want to have a good festival. And I think if more festivals were to do that, I think the filmmaking community at large would be much more appreciative. And I think film festivals need to understand.That if you have fewer submissions, that's not a bad thing because the submissions that you are going to get are filmmakers that really want to be in your festival and that's good for the health of your festival, the community, the filmmakers, everything. So I, I think the only way we get there is by being transparent.And thankfully there are other festivals that are publishing their data, which is great. And that makes me very happy to see. And I hope that trend continues and I hope even more festivals start publishing more of their data and showing how they review films, what their scorecards look like, what they're looking for.‘cause ultimately I genuinely believe that just serves the filmmakers better and ultimately makes everybody have a better experience on the film festival circuit, including the festivals themselves.BEN: When you took over as directorWhat were the biggest challenges?RUDI: So our biggest challenge to this day is our venue.So there's only one movie theater in Cheyenne, Wyoming. It is owned by a company outta Casper, Wyoming. They own pretty much a monopoly of movie theaters across the state, like most of them. And they don't allow anybody into their theaters at all. They don't allow her private screenings or corporate events or, in individuals who wanna screen their film or film festivals.I'm not the only film festival in Wyoming. I talk with other festival directors. They can't get in either. It's funny, the film commissioner of the state can't even get in. You would think the movie theater would at least want to partner with the state film Commission, but no. So for us, the challenge has been a venue and luckily our partners over at Laramie County Community College.Have graciously allowed us to use their facilities for the last couple years. They have a beautiful auditorium that we do some of our screenings in, but we also have screening rooms in a black box theater that they have as well as a conference room. And when I say conference room, most filmmakers like their heart drops a little bit.They're like, oh man, I'm just, I'm going into a conference room. It's not a proper movie theater. And that's fine. We publish that data on our film freeway page on hike. We are transparent about that. So when you submit, you might be in the conference room. But ironically, I think it has some of the best audio and it has some of the best projection.So even though it's the quote unquote least movie theater, like I actually think it has some of the best projection, best color. But venue is probably one of our biggest challenges and we continue to develop that. We continue to. Trying to innovate. We're trying to build our own screening room there on the campus.Like we're trying to use one of their big classrooms for it. And what we wanna do is we wanna turn it into a lounge. We wanna bring in like couches and sofas and comfy chairs where it's like much more of a chill environment in there. And that's the type of film we wanna screen in. There's some you can literally sit back, settle in and relax.So there's things that we're doing to create a better environment for our filmmakers and of course our audience, our guests at the festival.BEN: I love it. What's been the biggest reward?RUDI: The, I get to meet you. That's what the biggest reward is. I get to meet so many filmmakers. I get to hear their stories.I get to be inspired. I get to learn stuff. I was talking with a festival director a couple of days ago. Who asked me about how we do our audience award scores and how we process that and what they do. And I just like I lit up, I'm like, oh my God. It's such a better way, it's more efficient, it's easier on the staff.It's more representative of how the audience actually feels about the film, the way the scores are aggregated and counted. It's so great. I get to meet so many people in this world of film and every single day it's like a new, whole new world is opened up to me and I get to hear so many fantastic points of view.I get to see so many awesome films, like just how many great movies are out there is a cinephile. It's like the most rewarding thing in the world. I'm an addict. I'm totally addicted to it. It's so great.BEN: I love it. I remember I used to coach basketball in my first year as a head coach. I was like, yeah, everybody's gonna be pretty competitive, other coaches and so forth.And they were, and I was. But at the same time, when coaches would get together, it was just so supportive. And people are sharing, this is what I'm doing in practice. I'm looking at this offense, this defense. And I imagine it's the same with other film festival directors and programmers. Oh, yeah. Just a supportive environment comparing notes.RUDI: It is. And the more that I meet, the more I truly do understand. 99% of festival directors out there are programmers, people who work in it. They have some tie to cinema. Most of them are filmmakers. Those who aren't, have a deep passion and love for cinema and for storytelling, and.Everybody's a volunteer. Everybody has a day job. Nobody makes money on this. They do it from the love of their heart. They truly do. And the way that they serve their communities, the way that they serve their filmmakers, some of the cool ideas they come up with there's some really neat festivals out there with like very interesting hooks or events or whatever.And I think it is such an incredible ecosystem and I think I'm truly privileged to be part of it.BEN: What are some lesser known or maybe mid-tier festivals or local festivals that you love to attend?RUDI: Okay, so one of my favorite festivals I guess you said lesser known. This one is not lesser known, but Film Quest over in Provo, Utah, damn man, pe like festival people talk about building community. They're on a different level. They've built a family. Like everybody who goes to that festival is just so tight knit there. There's no other festival like Provo or sorry, film Quest in Provo. It is just, it's on another level. And how well they treat their filmmakers is fantastic.Some years ago I was invited to be a jury member at the Fair Film Festival, which is in Ferazi Kosovo. So that is in southeastern Europe. It's a landlocked country, just a little bit above Greece, a little bit north of Greece and north of Macedonia. And Fari is a small town. And I went to that festival and first off, wow.What a great festival. I strongly suggest you submit your film to fair film. It's so good. But the cool part of being in this European festival, and frankly a small European country, most of the films are international, obviously. And so there's filmmakers coming in from like Jordan and Spain and Germany and Slovakia and Slovenia and like all over the place, Greece, Turkey, you name it.And how interesting it is to have this incredible cross section of languages and cultures and peoples, but we're all united by this one singular thing. And that's our love for storytelling and our love for movies. It had to be one of the most incredible experiences of my life. And the next movie I make, taking it back to cosBEN: Fantastic.Just had a question. What was it? Oh okay. So with the huge caveat of besides making. A good film, a film that tells a story. Besides that, are there any tips or tricks, things on the margins that filmmakers can do when they're applying to festivals to be aware of? Sometimes festivals. Ask for a cover letter orRUDI: Yes.BEN: Press kit, things like that. Okay.RUDI: So with, sorry, my phone is loud. I should turn that down. So obviously with a huge caveat of make a good film or whatever, what's the easiest way to get it? All of the stuff on film Freeway, and I do have a video on this, on my YouTube page if you wanna check it out, where I give you a tour of film, freeway from the festival side of things like what the festival can see and how we see it and how we navigate it.On the festival end of things. We can see your cover letter, your screenings and awards your. Cast and crew information, your director's bio, your director's statement, your photographs, your EPK, that's your electronic press kit your trailer, all of that. All of that. As much of that as you can possibly make, you should make it.It's very important. And you never know which piece is gonna be more important to a particular film festival. For instance, here's something crazy. I was meeting with some of my programmers last night. They had a whole bunch of films that they wanted to recommend to go to the next level programming.And we require films. Tell us where in the world or where in the United States the film was made. And every single one of ‘em was California. California. California. California. California. Which fine, whatever. California has a big film industry. That's, it's a very big state, population wise. Makes sense, right?But I am sitting back thinking, okay. I don't want it just to be a bunch of California movies. We have a big country here. I would like to see something else. And something caught my attention. One of the filmmakers, their address was in Birmingham, Alabama, but the film was shot in California, so I am suspicious.I haven't dug into it myself. I'm suspicious either that filmmaker's from Alabama and they have moved to California, or that filmmaker lives in Alabama and they shot their film in California. So they're answering where it was shot correctly. But for me, I'm like, there you go. When everybody's from California.I want that unique perspective. I wanna see someone's from Alabama and what their perspective is now. I haven't watched the film yet. I don't know if it's what we're looking for. Obviously it's a good film if my programming team has recommended it, there's no doubt in my mind it's good film. Now there's other considerations we're gonna have, but.That alone was something, even my, like I myself did not know that I would be looking for. So filling out all of that data on film, freeway, all of your information that you possibly can, your cover letters your screenings, your awards, whatever it is, the more information you give us as a festival, the more we have to make our selections.And it only benefits you. It only helps you out. So filmmakers don't get lazy. Fill out all of that information. We need it. We use it. It's important. Just do it.BEN: You mentioned a meeting with your programmers last night. Take us inside that conversation. What does that look like? What do you discuss, et cetera.RUDI: So there's. There's a big programming team and it's divided up into two different groups. There's our kind of first round screeners and then there's our senior programmers and the senior programmers pretty much review the films that have gone through that first round of screening that are getting recommended to go onto the next one.So typically when I'm talking with my screeners and everything, it's a very different conversation on the bottom end of it where they're just sorting through all of the submissions versus a different conversation I have with the senior programmers who are on the top end of it. We're now trying to decide how to block films together, how we're gonna organize it, what's the schedule maybe look like, what's the overall tone and vibe of the festival going to be, okay.If we wanna have a sci-fi block, do we even have enough sci-fi films? If we don't. Where