Nano-Budget Films and Movie Soundtracks

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Broadcasting live from the Civic Media Studios in Green Bay, this is Night Light with Peach Wabba.

Your inside source on everything entertainment from Wisconsin to Hollywood.

And now, a guy who doesn't have 20-20 vision, even in hindsight, Pete Schwabba.

Welcome to Nightlight, ladies and gentlemen.

Everything Todd Michael says is true.

He would never lie.

Great to have you with me.

Great to be here.

We are not in Green Bay tonight.

We are coming to you live from Madison at Civic Media headquarters above State Street here on a beautiful, beautiful, Sam is it Thursday?

It's Wednesday.

It feels like a Thursday.

It does.

I wish it was a Thursday.

That's the voice of Sam Davidson, folks.

He is typically the producer of John and Gordy here on WMDX.

Mornings, 6 to 8.

6 to 8 AM.

That's early.

A little bit.

Are you up past your bedtime right now, Sam?

No, I'm young.

I stay up late still.

Sometimes to not good effect, but.

I think you're doing OK.

It's great to have you here.

Thank you for sitting in for Conrad tonight.

I should explain what is happening, folks, because I don't want people's worlds going into upheaval.

Conrad has taken a few days off for the NFL draft.

He is a huge sports fan.

Did you know that, Sam?

I think I knew that, yeah.

He is a big time sports fan.

So he's going to attend the draft and hang out with his friends and have a ball.

time well spent and a well-deserved vacation.

So Conrad will be back Tuesday night.

Sam is sitting in for Conrad tonight here in Madison, and Aaron Zommers will be producing tomorrow night show.

So exciting stuff here in Madison.

A beautiful day.

Is it like in the 70s

right now?

Yeah, it's warm.

I took like a nap most of the afternoon, and it was a little cooler this morning or like later or early afternoon.

But then when I woke up and walked over to the station, it was like...

toasty, roasty.

You got a sweater on, dude.

Yeah, well, this

is what

I was wearing earlier today.

I might have to take it off before the end of the show.

You

got to take this tweed jacket off on a 75-degree day here.

Well, thank you for sitting in.

It's great to be working with you, Sam.

This is our first time working together.

Is it really?

Yeah.

I feel like... Right?

I don't think you've ever actually produced the

show.

I don't

think so,

no.

So this is the start of a beautiful friendship.

So thank you.

And you also, you're a busy guy because you work when I'm here for the Wisconsin Film Festival.

I run into you all the time.

You're a projectionist.

That's right.

Yeah.

It's a sweet gig.

You know the UW Cinematic here.

Yeah.

Yeah.

All of their 35 millimeter shows pretty much I run the projectors for.

How do you, that's so interesting.

You're such a young guy and that's such old technology.

Yeah.

Do you

have to do a history lesson or what?

Well, I kind

of came along at just the right time.

I ran digital projectors when I was a student.

And the guy who had been running the 35 stuff, he said he wanted to retire for like 10 years.

And I guess when I was graduating from college, he actually followed through with that and I took over for him.

So

you're

the guy.

Yeah, I'm the guy.

You're going to have to train a young buck 50 years from now to do the cinema tech.

I'm

going to be stuck here doing that for...

the rest of my life.

It's fun over there, though.

That's a great little screening room.

I really like Cinematheque.

So, well, it's great to be working with you.

It's great to have you folks here.

We got a really fun show planned for you tonight.

It's always fun to come to Madison.

And I have to say, I want to share the story before I get to the guests and the question of the night.

Last night, I checked into my hotel.

I'm not a pot smoker.

but the weed smell in my room was off the charts.

In your room.

In my room.

And I went outside in the hallway and I'm like, is it coming from out here and just get, either way, I need a new room.

I can't smell that all day.

So a security guard happened to be walking by and I said, that's coming from my room, right?

Not out here.

And she goes, whoa, yeah, that's your room.

I swear to God.

And I looked at her and I said, did Tommy Chong just leave this room?

Like what is happening here?

And then that made me so they gave me a new room and it worked out fine.

But that reminded me of a time when I was a touring comedian in the 90s.

I worked a room in Winnipeg.

I think it was called like Yuck Yucks or something.

I was there in the dead of winter.

It was horrible.

And they put you in this room like they said they give you a hotel room that was part of the contract.

I get there and they put me in a room over the comedy club.

It's like this.

I swear to God, something bad happened in this room.

It's just either a murder or some type of they stored a victim there or something.

It was just depressing and it smelled musty and like pot.

So I call the club owner.

This is like one of the first gigs I ever headline.

I have no like kind of cachet in the business, but I did call and I said, Hey, this room is terrible.

It smells like weed.

What is going on?

And he goes, oh, really?

Oh, that's weird.

Tommy Chong stayed there last week and didn't say, well, there you go.

So instinctively, that came to me last night in this hotel room.