else can we find homes for ‘em? Stuff like that. So those conversations are a little bit more high end, if you will. And it tends to be less about the story of the film itself and more about how that film is going to fit into the festival.Whereas when I'm talking with the screeners, it's much more on the story end. Like what about the story did you like or you didn't like? Or what was the unique point of view? Or whatever. So depending on which group I'm talking to it, it's gonna be different. And then of course that divides out further on features and shorts and documentaries and narratives and music videos.So like obviously my conversation with the music video people are gonna be much different than my like short documentary people.BEN: Shout out to short documentary people as a documentarian primarily makes shorts I'll ask a question for us folks. In one of the videos, as I mentioned, you literally show here's what the scoring sheet looks like.Yes. And that was for narrative with, I think one of the categories was acting and so forth. So for a documentary or documentary shorts, what does that scoring sheet look like? What do those discussions entail?RUDI: Film freeway does not allow us to have more than one scoring sheet.So unfortunately, there's just this one scoring sheet that's for everything. What I tell my screening team, and we definitely double check everything, like there's multiple people who look at something. So it's not just one person's opinion. You have at least two, oftentimes three, pretty often four.So for something like documentary they skip over that. That's what they do. So if there's no acting in the film, they skip over that. They don't rate acting if there is no acting. But you'd be surprised. There are documentaries that have acting in ‘em. There are like docudramas or documentaries with recreation In the recreation is like actual scenes and performances and stuff like that.So in those cases, even though it's a nonfiction and a documentary, yeah, we'll still judge it for the acting ‘cause that's what it has. I get the question. I'm gonna hijack your question for a second, but it is applicable. I get the question, do we accept AI in our film festival, we do not have any official policy for or against ai, which scares some filmmakers.But we do rate AI on the same standards as we would anybody else. So when it comes to creativity and originality, guess what, you're getting a nothing. ‘cause AI didn't create it. AI is not original. AI just mashes together a bunch of information from other people. So that's no creativity and originality.Same thing for something like, I don't know, art design. If you have a AI character walking through a scene or whatever you're getting zero on your art design. Nobody built those sets. Nobody costumed that actor. Nobody was the makeup artist or the hair or whatever other art deck or, PD or anything on the set.So we will accept ai. We have accepted one single AI film so far because despite all of its quote unquote handicaps, and it was a music video. It still was successful in other categories that had a good enough score. We as a team sat down, said Yes, that it still is a good film. The audience is still gonna enjoy it.The filmmaker definitely had a vision with it. They wrote out a whole thing on like why they chose to use ai. ‘cause they're also an experimental filmmaker, so it made sense for them and everything. So we were like, you know what? That's legit. Let's put it in. But other AI submissions, like I got an AI children's animation the other day and I'm like they didn't animate it themselves.They didn't voice act it themselves. It's not getting good scores on any of these. So we'll see. We'll see. We'll see if it gets through or not, but already you're shooting yourself in the foot. So don't do ai.BEN: Okay. Couple little. I don't know, around the edges or micro questions. One of the things that you talked about in one of your recent videos was having a good poster and you talked about designing your poster for your film prudence.RUDI: Yeah.BEN: Talk, talk to me about,RUDI: I specifically gave my posters an example, not a great poster,BEN: But talk to me about that.For the no budget or low budget filmmaker that can't afford to hire a a designer to make a poster. Talk to me about poster design and how that impacts the presentation of the film for festivals.RUDI: So I strongly believe that a big part of filmmaking and marketing and packaging your film together, all of that is psychology.And as much as we want to sit back and say, Hey, don't judge a book by its, cover it, that literally goes against human psychology. People are not hardwired to do that. It, it is. In our DNA, it's not just a bad habit, it is literally a survival mechanism. So if you want to stand out, you do need to have everything put together.Your cover letter, your synopsis, your photographs, all of that, and of course all of your key art. That's your poster. That's any banners that you have, that's how you're going to be promoting the film. And you have to understand it's not just about making your film look pretty to get filmmakers to go, or sorry your programmers go, Ooh, and ah, it's a pretty film.We are looking at that as a mechanism for us to advertise the festival. You gotta understand if I have 150 films in the festival, I have to get an audience for those films. And the easiest way for me to do that is through your marketing materials. We don't have the capacity. To design marketing materials for 150 different films.We are relying on the filmmakers to do that so we can go out and promote the festival. So people show up to your screening, which I would presume is what you want if you're going to a film festival. So anything you're trailer, any photographs that you can provide, which some filmmakers only provide BTS photographs, BTS is fine.It's great. Give me some good key art I can also use, please. That's what newspapers, that's what the local news that's what podcasters, whatever, that's what they want to see. So that's what I can provide. And of course, your poster. Now, there are a lot of online tools to help in poster design, frankly, I don't have an excuse for making a bad poster like I did, which is one of the reasons I use it as an example is I am shaming myself being like, this could be better and it should be. But there's a lot of online resources that can help with poster design. And also for filmmakers who are a little bit strapped for cash, you would be surprised what people will do for in kind, service for service.So if you have a friend or if there's someone that you can find that's Hey, they'll design your poster if you can design whatever their website or whatever it is that your skills might be there, there's a lot of exchange that you can do on that part. So yeah your marketing, your packaging, all of that together is actually quite important.BEN: Such a great point. And I've written and published a memoir and through that, I've worked with other authors on, on. Both writing and marketing their books, editing and marketing their books. And I tell people the exact same thing. People judge a book by its cover all the time. And in this day and age, they judge it for listeners, I'm holding my thumb and forefinger part as a thumbnail on a computer screen.Yeah, that's the size. So even for a programmer or a festival director watching it on film freeway through their platform, they're not gonna see the poster like we see it in the movie theater. They're gonna see it as a thumbnail image. Yeah. So it has to work as a thumbnail image. And if you can't read the title as a thumbnail or can't make out what's on the image, what's on the poster as a thumbnail, then you've failed that part of the process.RUDI: One, one of the things that like really clued me into how important a poster is, I went to a film festival, I believe it was Kansas City Film Festival. Some years ago, and they had a bunch of posters of films out, but there was one that was like bright pink. It was like super bright pink and had like very eye popping design and everything on it.And it was like in a whole field of like dark drama posters that are all like gritty and everything. And I'm like that stands out. That really drew my eye to it. And I think that was like my big light bulb moment of like how important this stuff actually is. And one of the things that I've been saying for some years, I've said it on the channel, I think, I don't know, some, sometimes I record things and edit out.So I don't know what I've said on the channel sometimes but one of the things that I say is making a film is half of film making. The other half is marketing, the other half is getting butts in the seats. The other half is getting eyeballs on your movie. The other half is selling your film to an audience or a film festival or a distributor or a programmer or whatever you're trying to do with it.It's getting it out there. So making a film is half a filmmaking. The other half marketing, that's what it is.BEN: I'm just nodding along with everything you're saying and I've always felt both with films and with books, with art in general, you're trying to make an emotional connection from what's in your head and your heart to the audience.And if you don't do your job, getting your film out there and helping an audience come and see your film. Then you're not helping that connection. You're missing sort of the point of making this, unless it's just for yourself. It's for, it's to connect with other people and for other people to connect with your work.And that is marketing.RUDI: It's valid. If you're just making a film for yourself, that's absolutely valid. It's in art form. You can make a film for yourself, but if you're sending it to me at a film festival, you're not you're literally trying to find an audience. So these are the things you need to consider.BEN: I love it. I got two more just in the weeds detail questions.RUDI: Alright, let's do it.BEN: Let's talk description. And what I've seen ‘cause I'm in the middle of applying to festivals. And by the way just for. Listeners, this might interest you. So I discovered Rudi's YouTube page and I was like, this is so helpful.And then I went to the Wyoming International Film Festival page and all the transparency and statistics that, that Rudi puts out, that the festival puts out. And I realized, okay, so the short documentary I have is not a good fit for this festival. Exactly what Rudi's saying. So just for anybody listening, thank you for doing research.RUDI: Thank you. That's good. That's not a bad thing, right? That means it saves you time, it saves you money, it saves you heartbreak. It's so good. Do research before you submit. I'm sorry, but I, it's in, in almost every single one of my videos, I tell filmmakers, do your research before you submit. Find the festivals that gel with your film.And if it, if they don't screen the type of movie that you have, don't submit to ‘em. You're wasting your time, you're wasting your money. And the festival, like the programmer behind the screen, might love your film. They truly might love your film, but they're programming for a very specific audience and they know what that audience's taste is.So that's why they're driving specific films to that audience. So even if they love it, they might not include it, which is why you should always do your homework and do your research before you submit. I'm sorry to interrupt, but it's so importantBEN: And yes. And the flip side of that coin is now I also know what the Wyoming International Film Festival looks for.So in the future, if I have a doc or a film, I'm like, oh, this would be a great fit for this festival.RUDI: Yes.BEN: It helps both ways.RUDI: It does. And it helps you dial in. Which festivals you should target, which festivals are gonna help you with your specific goals. Whatever your goals are with the film it's gonna help you with your budgeting and your travel plans and your own personal calendar.It's gonna help with your mental health. It just, it helps on so many different aspects. And on the film festival side of things, I appreciate it when I hear from filmmakers say, Hey man, I looked into your festival looks good, but you don't have the kind of film that I have. And I'm like, not a problem man.Maybe I can point you in the right direction. Maybe I know some film festival programmers, I can make a recommendation, on your behalf too, that's not a bad thing. We love movies and we want to see them successful, but not every single fest or film and story is going to be successful in every single market.So it's very important to find your audience. And believe me, we are going to be cheering you the whole way.BEN: I want get back to my kind of in the weeds questions, but you've mentioned something that is big picture, that's so important. I feel like I've buried the lead here. And you mentioned this you've mentioned this multiple times in your videos.Is that a Phil, it's key. Maybe the most important part of this process is of the film festival submission process is a filmmaker needs to understand what are their goals in applying to a festival. Yes. So can you just talk a little bit about that?RUDI: So film festivals are a tool. And they can be a tool for many different things, but they are a tool.And just every single tool is not right for every single job, every film festival is not gonna be right for every film and vice versa. So before you go out to film festivals, you just need to ask yourself why? Why am I going out to film festivals? Why am I spending the money, the time, the energy, the effort?What do I want out of film festivals? And that's where you need to identify your goal. And the more specific you can be with the goal, the better it's going to be you going on your film festival journey. So for many filmmakers, a common reason they go out to film festivals is networking. So I'm gonna use that as an example.So let's say your goal is I want to network, I want to meet other. Filmmakers, I wanna meet, directors of photography and producers and other people that I can hire for my projects, or they're gonna hire me for their projects, and I want to build that network and I want to meet more filmmakers.Fantastic. Great. That's your goal. So the first thing that you need to do is you need to be looking at festivals that have networking events. And in this particular instance, you need to ask yourself two things. One, does it have networking? Is there in-person networking parties or networking events?And two, do the types of people that I want to meet actually attend those networking events. So us at the Wyoming International Film Festival, we have a pretty broad spectrum. We have filmmakers that are just beginning their journey. They're totally new, wet behind the ears. They're green they're just starting their journey.That's great. All the way up to every year we have multi Emmy award-winning filmmakers. Like people who do this professionally they're in unions or professional organizations, or they're a member of the academy, motion picture Arts and sciences or the TV Academy or sometimes like the Grammys and stuff like that.I, myself, I'm a professional editor, so there's people like me who professionally work, but they're like below the line. They're cinematographers editors, gaffers, what have you. So if your goal is to meet some like high-end producer that's gonna throw, a million dollars at your movie our festival is not the festival that's gonna help you with your goal.So you should skip over us because we don't have that kind of person in attendance. But if your goal is to meet other filmmakers at your level that you can collaborate with or get hired by or whatever. We're a great festival. We have tons of networking, and we bring in a ton of those filmmakers.We're a great event for you. So when you identify what your goal is and you're very specific about it, it's easier to identify which festivals you should start targeting. I take that one step further, and then once you've narrowed down which festivals are gonna help you with your goal, then you look into their history and see which of them have screened movies like yours in the past.So if you have a, you know I use the example, if you have a seven minute comedy coming of the age film, now you know which festivals have good networking, which festivals have the kinds of people you want to network with. Now you look at which ones have screened short coming of age comedy films in the past, and have a history of doing that.So that's gonna help you filter it even further. And by doing that, you're gonna really start to develop your film festival strategy. Now I do have some exciting news. There is something coming now, it's called Hike, H-I-I-K-E. It's hike with two I. And what Hy is doing, it's a submission platform similar to film Freeway, but among many of the tools that they're giving filmmakers, they're giving filmmakers customized festival strategies and they're scraping all of that data from film festivals, what they've programmed in the past.And when you as a filmmaker, join Hike, you take a little quiz, you tell them what your goals are, what your film is, you know how long it is, what the genre is, tell them about yourself. And they literally have. Data scientist who's built this like machine learning algorithm that pairs the data from the film festival to what the filmmaker provides.That literally gives you a compatibility score. So it's, it comes out and tells you, if you want to network with, professional filmmakers but not mega producers and you have a short comedy coming of age film Wyoming International Film Festival has that crowd screens those types of films and you would have a 90% compatibility.So it actually helps you develop your festival strategy for you.BEN: It's so needed. And Rudi has a great video on how to spot scam film festivals. Yes. That's something that is just prevalent these days. So for filmmakers who are getting ready to submit, I encourage you to watch that video. I'll link to it in the show.I'll link to everything that we're discussing in the show notes. The. So Rudi talked about one goal a filmmaker can have is to network other goals at various points in my, film festival my limited film festival career I've applied to festivals ‘cause I wanted to go to that city, new Orleans Fest, new Orleans Film Festival.TravelingRUDI: is totally legitimate reason to go.BEN: People apply because they want distribute, they wanna meet distributors or financiers for the next film. Although, that's what everybody wants. SoRUDI: you, you would be surprised. So in, in 2018, I had a feature film and my, my goal like most feature films was to land a distribution deal.But I was like, that's not specific enough. There are many steps to land a distribution deal. So what I need is I need good press on my film. So that was a goal. So I wanted to target festivals that had press. I wanted laurels. I wanted to win some awards with it, but I also knew my film was. Small and kind of small scale.So it wasn't gonna win laurels at big festivals. So I was like, okay, I need festivals with press. I need festivals that are legitimate and above board, but also small enough where I'm gonna be competitive. And then I wanted to actually meet distributors. And I know they only go to big festivals, so I actually had to target three different kinds of festivals.‘cause I had three, let's call ‘em conflicting goals with my own film. So that's what I did. I did a split strategy. I targeted festivals where I was gonna be this tiny little fish in a very big pond. And no one's really gonna notice me, but I'm just happy to be there. I targeted festivals where I know that I was going to get very good press and very good reviews on the film.And I targeted festivals that were small, still legitimate, but I was gonna be competitive and maybe bring home some trophies. And so that was my strategy and it worked, and I landed a distribution deal.BEN: That's so great. I, I'd love to do a part two at some point we can talk distribution deals and all of the, yeah.Things like that. But I think for people listening, the big takeaway is even with this multi-pronged goal, three different goals connected to each other. Once you identify what your goals are, then you work backwards and you create your strategy to Yes, to achieve those. Okay. Back to the two in the weeds.Two more in the weeds questions. Yeah. So description, and as I'm looking at other film descriptions, and I saw this at USC all the time as well, and we talked about earlier, filmmakers wanting to sit in emotion or sit in something traumatic and have the audience experience that I notice a lot of times in descriptions of short films.Can so and so come to terms with this? Can, and just as someone who has a little bit of experience marketing stories, where's the action? What's the active what's this person actively trying to accomplish, rather than can they just come to terms with something? Can you talk a little bit about film description, just three or four lines.What pops?RUDI: So just like your poster, just like your marketing and everything, a film description is your way to reach through the screen, grab the audience, grab the programmer, and pull them into your movie. Keep in mind, your whole entire goal is to get people to watch your film, get them excited about your film.And so if you just have a very drab, like description that's just yeah, has to face consequences for a decision they made or come to terms with something when I, that's a good V one, that's a good place to start, but that's not going to get an audience excited about your film.I saw film, I don't know if it was at my festival. It wasn't at my festival. We didn't screen it, but I'm saying, I don't know if it was submitted to my festival or if I saw it at another festival, but I remember one of the descriptions it was great. It was whatever the two character names were, John and Jane, I forget what the characters are, but like John and Jane are on a date, there's a bomb in the other room.I I hope the date goes well, or something like that. Let's hope the date goes well. And I'm like, what is this movie? That gets you really excited for it. You're. It, it creates so much mystery. And also just the cavalier way that it was written immediately tells me this is gonna be a comedy, or it's not taking itself too seriously.It's not some like gritty, dive into the underworld or whatever. Like just how blunt it was about the dis of the film and just that like small little description. I know I'm paraphrasing what it was, but it stuck with me for years at this point. ‘cause I'm like, that is how you write a description for a film.That is how you get someone excited to see what is this movie about? Let's jump in. Piggybacking off a description. Titles are another great way to do that. In, in my own repertoire of films I've had film called Prudence. Okay, fine, whatever. Prudence doesn't really tell you much