And I thought of Tommy Chong, who I have not thought of in 30 years since that happened when I was doing stand-up.

So beautiful stuff.

And I'm also, I'm staying in an area, Sam.

Have you noticed Madison has a ton of consulting

firms?

I suppose, yeah.

Okay.

Well, you said you're staying out on the west side.

I'm staying on the west side and it's like, it's like the area is like in office space.

Remember in a tech where they worked and they had to walk down the parkways because there were no sidewalks and it's kind of like that.

But there's all these companies that's like such and such consulting, this consulting business, that's consulting.

And I'm like,

What is there to consult?

When you open a business, I would assume you have some sense of how it works.

Does everybody need a consultant?

Nobody knows what they're doing.

Nobody knows what they're doing.

They're just consulting.

What are they consulting on?

I've got personal problems.

Can I go in there and get some advice?

I've got consultants for the consultants.

They must how to run your consulting business.

How to

write,

right?

It's crazy.

This sounds like a poor man's a Seinfeld bit, but I really was wondering that.

I'm like, how is there this many, and they're all nice offices.

Beautiful.

So anyway, I'm in a good spot if I need some advice this week.

So it's exciting to be here in Madison.

Great show tonight, folks.

Very excited to... We're going to be talking about the Wisconsin... I do that every time.

The Milwaukee Film Festival.

The Milwaukee Film Festival is a fantastic film festival.

The Wisconsin one just ended a couple weeks ago.

I've still got the Wisconsin Film Festival on the brain, but Milwaukee opens tomorrow night.

It's a terrific film festival put on by Milwaukee Film.

I've got guests tonight.

Toby Jones and Ben Hansen are going to discuss their film, AJ Goes to the Dog Park.

This is a really unique film.

If you are by YouTube, check out the trailer.

It's like a minute long.

They have all these fun gags in it.

They use like these camera tricks and they have a background in animation.

And Toby wrote for the regular show, which I'm a huge fan of.

I think Mordecai and Rigby, two of my favorite.

TV characters ever.

So I'm excited to talk to Toby and Ben about their film, which screens at the Milwaukee Film Festival.

And then another Film Festival guest in the second hour, Mark Evans joins me to talk about his film, The Diamond King.

Mark did a documentary about a guy named Dick Perez who does baseball art and has painted all the inductees into the Baseball Hall of Fame.

It looks like a really cool doc.

And Mark will be here at 720.

So...

Lots of fun great guests tonight love talking about movies film festivals and I think we have a great question tonight I don't do you have the music for the intro or we just I'm just gonna wing it Sam.

This is all improv

Isn't that what all radio

is don't

judge

All right Our question of the night folks here at nightlight.

That's a good one.

I'm excited You ready Sam?

I'm ready.

All right

What is your favorite song associated with a movie?

What is the best song from a movie?

There's so many great ones.

And there's so many movies that get the right song at the right moment, whether it's like sympathy for the devil or something from ABBA or whatever.

I love when there is a perfectly placed song in a movie.

So that's the question.

Very simple.

What is the best song from a movie?

855-752-4842-855-75CIVIC-CHIMEN.

Be part of the show.

Text us old school on the phone or you can use the Civic Media app.

Very easy to use.

You just text a little icon next to whatever station you're listening to.

And you can also text us if you're watching the radio on the stream at YouTube, Facebook, or X. Do you still call it,

do you call it X?

John from John and Gordy, the show that I usually produce, has a fondness for calling it Twitter X.

Twitter X, yeah.

I think Todd Alba is the one that said Twix.

Twix, yeah.

That was a good one.

I just, I can't, X is so unexciting.

It's so dull.

It's just boring.

It's boring, I agree.

Twitter's just better.

So I mean no disrespect, and when I say that, I mean a lot of disrespect.

I like Twitter better.

But you can call it X, you can watch us on X. We're out there for the world to see.

Lots of fun stuff happening here at Civic Media.

folks today too.

It goes into effect today, the new schedule.

From 5 to 6 a.m., the Midwest Farm Report with Pam Yonkey, great show, Pam does a phenomenal job.

Then on the network, this is new and exciting, Pat Crichtlow from 6 a.m.

to 9 a.m., he will be on statewide for the most part, powered by Up North News in Madison, John and Gordy.

I'm gonna let you do that pitch, John and Gordy.

Well,

I don't

even know how to

describe them, they're indescribable.

Oh, come on, they're describable.

They're

two funny, crabby, lovable, beautiful people.

Yeah, two old

guys, radio duo from back in the day.

They were on the air together back in the 80s and 90s in Madison.

They're back together now.

It's a lot of fun.

It's a lot of fun.

They're great guys.

I love having them on my show and I love being on their show.

But they're on in Madison here from 6 to 8 every morning and then in Madison, Stephanie Miller comes on from 8 to 11.

the always funny and always entertaining Stephanie Miller.