about that film.I had a film that I'm very proud of. It's artsy, it's a little bit magical realism and it's called in this gray place, and it has that artsy mystique around it in this gray place. And I love that title. I did it, I did a film back in film school. It's terrible, but the title's great.It's called Back to Fort Russell. It was a Western and I, to this day, it's one of my favorite titles that I've ever had. But it tells you something. It clues you into what this film is going to be, what the journey of this movie is going to be. And some films do that better than others. And some films, yeah, it's not necessary.But I, I get more excited when I hear something like the Texas Chainsaw Massacre than I do something that's just like love. Or mom or something.BEN: I think this is the last question. So again, with all these little details, cover letter, talk to me about cover letters.RUDI: It's so interesting you asked me that question ‘cause hearing about four or five days, I'm posting a video on the YouTube channel about cover letters. It's short, it's only four or five minutes long, but cover letters are so important.Should absolutely write a cover letter. And a couple of days ago I was talking with programmers at dances with films, and if you don't know dances with films, look ‘em up. They are an incredible film festival. They are in the big leagues for sure. And I was talking with a couple of programmers and I asked them about covert letters and they said, it's so important it.How the filmmaker is going to put an audience in the theater is very important for their festival. How they're going to get people to attend is very important for them and they're like, a good indication in a cover letter is when they, the filmmaker indicates how they're going to market their film and they use the example of football.Let's say it's a movie about football. They're like, if it's a movie about football and you tell me in the cover letter that you're part of several like football organizations, or you're gonna be reaching out to sports organizations or youth organizations for sports or something like that, to attend the film.That's a very good indication for them in the cover letter. For me, I think a cover letter is very important in that it shows. You're going the extra mile to show the festival you care. You're not just submit and quit. We're not just one festival on a list of 50 that you're submitting to. There is a reason you want to screen with us, and that's a specific reason.Either you feel that your film is good fit for our audience, or there's something that you want to connect with. In Wyoming, I had one cover letter and we did accept this film and it was really funny. They put in their cover letter like their film was a comedy, so their cover letter was also very comedic, but they're like, honestly, we're just gonna go up to Yellowstone around that time and we would love to swing by and show the movie.And I laughed. I laughed so hard at that and I'm like. But that shows me they care. Like they want to be there. And the film was good and it was funny and we screamed it and they were there. So it's a way to show a film festival enthusiasm and it's way to inform the festival about yourself, about your film, and how that's gonna gel with their particular event and their audience.BEN: I love it. And that reminds me, I got one more, I got a bonus question. Yeah. Can you talk about applying early?RUDI: Yes. Statistically, when I look at our own data, statistically, it does seem to be that the earlier you apply, the better chance that you have. And so I don't want to give the impression that if you applied late.You have no chance. I think in the video where I literally broke down the data and the statistics, I think at our festival we had a one in five chance of getting in on the late deadline, which is about a 20% acceptance rate. But it was much higher the earlier it came in. So just with the raw data taking out my opinions, my emotions on it, whatever, just the data itself shows earlier is better.Now, here's where my opinions and my feelings towards it come from. I think it's a couple of things. One, when you get in early, you set the pace for the rest of the festival, you're telling us, okay, it's a drama. We're gonna compare your film against others. Like you have now become the benchmark that we're gonna compare other films to when it comes to like dramas or whatever.What it also does. It's something I'm going to discuss in my video and cover letters, but it also engages something, what's called mere exposure effect in psychology, which is essentially the more that you are exposed to something, the more preference you have towards it. Which means if you get in early, you are exposing yourself, your film, and your story to the programmers more often and more readily than late submissions are.So it's more likely that the programmers form some attachment to your film, and that's just human nature, that's just psychology. There's some practical reasons for it as well. Obviously, earlier submissions, earlier deadlines are cheaper, so it's better to get in. It's just gonna cost you less money to do and then lastly, there are many festivals that are developing their program as they go. So as films are coming in, they're shaping. We got a ton of dramas. Maybe we need two drama blocks, or, we, we don't have enough sci-fi for a sci-fi blocks, we gotta spread it out or whatever. So if you come in late, you're now trying to elbow some other film out of the way in order to find your screening slot.Which don't get me wrong, there are plenty of programmers that are absolutely gonna go to bat for you. They're gonna fight hard to get you in. Doesn't matter if you come in early or late or whatever, but the chances are just better. And the data shows that if you get in early. All that said, a couple of years ago, the very last film that came in with only two hours left in our deadline, we ended up programming it.So it, it is possible.BEN: Rudi, I cannot thank you enough. I can't tell you how helpful this has been. There's so much great information for filmmakers. Filmmakers submitted to festivals, people just interested in going to festivals. So thank you so much for taking the time.RUDI: Hey it's always a pleasure.I always love talking film festivals and for any filmmakers out there, head on over to YouTube hit up the Film Festival Guide. That's my YouTube page. I'm coming out with videos every two or three weeks. That's about what I put ‘em out there for. So if you need any guidance or any, I don't know, insight for film festivals that's where I am.BEN: Film Festival Guide. I'm a subscriber. I can't recommend it enough. Any other social media where people can find you?RUDI: Oh no, I'm terrible on social media. YouTube's enough for me right now.BEN: So Film Fest.RUDI: I will probably expand in the future and I'll probably make some announcement on the YouTube channel.Got it. But for right now, I'm just trying to get good information out there to as many filmmakers as possible.BEN: Thank you so much for doing that. It's such a huge benefit for film.RUDI: Thank you very much for the support and thank you very much for having me on. I enjoyed this. This was a lot of fun.BEN: Me too. This was great. Thank you. And that was my interview with Rudy Womack, director of the Wyoming International Film Festival and creator of the great YouTube page, the Film Festival Guide. Hope you enjoyed this episode. If you did, please forward it to one person. Thank you and have a great day. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit benbo.substack.com
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This week, Casper and Vanessa explore the theme of Mercy in Chapter 30 of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows! They discuss Harry's unforgivable curse, Percy's return, and Slughorn's options! Throughout the episode we consider the question: what is the cost of mercy?Thank you to Thulasi for this week's voicemail! Next week we're reading Chapter 31, The Battle of Hogwarts, through the theme of Freedom.Harry Potter and the Sacred Text is a Not Sorry ProductionFind us at our website | Follow us on Instagram--It's two sickles to join S.P.E.W., and only five dollars to join our Patreon for extra content every week! Please consider helping us fill our Gringotts vault so we can continue to make this show. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Det er torsdag igen, og i denne særlige udsendelse af Manfred har vi besøg af to lokalpolitikere – wup, wup! Vi får nemlig selskab af Sofie Amalie Elkjær fra Kristendemokraterne og Casper Øhlers fra Det Konservative Folkeparti. Sammen tager vi en snak om lokalpolitik, engagement og unges stemme i København – og så skal de selvfølgelig igennem en loyalitetstest (uhh, spændende!). Dagens værter: Yasmin Sokoleski og Marcel Przewozniak
Proudly sponsored by PyMC Labs, the Bayesian Consultancy. Book a call, or get in touch!Intro to Bayes Course (first 2 lessons free)Advanced Regression Course (first 2 lessons free)Our theme music is « Good Bayesian », by Baba Brinkman (feat MC Lars and Mega Ran). Check out his awesome work!Visit our Patreon page to unlock exclusive Bayesian swag ;)Thank you to my Patrons for making this episode possible!Yusuke Saito, Avi Bryant, Giuliano Cruz, James Wade, Tradd Salvo, William Benton, James Ahloy, Robin Taylor, Chad Scherrer, Zwelithini Tunyiswa, Bertrand Wilden, James Thompson, Stephen Oates, Gian Luca Di Tanna, Jack Wells, Matthew Maldonado, Ian Costley, Ally Salim, Larry Gill, Ian Moran, Paul Oreto, Colin Caprani, Colin Carroll, Nathaniel Burbank, Michael Osthege, Rémi Louf, Clive Edelsten, Henri Wallen, Hugo Botha, Vinh Nguyen, Marcin Elantkowski, Adam C. Smith, Will Kurt, Andrew Moskowitz, Hector Munoz, Marco Gorelli, Simon Kessell, Bradley Rode, Patrick Kelley, Rick Anderson, Casper de Bruin, Michael Hankin, Cameron Smith, Tomáš Frýda, Ryan Wesslen, Andreas Netti, Riley King, Yoshiyuki Hamajima, Sven De Maeyer, Michael DeCrescenzo, Fergal M, Mason Yahr, Naoya Kanai, Aubrey Clayton, Omri Har Shemesh, Scott Anthony Robson, Robert Yolken, Or Duek, Pavel Dusek, Paul Cox, Andreas Kröpelin, Raphaël R, Nicolas Rode, Gabriel Stechschulte, Arkady, Kurt TeKolste, Marcus Nölke, Maggi Mackintosh, Grant Pezzolesi, Joshua Meehl, Javier Sabio, Kristian Higgins, Matt Rosinski, Luis Fonseca, Dante Gates, Matt Niccolls, Maksim Kuznecov, Michael Thomas, Luke Gorrie, Cory Kiser, Julio, Edvin Saveljev, Frederick Ayala, Jeffrey Powell, Gal Kampel, Adan Romero, Will Geary, Blake Walters, Jonathan Morgan, Francesco Madrisotti, Ivy Huang, Gary Clarke, Robert Flannery, Rasmus Hindström, Stefan, Corey Abshire, Mike Loncaric, David McCormick, Ronald Legere, Sergio Dolia, Michael Cao, Yiğit Aşık, Suyog Chandramouli and Guillaume Berthon.Takeaways:AI is reshaping the workplace, but we're still in early stages.Networking is crucial for job applications in top firms.AI tools can augment work but are not replacements for skilled labor.Understanding the tech landscape requires continuous learning.Timing and cultural readiness are key for tech innovations.Expertise can be gained without formal education.Bayesian statistics is a valuable skill for tech professionals.The importance of personal branding in the job market. You just need to know 1% more than the person you're talking to.Sharing knowledge can elevate your status within a company.Embracing chaos in tech can create new opportunities.Investing in people leads...
Danskere er som regel pinligt gode til at dyrke deres nationale selvværd gennem de landsmænd, som formår at skabe sig en karriere i det brændvarme, internationale stjernelys. Af alle danske skuespillere, der har gjort sig godt i filmverdenens højeste luftlag, tænker de fleste nok hurtigt på Mads Mikkelsen, Connie Nielsen eller Viggo "Gu' fa'en er han DANSKER!" Mortensen. Ikke os. Vi tænker nemlig enten på Svend-Ole Thorsen eller - som i nat - på en stanghøj kvinde fra Rødovre ved navn Gitte aka. Brigitte Nielsen aka. Brigitte Stallone aka. Brigitte Nielsen igen! Gazellen fra Vestegnen, der lagde Hollywood for sine fødder, er uden sammenligning en af de største Moviebox-stjerner vores lille, danske land nogensinde har affødt. Det kræver popularitet, storhed og Hollywood glamour, som hun leverede i 'Rocky 4' og 'Beverly Hills Cop 2', men det kræver også støvet bundskrab fra tilbudsgitteret nede på Esso-tanken, som vi skal dyrke i aften. Første Brigitte-film i aften kommer fra Niels, og han tager os med ud i rummet til 'Galaxis' (1995). Hvad er Galaxis? Det spørger alle om, ikke mindst Niels, og han har SET filmen. Ask bringer aftenens nok bedste bud på en kvalitetsfilm, når han tager os med til det barske Conan-univers, hvor Brigitte svinger sværd og stænger som kvindelig barbar i 'Red Sonja' (1985). Og så runder Sonny af med 'Mission of Justice' (1992), hvor Brigitte måske nok spiller en lille rolle, men som stadig fortjener at få sin dag i lyset... og så at blive pakket væk for evigt. Denne episode er optaget live foran et veloplagt publikum i Grand Teatret i august 2025, hvor vi fejrede vores seks års fødselsdag. En episk aften fyldt med fest og farver, som denne episode er et godt eksempel på. Også en aften, hvor vi igen fik lov til at møde alle jer lyttere, og det er altså svært ikke at blive benovet over jeres fortsatte støtte, til vores maniske besættelse af VHS. Især stor tak til vores Patreon-støtter, der som altid får en længere episode end alle andre - 10 minutter, for at være præcis. Og HUSK det nu: Spol båndet tilbage, når du er færdig! Med venlig hilsen, Casper, Niels, Ask & Sonny
Karen Chaton catches us up on their latest "Adventures," including her completion of two back-to-back 50-mile rides at the Red Rock Rumble and LTH Octoberfest, where her horse Jovi earned his first 1,000 AERC miles. In the Endurance Tip Karen reviews the Garmin Venu X1. AERC Director Connie Caudill shares updates on the AERC National Convention and the 2026 National Championship at Old Dominion; and Kayti Curtis, who is currently leading the AERC National Best Condition Championship for 2025 with her horse Casper the Ghostly Horse, discussing her successful season and her relationship with her "rockstar" partner. HORSES IN THE MORNING Episode 3816 – Show Notes and Links:Hosts: Glenn the Geek and Karen ChatonTitle Sponsor: The Arabian Horse AssociationGuest: Kristen at The Distance DepotGuest: Connie Caudill - AERC National Convention Guest: Kayti Curtis and her horse Casper the Ghostly HorseLink: Garmin® Venu® X1Support for this podcast provided by: Chewy, The Distance Depot, Chewy, and Listeners Like YouTime Stamps:02:40 - Karen's 50 mile rides14:00 - Garmin Venu X1 review25:49 - Kristen at The Distance Depot32:50 - Connie Caudill48:16 - Kayti Curtis
Karen Chaton catches us up on their latest "Adventures," including her completion of two back-to-back 50-mile rides at the Red Rock Rumble and LTH Octoberfest, where her horse Jovi earned his first 1,000 AERC miles. In the Endurance Tip Karen reviews the Garmin Venu X1. AERC Director Connie Caudill shares updates on the AERC National Convention and the 2026 National Championship at Old Dominion; and Kayti Curtis, who is currently leading the AERC National Best Condition Championship for 2025 with her horse Casper the Ghostly Horse, discussing her successful season and her relationship with her "rockstar" partner. HORSES IN THE MORNING Episode 3816 – Show Notes and Links:Hosts: Glenn the Geek and Karen ChatonTitle Sponsor: The Arabian Horse AssociationGuest: Kristen at The Distance DepotGuest: Connie Caudill - AERC National Convention Guest: Kayti Curtis and her horse Casper the Ghostly HorseLink: Garmin® Venu® X1Support for this podcast provided by: Chewy, The Distance Depot, Chewy, and Listeners Like YouTime Stamps:02:40 - Karen's 50 mile rides14:00 - Garmin Venu X1 review25:49 - Kristen at The Distance Depot32:50 - Connie Caudill48:16 - Kayti Curtis
This is the second appearance of Scott Christian Sava on StoryBeat. Scott's an artist, animator, illustrator, writer, director, and producer, whose work over the last 30 years, has brought some of the world's most beloved characters to life in film, television, comics, and games, from Casper the Friendly Ghost to the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers to Star Trek to Spider-Man and more. Scott's unique talents and vision have been called upon by Marvel Comics, Disney, Universal Studios, Nickelodeon, and various others. In 2000, he founded Blue Dream Studios, which, in addition to creating its own line of kids' graphic novels, has produced work for Star Wars, The X-Files, Aliens vs. Predator, and other franchises. The studio's first feature film, Animal Crackers, is available on Netflix and was the summer of 2020's #1 animated movie in the world. I've read Scott's latest book, “Becoming an Artist: How to Make Art Like a Human by Embracing Failure, Discovering Your Creative Voice, and Finding Joy in the Process.” I found the very useful concepts of Becoming an Artist easy and fun to read while being highly inspirational for anyone seeking to become a finely tuned artist. Scott also produces videos online dedicated to his over 4 million followers where he talks about art, autism, and how to be both a kindlier artist and human. Scott's mission is to “make the world a kinder, gentler place, one story at a time.”
In Episode 3 of this season, we explore the evolving landscape of spiritual innovation, what it means to design meaningful spiritual life in a rapidly changing world, with guests Casper Ter Kuile and Angie Thurston from Sacred Design Lab, a nonprofit dedicated to nurturing the future of spiritual life.Casper Ter Kuile shares insight and inspiration on the future of community, ritual, and spirituality. He is the author of The Power of Ritual and co-founder of Sacred Design Lab. He also co-created the hit podcast Harry Potter and the Sacred Text, co-founded Nearness, and co-authored the influential paper How We Gather.Angie Thurston is Co-Founder and Executive Director of Sacred Design Lab. She has worked with hundreds of innovative leaders, finding new ways to address spiritual longings amid religious change. Angie has co-written eight widely read reports on the evolving landscape of community and spiritual life, including How We Gather.In this second part of our conversation, we talk about:What makes spiritual innovation succeed: how to meet innovators' practical, relational, and spiritual needsHow projects endure, and what sustainable models beyond individual founders and short-term funding might look likeCommon pitfalls such as ethical lapses, burnout, and the challenge of translating sacred traditions responsiblyGen Z's openness to religion and search for meaning, purpose, and belongingThe new Spiritual Innovation Hub and a call for cross-sector collaboration and shared wisdomTo learn more about Casper and Angie's work, you can find them at: https://www.sacred.design Books and resources mentioned:The Power of Ritual (by Casper Ter Kuile)How We Gather (by Casper Ter Kuile & Angie Thurston)Harry Potter and the Sacred Text (podcast)Illuminating Spiritual Innovation (report by Sacred Design Lab)This season of the podcast is sponsored by Templeton Religion Trust.Support the show
En lytter hader ordblinde, og en anden lytter håber sønnen er homoseksuel. Det er nogle af de hemmeligheder, lytterne deler med Ida-Sophia, der har besøg af Casper Drømme og Lissa Paustian. Hvis du vil dele din hemmelighed, så ring eller skriv til 28 54 4000 - vi slører selvfølgelig din stemme. Stemmer er sløret ved hjælp af AI. Vært: Ida-Sophia. Producer: Johanne Nørskov. Klip: Maria Engel Lemser. Redaktør: Simon De Assis. Produceret af P3 Podcast.
Behind every AI response, there's an invisible army of humans who trained it. In this episode, we talk with Casper Elliott from Invisible Technologies - the company that's trained 80% of the world's top AI models. We explore how models actually learn, why data quality matters more than quantity, what enterprises get wrong about AI deployment, and whether AI will really automate everyone's jobs. Casper shares insights from working with frontier labs, reveals the surprising skills that make great AI trainers (hint: League of Legends helps), and explains why the future needs more humans, not fewer.Subscribe to The Neuron newsletter: https://theneuron.aiLearn more about Invisible Technologies: https://invisibletech.ai
This week, Casper and Jolie Doggett explore the theme of Growth in Chapter 29 of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows! They discuss Neville's growth, the last relatively peaceful moments, and the DA's resistance! Throughout the episode we consider the question: what is the difference between growth and change?Thank you to Meghan for this week's voicemail! Next week we're reading Chapter 29, The Lost Diadem, through the theme of Mercy.Harry Potter and the Sacred Text is a Not Sorry ProductionFind us at our website | Follow us on Instagram--It's two sickles to join S.P.E.W., and only five dollars to join our Patreon for extra content every week! Please consider helping us fill our Gringotts vault so we can continue to make this show. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Manche schreiben Bücher oder drehen Filme, Daniel Stoyanovs Medium der Wahl für das Erzählerische ist die Musik. Mit dem neuen Album "Greetings from Soulgaria" (VÖ: 10.10.25) nimmt uns Bulgarian Cartrader mit auf einen Roadtrip – natürlich nach Bulgarien. Dort verbringt Stoyanov die ersten Lebensjahre und wächst anschließend in Deutschland auf. Mit Humor, Nostalgie und einer unbändigen Tanzfreude lässt uns Bulgarian Cartrader an seinen Geschichten teilhaben. Auf dem neuen Album, übrigens eine Anspielung an Bruce Springsteens Album "Greetings from Asbury Park, N.J.", blickt Stoyanov in seine Vergangenheit und kulturelle Herkunft zurück. Durch die herzerwärmenden Geschichten fordert er die Zuhörer*innen auf, ihre Stereotype gegenüber osteuropäischer Kultur zu hinterfragen. Musikalische Unterstützung erhält er dabei von billigen Synthesizern und einer hundertjährigen Gitarre. Daniel Stoyanov ist seit 2021 als Bulgarian Cartrader unterwegs, hat aber auch schon auf anderen Wegen musikalische Spuren hinterlassen. Zum Beispiel in den Songwriting-Credits von Peter Fox, SEEED oder Casper. Zudem war er schon als Background-Sänger, Salsa-Tänzer und ja, wenn auch nur kurz als Autohändler aktiv. Im radioeins-Kosmos ist Bulgarian Cartrader längst keine Unbekannte mehr. Schon zwei Mal spielte er mit seiner Band auf dem radioeins-Parkfest und war zu Gast im studioeins im Bikini Berlin. Am Donnerstag stattet er uns als Lokalmatador einen Besuch in Potsdam ab.
Manche schreiben Bücher oder drehen Filme, Daniel Stoyanovs Medium der Wahl für das Erzählerische ist die Musik. Mit dem neuen Album "Greetings from Soulgaria" (VÖ: 10.10.25) nimmt uns Bulgarian Cartrader mit auf einen Roadtrip – natürlich nach Bulgarien. Dort verbringt Stoyanov die ersten Lebensjahre und wächst anschließend in Deutschland auf. Mit Humor, Nostalgie und einer unbändigen Tanzfreude lässt uns Bulgarian Cartrader an seinen Geschichten teilhaben. Auf dem neuen Album, übrigens eine Anspielung an Bruce Springsteens Album "Greetings from Asbury Park, N.J.", blickt Stoyanov in seine Vergangenheit und kulturelle Herkunft zurück. Durch die herzerwärmenden Geschichten fordert er die Zuhörer*innen auf, ihre Stereotype gegenüber osteuropäischer Kultur zu hinterfragen. Musikalische Unterstützung erhält er dabei von billigen Synthesizern und einer hundertjährigen Gitarre. Daniel Stoyanov ist seit 2021 als Bulgarian Cartrader unterwegs, hat aber auch schon auf anderen Wegen musikalische Spuren hinterlassen. Zum Beispiel in den Songwriting-Credits von Peter Fox, SEEED oder Casper. Zudem war er schon als Background-Sänger, Salsa-Tänzer und ja, wenn auch nur kurz als Autohändler aktiv. Im radioeins-Kosmos ist Bulgarian Cartrader längst keine Unbekannte mehr. Schon zwei Mal spielte er mit seiner Band auf dem radioeins-Parkfest und war zu Gast im studioeins im Bikini Berlin. Am Donnerstag stattet er uns als Lokalmatador einen Besuch in Potsdam ab.
pWotD Episode 3108: Dick Cheney Welcome to popular Wiki of the Day, spotlighting Wikipedia's most visited pages, giving you a peek into what the world is curious about today.With 959,236 views on Tuesday, 4 November 2025 our article of the day is Dick Cheney.Richard Bruce Cheney (January 30, 1941 – November 3, 2025) was an American politician and businessman who served as the 46th vice president of the United States from 2001 to 2009 under President George W. Bush. His tenure was often called the most powerful vice presidency in American history, with many pundits and historians noting that he was the first vice president to be more powerful than the presidents they served under. Cheney previously served as White House chief of staff for President Gerald Ford, the U. S. representative for Wyoming's at-large congressional district from 1979 to 1989, and as the 17th United States secretary of defense in the administration of President George H. W. Bush. He was also considered by many to be the architect of the Iraq War.Born in Lincoln, Nebraska, Cheney grew up there and in Casper, Wyoming. He attended Yale University before earning a Bachelor of Arts and Master of Arts in political science from the University of Wyoming. He began his political career as an intern for Congressman William A. Steiger, eventually working his way into the White House during the Nixon and Ford administrations. He served as White House chief of staff from 1975 to 1977. In 1978, he was elected to the U. S. House of Representatives, and represented Wyoming's at-large congressional district from 1979 to 1989, briefly serving as House minority whip in 1989. He was appointed Secretary of Defense during the presidency of George H. W. Bush, and held the position for most of Bush's term from 1989 to 1993. As secretary, he oversaw Operation Just Cause in 1989 and Operation Desert Storm in 1991. While out of office during the Clinton administration, he was the chairman and CEO of Halliburton from 1995 to 2000.In July 2000, Cheney was chosen by presumptive Republican presidential nominee George W. Bush as his running mate in the 2000 presidential election. They defeated their Democratic opponents, incumbent vice president Al Gore and senator Joe Lieberman. In 2004, Cheney was reelected to his second term as vice president with Bush as president, defeating their Democratic opponents Senators John Kerry and John Edwards. During Cheney's tenure as vice president, he played a leading behind-the-scenes role in the George W. Bush administration's response to the September 11 attacks and coordination of the Global War on Terrorism. He was an early proponent of invading Iraq, alleging that the Saddam Hussein regime possessed weapons of mass destruction and had an operational relationship with Al-Qaeda; however, neither allegation was ever substantiated. He also pressured the intelligence community to provide intelligence consistent with the administration's rationales for invading Iraq. Cheney was often criticized for the Bush administration's policies regarding the campaign against terrorism, for his support of wiretapping by the National Security Agency (NSA), and for his endorsement of the U. S.'s "enhanced interrogation" torture program. He publicly disagreed with President Bush's position against same-sex marriage in 2004, but also said it is "appropriately a matter for the states to decide".Cheney ended his vice presidential tenure as a deeply unpopular figure in American politics with an approval rating of 13 percent. His peak approval rating in the wake of the September 11 attacks was 68 percent. After leaving the vice presidency, Cheney became critical of modern Republican leadership, including Donald Trump, and endorsed Trump's challenger in 2024, Democrat Kamala Harris. Cheney died on November 3, 2025, from complications related to pneumonia and vascular disease.This recording reflects the Wikipedia text as of 04:36 UTC on Wednesday, 5 November 2025.For the full current version of the article, see Dick Cheney on Wikipedia.This podcast uses content from Wikipedia under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License.Visit our archives at wikioftheday.com and subscribe to stay updated on new episodes.Follow us on Mastodon at @wikioftheday@masto.ai.Also check out Curmudgeon's Corner, a current events podcast.Until next time, I'm standard Matthew.
This is a Grave Talks CLASSIC EPISODE! Most children outgrow their imaginary friends. Sophia Temperilli's never gave her the chance. From the moment she could talk, Sophia's childhood was haunted—literally. Shadows whispered, doors slammed, and something unseen made it very clear: she was being watched. But this wasn't Casper or some lonely ghost—it was darker, angrier, and determined to make its presence known. By the time other kids were learning multiplication, Sophia was learning the language of the dead. What began as a terrifying haunting soon became her life's calling. At just 8 years old, she started investigating the paranormal, searching for answers to the question that had defined her life: why do the dead linger? Her courage and curiosity only grew. By age 12, she launched her own paranormal show, turning fear into fascination and trauma into truth-seeking. For Sophia, every cold spot, every whisper, and every shadow became a clue in a mystery she refused to ignore. This is the story of a child who didn't just survive the haunting—she turned it into her purpose. Because when the dead start knocking, sometimes the only way to find peace… is to open the door. #RealGhostStories #TrueGhostStory #HauntedChildhood #ParanormalInvestigator #DealingWithTheDead #HauntedHouse #GhostEncounters #SupernaturalActivity #ChildMedium #ParanormalPodcast Love real ghost stories? Don't just listen—join us on YouTube and be part of the largest community of real paranormal encounters anywhere. Subscribe now and never miss a chilling new story:
This is a Grave Talks CLASSIC EPISODE! Most children outgrow their imaginary friends. Sophia Temperilli's never gave her the chance. From the moment she could talk, Sophia's childhood was haunted—literally. Shadows whispered, doors slammed, and something unseen made it very clear: she was being watched. But this wasn't Casper or some lonely ghost—it was darker, angrier, and determined to make its presence known. By the time other kids were learning multiplication, Sophia was learning the language of the dead. What began as a terrifying haunting soon became her life's calling. At just 8 years old, she started investigating the paranormal, searching for answers to the question that had defined her life: why do the dead linger? Her courage and curiosity only grew. By age 12, she launched her own paranormal show, turning fear into fascination and trauma into truth-seeking. For Sophia, every cold spot, every whisper, and every shadow became a clue in a mystery she refused to ignore. This is the story of a child who didn't just survive the haunting—she turned it into her purpose. Because when the dead start knocking, sometimes the only way to find peace… is to open the door. This is Part Two of our conversation. #RealGhostStories #TrueGhostStory #HauntedChildhood #ParanormalInvestigator #DealingWithTheDead #HauntedHouse #GhostEncounters #SupernaturalActivity #ChildMedium #ParanormalPodcast Love real ghost stories? Don't just listen—join us on YouTube and be part of the largest community of real paranormal encounters anywhere. Subscribe now and never miss a chilling new story:
In Episode 3 of this season, we explore the evolving landscape of spiritual innovation, what it means to design meaningful spiritual life in a rapidly changing world, with guests Casper Ter Kuile and Angie Thurston from Sacred Design Lab, a nonprofit dedicated to nurturing the future of spiritual life.Casper Ter Kuile shares insight and inspiration on the future of community, ritual, and spirituality. He is the author of The Power of Ritual and co-founder of Sacred Design Lab. He also co-created the hit podcast Harry Potter and the Sacred Text, co-founded Nearness, and co-authored the influential paper How We Gather.Angie Thurston is Co-Founder and Executive Director of Sacred Design Lab. She has worked with hundreds of innovative leaders, finding new ways to address spiritual longings amid religious change. Angie has co-written eight widely read reports on the evolving landscape of community and spiritual life, including How We Gather.In this first part of our conversation, we discuss:The origins of Sacred Design Lab and its missionWhat “spiritual innovation” means and how it appears across traditionsThe story behind Harry Potter and the Sacred Text and how reading can become a spiritual practiceWhat it means to design for risk in ritual and liturgyWhy the term “spiritual innovation” can be both inspiring and controversialReal stories of spiritual innovators around the world: Buddhist monks leading meditation in the metaverse to Muslim leaders blending theology with psychologyTo learn more about Casper and Angie's work, you can find them at: https://www.sacred.design Books and resources mentioned:The Power of Ritual (by Casper Ter Kuile)How We Gather (by Casper Ter Kuile & Angie Thurston)Harry Potter and the Sacred Text (podcast)Illuminating Spiritual Innovation (report by Sacred Design Lab)This season of the podcast is sponsored by Templeton Religion Trust.Support the show
This week, we wrap up spooky season with an interview you don't want to miss Casper Kelly, the twisted mind behind Too Many Cooks, Adult Swim Yule Log, and now V/H/S Halloween! Casper joins us to talk about his new segment “Fun Size” in V/H/S Halloween, his approach to mixing humor and horror, and why the genre's weirder side is often the most honest. We also dig into his creative process, and the unexpected path that led him from surreal late-night sketch chaos to horror anthology fame. Then, the gang breaks down Welcome to Derry Episode 1, the It prequel series that dives into Pennywise's first cycle of terror in the 1960s.
Florence Bennet is found dead in a bathtub of scalding water. Her husband, Casper, claims that he found her like that, but his burned hands tell a differentstory.Or so the police and almost the entire population of Lorain believe.And as the Bennetts' marriage with its secrets of alcohol, affairs and abuse is laid bare in the courtroom, it looks like the only possible verdict is murder.Bennett's sensational trial more than fifty years ago pitted an aggressive, mercurial county prosecutor against a defense team that included Ray Miraldi. In the tradition of John Grisham and Scott Turow, The Edge of Innocence, written by Ray Miraldi's son, David, recreates the tension and excitement of this true courtroom battle, and also reveals the uncertain edge that often divides guilt from innocence.(And there is more than one twist in the case that was revealed long after the case was settled!)
Chill or Be Chilled. Let's Watch It Again is back!Rob Lee is joined by Lea Anderson to discuss the 1995 cult classic Tales from the Hood!Tales from the Hood (1995) is a Black horror anthology directed by Rusty Cundieff, framed by a late-night visit to a funeral home where a mortician guides three men through four supernatural morality tales addressing police brutality, domestic abuse, racism, and gang violence.In this retrospective, host Rob Lee and horror scholar Lea Anderson (Truth in This Art alum; FANGORIA columnist, SHUDDER contributor) examine the film's construction, cultural context, and legacy in Black horror.Topics include:The anthology's frame narrative and how it threads the segments togetherSegment-by-segment themes and social commentaryKey performances, including Clarence Williams III and David Alan GrierPractical effects, puppetry, and memorable set piecesProduction and release context: 1995 box office, competition (Casper, Braveheart, Johnny Mnemonic), and receptionThe film's enduring relevance and place in the horror canonCheck out the episode on the Let's Watch It Again Feed Host: Rob LeeMusic: Original music by Daniel Alexis Music with additional music from Chipzard and TeTresSeis. Production:Produced by Rob Lee & Daniel AlexisEdited by Daniel AlexisShow Notes courtesy of Rob Lee and TransistorPhotos:Rob Lee photos by Vicente Martin for The Truth In This Art and Contrarian Aquarian Media.Guest photos courtesy of the guest, unless otherwise noted.Support the podcast The Truth In This Art Podcast Fractured Atlas (Fundraising): https://www.fracturedatlas.orgThe Truth In This Art Podcast Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/thetruthinthisart.bsky.socialThe Truth In This Art Podcast Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/truthinthisart/?hl=enThe Truth In This Art Podcast Website: https://www.thetruthinthisart.com/The Truth In This Art Podcast Shop: Merch from Redbubble ★ Support this podcast ★
Hey, all you sexually repressed Ghosties!In this Spooktacular Showcase, our Unfinished Businessmen, Brennon & Adam, are trick-or-treating for 90's gems to bring you our Casper podcast!So grab your Ouija Board and come gab it up with the dead with us, on Super 90s Bros!
Casper isn't so friendly this time. For our Halloween special, Zach and Mike dig up a 1954 Harvey Comics story where Casper takes mean pills, torments his ghost roommates, and possibly commits light cartoon manslaughter. From Doctor Gooseflesh to ghost tar & feathers, this is one of the strangest, funniest Golden Age comics we've ever covered. Plus: Baby Huey's diaper issues, Hot Stuff's possible Christmas special, and the dark truth about ghost milk. Comic Covered: Casper the Friendly Ghost Issue 22 (Harvey Comics, 1954) Like, Comment, and Subscribe for more fun! #casper #halloweenspecial #goldenagecomics #brosfoesandheroes #casperthefriendlyghost #comicpodcast #spookyseason Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Stew and Smith are back with another episode of the It Doesn't Hold Up podcast discussing Casper from 1995But does it hold up?Email – itdoesntholduppodcast@gmail.comInstagram – @itdoesntholduppodcastTwitter/X - @doesntholduppodYoutube - @itdoesntholduppodcast
Spooktober is here and we have some old classic movies to talk about, plus a couple new TV shows. The main event this episode is the 1975 horror masterpiece "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre." Happy Halloween!Intro - 0:00Peacemaker, Alien Earth - 4:02Task - 11:30Mr. Scorsese - 15:29Friday the 13th - 24:11Practical Magic, Ringu - 33:35Casper - 35:45Creature from the Black Lagoon, Dracula - 38:26The Texas Chainsaw Massacre - 40:57
"We're back, Mortimer!" Sæson 11 er hermed i maskinen, og vi starter et helt nyt sted: Vi åbner nemlig glemmekassen. Det er den der snavsede plastikkasse bagerst i videobutikken (eller på SFO'en), fyldt til randen med alle de film, vi af uforklarlige årsager har glemt at tale om. Det er de åbenlyse klassikere, de personlige hjertebørn og de titler, der egentlig burde ha' været med for længst. Aftenens menu er den perfekte tretrins-raket, der starter pænt, dykker ned i ægte kult og slutter et sted midt imellem med fuld smadder. Ask får æren af at skyde løjerne i gang og tager os med til Toontown med en film, der vitterligt er en del af vores film-DNA: 'Who Framed Roger Rabbit' (1988). Det er Zemeckis i teknisk topform, film noir forklædt som tegnefilm, og et magisk stykke filmhistorie. Niels følger trop og hiver os væk fra Hollywoods A-liste og direkte ned i atomaffaldet med filmen, der forklarer alt om hans filmsmag: 'The Toxic Avenger' (1984). Hør oprindelseshistorien om, hvordan han så den som 9-årig, troede den var mainstream, og blev formet for livet af Troma-snask. Sonny runder aftenen af og rammer den perfekte balance med 'Ricochet' (1991). Her møder Denzel Washington med en frisk Oscar i baglommen John Lithgow, der har skruet psykopat-knappen op på 11 og knækket den af. Tusind tak til alle jer, der lytter med, og en helt særlig tak til jer i Klub Moviebox, der holder liv i maskineriet og finansierer vores VHS-rens. Tak for støtten! Og HUSK: Spol altid episoden tilbage, når du har lyttet færdigt! Med venlig hilsen, Ask, Sonny, Niels & Casper
We chat to the 2020 Olympic World Champion and 2021 IRONMAN World Champion Kristian Blummenfelt. Kristian reflects on his recent race performance in Nice sharing his mixed emotions on his result and the importance of his relationship with Gustav and Casper. We delve into training, nutrition and the work needed to maintain a balance between weight management and performance. The discussion also covers the dynamics of coaching and the role of science in training. We chat about Kristian's future aspirations in the sport including his prep for IRONMAN 70.3 Worlds in Marbella and his thoughts around race plans for 2026. Plus, we chat about the changes to the IRONMAN New Zealand bike course and how it'll enhance the race experience for 2026 (0:04:01) – The changes to the IMNZ bike course (0:12:32) – Alex Yee (0:17:48) – Plasmaide competition (0:18:55) – Kristian Blummenfelt (1:10:45) – IRONMAN 70.3 World Champs LINKS: Kristian Blummenfelt at https://www.instagram.com/kristianblu Mount Festival of Sport at https://mountfestival.kiwi/ IRONMAN New Zealand at https://www.ironman.com/races/im-new-zealand Plasmaide https://plasmaide.com/ IRONMAN 70.3 World Champs at https://www.ironman.com/races/im703-world-championship-2025
Casper the Friendly Ghost (1945) - The 31 Days of Dread 2025
This week the Super Ghost gang celebrates Halloween by sharing their favorite horror games, movies, and TV shows of 2025! We also take some rough detours to chat about Casper the Ghost's fat uncle, whether or not Alien: Earth is good, and the one scene in The Monkey that set Aaron over the goddamn edge. Enjoy, ghosts and ghouls! BWAHAHA*insert lightning sound effect here*HAHAHA!!
Halloween bonus! Harry and Jen take a walk down millennial memory lane with Casper (1995) and "The Haunted Mask" (1995). They talk about being an aging demographic, after-school specials, 90s perspectives on therapy, Devon Sawa, bullies, extreme haunted houses, the baseline conservatism of the 90s, and more! Wanna help us out? We'd love your help growing the show however you can, but especially through reviews and ratings on your podcast streamer of choice. Socials n' Such: Check out the show on Instagram and Facebook! Wanna suggest a movie? Wanna say "hi?" Did you make a movie we should watch? Email us: harryandjenpodcast@gmail.com Up Next: Bring Her Back (2025) in November!
The Government is still shut down, and it's not looking good for Americans that rely on the government for putting food on the table. We break down what Democrats and Republicans have been saying about the shutdown and during her book tour, Karine Jean-Pierre has a superpower she just now is revealing. Also on the show: your daily update on the Memphis Safe Task Force numbers, Memphis football bounced back in the national rankings after defeating South Florida at home, and we react to the crazy clips that came out of the Zohran NYC rallies feat. AOC. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
We're on holidays this week so no trip to the cinema, but instead we're digging back into The Cinemile archive to dig up our trip to the drive-in cinema to see 1995's Casper. Happy Halloween! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Hey guys ! Halloween is getting close . So we are gonna have a little more fun...90s style ntro song The Privates- WE are really Rocking Now, Haven't We https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t2lGbVhKvQQ Twitters @moviemayhempod insta @moviemayhempodcast Letterbox @movemayhempodcast Bluesky moviemayhempodcast.bsky.social Email Moviemayhempodcast@gmail.com
Spooky month continues to roll, and this week, the boys are back with an all new edition of 'Seeing Double' to look back at two kid friendly movies: 'CASPER' and 'MONSTER HOUSE'.
This week, Casper and Vanessa explore the theme of Closure in Chapter 28 of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows! They discuss Aberforth's advice, the real story of the Dumbledore family, and the portrait! Throughout the episode we consider the question: when do we gain a sense of closure?Thank you to Elizabeth for this week's voicemail! Next week we're reading Chapter 29, The Lost Diadem, through the theme of Growth with Jolie Doggett.Harry Potter and the Sacred Text is a Not Sorry ProductionFind us at our website | Follow us on Instagram--It's two sickles to join S.P.E.W., and only five dollars to join our Patreon for extra content every week! Please consider helping us fill our Gringotts vault so we can continue to make this show. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Megan and Jeni are finally diving into one of the most requested movies on the pod, Casper Meets Wendy! They're revisiting baby Hilary Duff's iconic acting debut and sharing EVERYTHING we know so far about her return to music. Plus, a Dr. Phil controversy no one expected, and why Casper might just be the original nice guy (derogatory).Follow us on social!Instagram: @whatwerewatchingpod TikTok: @whatwerewatchingpod
Tom Ruegger is the fourteen-time Emmy Award-winning producer and creative force behind many of the most popular and successful animated TV series of all time, including: Pinky and the Brain, Freakazoid, Histeria, Road Rovers, and the feature film, Batman: Mask of the Phantasm. Tom also co-wrote the pilot and served as a script editor of the Emmy Award-winning animated series Tutenstein.Tom began his career as an animator at Hanna-Barbera Productions on such familiar cartoon series as Scooby Doo, The New Flintstones, Casper, and Godzilla. Later, as a story editor and producer, he worked on shows like Pound Puppies, and Scooby-Doo and Scrappy-Doo. Tom created and produced A Pup Named Scooby-Doo, the first Scooby-Doo series to be nominated for an Emmy.After honing his writing skills working at Filmation Studios on TV series like Blackstar, and Tarzan, Lord of the Jungle, Tom would subsequently join Warner Bros. Animation where he went on to head up production on Tiny Toon Adventures, beginning a decade-long, wildly successful creative collaboration with Steven Spielberg, spanning five hit series resulting in over 30 Emmy Awards in numerous categories. In 1993, in collaboration with Mr. Spielberg, Tom created a cast of breakout characters for Animaniacs, the multi-award-winning "hellzapoppin'-style" cartoon show, starring the zany siblings Yakko, Wakko and Dot Warner. Tom served as the show's senior producer, story editor, writer and lyricist.Tom served as chief creative executive of Warner Bros. Animation during its second "Golden Age." Along with Jean MacCurdy, Tom executive-produced: Taz-Mania and Batman: The Animated Series.
Today, Dr. Behrouz Moemeni discusses a sample CASPer question and expert response. Like the podcast? Schedule a Free Initial Consultation with our team: https://bemo.ac/podbr-BeMoFreeConsult Don't forget to subscribe to our channel and follow us on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter for more great tips and other useful information! YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/BeMoAcademicConsultingInc Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/bemoacademicconsulting Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bemo_academic_consulting/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/BeMo_AC TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@bemoacademicconsulting
To access AD FREE versions of our episodes, as well as bonus episodes and uncut audio and video, subscribe to our Patreon! If today's episode makes you laugh or scream, please do us a favor and rate our show 5 STARS on Apple or Spotify This is the easiest way for us to grow our community! Get your Cutie MERCH! We're on YOUTUBE! Be sure to subscribe so you don't miss a second of our hijinx - now on video! Follow Us on Social Media! TikTok: cuteonepodcast Chelsea: @ohnochels Donny: @realdonnywood Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
▶︎ Watch This week on Superhero Slate, we've heard X-Men 97 could last 5 Seasons, an old Lanterns rumor gains traction, its Spooky Movie season, and more! The Addams Family (1991), Casper (1995), Send us YOUR Favorite Spooky Movies Drew Struzan passed away; artist for most iconic movie posters: Star Wars, Indiana Jones, Blade Runner, […]
This week, Casper and Vanessa explore the theme of Advocacy in Chapter 27 of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows! They discuss empathy for the dragon, Voldemort's big realization, and next steps for the trio! Throughout the episode we consider the question: when is it possible and necessary to advocate for yourself?Thank you to M for this week's voicemail! Next week we're reading Chapter 28, The Missing Mirror, through the theme of Closure.Harry Potter and the Sacred Text is a Not Sorry ProductionFind us at our website | Follow us on Instagram--It's two sickles to join S.P.E.W., and only five dollars to join our Patreon for extra content every week! Please consider helping us fill our Gringotts vault so we can continue to make this show. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Send us a textLet's head out to Whipstaff Manor and join the Halloween party, as the hosts kick off their annual Spooktacular season, reviewing the supernatural fantasy comedy film, Casper, starring Christina Ricci, Bill Pullman, Devon Sawa, and directed by Brad Silberling. The host reflect on the nostalgia of this 90's film, while celebrating the 30th anniversary of this family favorite Halloween classic. The hosts pair the film with the Casper cocktail. Let's join the hosts as they hang out with the friendliest ghost they know and raise a glass for this generational film.Come listen and follow the hosts on their Instagram and YouTube channel @the.gentlemenpodcast
This week, Casper and Vanessa explore the theme of Transitions in Chapter 26 of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows! They discuss Hermione's transformation into Bellatrix, changes at Diagon Alley, and the descent into Gringotts! Throughout the episode we consider the question: how do we deal with unexpected transitions?Thank you to Kayla for this week's voicemail! Next week we're reading Chapter 27, The Final Hiding Place, through the theme of Advocacy.Harry Potter and the Sacred Text is a Not Sorry ProductionFind us at our website | Follow us on Instagram--It's two sickles to join S.P.E.W., and only five dollars to join our Patreon for extra content every week! Please consider helping us fill our Gringotts vault so we can continue to make this show. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Drew Hart joined me to dig into questions from our God of Justice class about his lecture on the black church and American experience. We covered a lot of ground—from Drew's own journey as a preacher's kid who found his tribe in the prophetic tradition of the black church and Anabaptism, to why James Cone's confrontational theology is actually necessary for real liberation (not just comfortable reconciliation). Drew pushed back hard on white progressive Christianity that performs solidarity without changing oppressive structures, explaining why gradualism is always justice denied. We talked about enslaved people adapting (not just adopting) Christianity into something radically different from what slaveowners preached, the messy reality of violence and peacemaking when your back's against the wall, and what a reparations God actually means—hint: it's about healing, not just debt calculation. If you want theology that takes the crucified Jesus seriously, rather than abstracting him into universal principles that leave power structures intact, this conversation delivers. Drew G. I. Hart is a public theologian and professor of theology at Messiah University. He has ten years of pastoral ministry experience and is the recipient of multiple awards for peacemaking. Hart attained his MDiv with an urban concentration from Missio Seminary and his PhD in theology and ethics from Lutheran Theological Seminary at Philadelphia. He is a sought-after speaker at conferences, campuses, and churches across the United States and Canada. His first book, Trouble I've Seen: Changing the Way the Church Views Racism, utilizes personal and everyday stories, theological ethics, and anti-racism frameworks to transform the church's understanding and witness. Hart lives with his wife, Renee, and their three sons in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. ONLINE CLASS - The God of Justice: Where Ancient Wisdom Meets Contemporary Longing This transformative online class brings together distinguished scholars from biblical studies, theology, history, and faith leadership to offer exactly what our moment demands: the rich, textured wisdom of multiple academic disciplines speaking into our contemporary quest for justice. Guests this year include John Dominic Crossan, Kelly Brown Douglas, Philip Clayton, Stacey Floyd-Thomas, Jeffery Pugh, Juan Floyd-Thomas, Andy Root, Grace Ji-Sun Kim, Noreen Herzfeld, Reggie Williams, Casper ter Kuile, and more! Get info and tickets here. _____________________ This podcast is a Homebrewed Christianity production. Follow the Homebrewed Christianity, Theology Nerd Throwdown, & The Rise of Bonhoeffer podcasts for more theological goodness for your earbuds. Join over 75,000 other people by joining our Substack - Process This! Get instant access to over 50 classes at www.TheologyClass.com Follow the podcast, drop a review, send feedback/questions or become a member of the HBC Community. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
We are facing a very hard situation and could use your prayers. Connect with Jen: --- PATREON: https://www.patreon.com/thisisjen --- EMAIL LIST: https://mailchi.mp/fulwiler/jenslist --- THIS EPISODE ON YOUTUBE: https://youtu.be/K6dbRxFySKU --- TOUR: Nashville, TN - 9/17/25 Atlanta, GA - 9/18/25 Salt Lake City, UT - 9/24/25 Greely, CO - 9/25/25 Casper, WY - 9/26/25 Tulsa, OK - 10/16/25 Boston, MA - 10/29/25 Hartford, CT - 10/30/25 San Diego, CA - 11/4/25 Irvine, CA - 11/5/25 Seattle, WA - 11/18/25 Portland, OR - 11/19/25 Naples, FL - 1/22/26 Boca Raton, FL - 1/23/26 TICKETS at https://www.jenniferfulwiler.com/tour Jen Fulwiler is a mom with zero domestic skills. Her natural habitat is a martini bar in Manhattan, yet she finds herself raising a family in suburban Texas with her country-boy husband who thinks his inflatable hot tub is the summit of the human experience. Her stories of failing her way through life will resonate with anyone who doesn't have it all together. Jen is a viral standup comic, bestselling author, and former SiriusXM radio host who has released three comedy specials: The Naughty Corner, Maternal Instinct, and Shabby Chic. She has been featured on Nate Bargatze's Nateland Presents, Where My Moms At with Christina P, Dr. Drew After Dark, the Today Show, CNN, and Fox News. She was featured in the viral articles, “5 Comedians Like Nate Bargatze Who Make Everyone Laugh,” and “6 Comics To Check Out If You Love Leanne Morgan.” She lives with her husband and six kids in Austin, Texas. #standupcomics #cleancomedy #podcast #momlife
Molly, Alan, and Max watch the sad saga of Casper, the Friendly Ghost only to discover... maybe he isn't actually that friendly.
As we continue to think about how to end this series well, Vanessa and Casper sit down to talk about ending and our upcoming gathering in Cambridge, Massachusetts. You can find more information about the Harry Potter and the Sacred Text upcoming Sacred Practice Weekend on our website. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.