And then in Green Bay and Oshkosh, WISS and WGBW, Mino and the Mayor are still in their slot from 6 to 9 a.m.

Other than that, you got Pat Crite-Low on the network.

And then things really kick up into high gear with Jane McNair and Greg Bach from 9 to 11.

And then Tom Hartman is back from 11 a.m.

to 2 p.m.

Todd Alba keeps things going from 2 to 4.

And then Maggie Dawn

from four to six, and then you've got Nightlight from six to eight.

So some big changes here at Civic Media.

Not that big, but you know, nice tweaks that help things along.

And that's about it.

So the phone lines are open.

Feel free to chime in with your favorite movie song.

There's so many good ones.

We've got, it's Jack Nicholson's birthday today too.

I'm excited about that.

We have a great clip from Chinatown I want to play.

And do you know who Estelle?

Oh my God, I've already forgotten her last name.

Mrs. Costanza.

You ever watch Seinfeld, Sam?

A little bit, not a time.

Okay.

Estelle Harris.

I said Estelle Gettys.

Estelle Harris played Mrs. Costanza in George's mom.

She might be one of the funniest people I have ever seen on TV.

So we have a clip of Estelle, we have a clip of Jack Nicholson, we got great guests, a good question of the night, and we're going to get to all of that.

Somehow, Sam, I don't know how we're going to do this.

We've got five hours of radio and a two-hour show.

So we'll do our best to keep people entertained with that.

We've done it before.

We can do it again.

Yeah.

How are you feeling?

Are you feeling good?

Yeah.

So it's off to a good start, right?

I think so.

OK.

Good.

I think so too.

This is fun.

Live from Madison tonight, folks, the texts are pouring in already.

This is exciting.

I'm going to see if I can read the screen.

Look at that.

Sherry from Horikin says, hey, Sam.

What do you think of that, Sam?

Hi, Sherry.

Not good morning.

I'm used to being

the morning when

I'm in here.

Good afternoon.

Good evening.

She says, good evening, Pete and Sam.

Good evening, Sherry.

Great to have you with us.

Monica from Mount Horrib says, coming around again by Carly Simon from the movie Heartburn and Meryl Streep and Jack Nicholson.

Very well done, Monica, on Jack Nicholson's birthday.

That's a great song, too.

David from Richland Center says, don't you forget about me from the breakfast club.

Yes, love that one.

That's an iconic song too.

That's a fantastic one.

I think mine would have to be I have a couple that come to mind Steelers wheel stuck in the middle with you and That one comes up at a perfect time in the movie too and then probably the power of love There you go Sam look at this kid Yeah, give me some power of love.

That's fantastic great movie Are we out of time already?

We're almost.

The new clock?

The new clock, yeah.

Look at that.

All right, so how much time do we have?

About 40 seconds.

Totally messed up here.

Well, that's the 19.

Okay, I can't tell time, folks.

That's why I have Sam here.

We've got great guests, good music, lots of fun and a great question.

Try and be part of the show.

This is Nightlight with Pete Schwabba.

When we come back, I read some of your texts and we'll hear a funny Estelle clip.

This is Pete Schwabba at Nightlight on the Civic Media Radio Network.

You're listening to Civic Media.

Stay up to date on the latest news and information for your local community and Wisconsin by signing up for our free email newsletter.

Visit civicmedia.us slash email to get started.

I am Pete Schwabba.

This is Nightlight coming to you live from Madison tonight.

Beautiful Madison, Wisconsin on a gorgeous day.

Great to have you with me.

Our question of the night is, what is your favorite song from a movie?

You have so much to choose from because sometimes they write songs just for movies, production numbers, if you will, and other times they just use songs that are already written.

But either way, please share your favorite.

Sam, what's your favorite kind of food?

Oh, boy.

Probably pizza.

Pizza?

OK.

I'm pretty basic,

yeah.

Yeah.

Today, I don't have Indian food where I live.

Uh-huh.

And when I crave Indian food, the cravings are like, I must have Indian blood somewhere in my lineage because I swear to God, I literally my mouth.

Craving all the time?

Yes.

And I'm not a guy who takes pictures of their food.

and shares them on social media.

But I did take a picture of this chicken dish I had and share it with my wife and my kids.

And my son was like, oh boy, here we go.

Like, I'm not one of those guys though.

I'm not gonna share it on social media.

Dave on the stream says, wind beneath my wings from beaches.

That's a good one, Dave.

Bet Midler.

Also, Lou Rawls did a great version of that.

But a great one.

PJ on the stream also says, oh yeah, by yellow.

on Ferris Bueller's day off.

Oh, yeah.

No, it's not yellow.

Is it yellow, PJ?

I thought that was like art of noise, maybe.

Yeah, anyway, I trust you.

Those are great choices.

Nick Wallander on social media on our Facebook page.

The question was posted earlier today.

Nick says, three small words from Josie and the Pussycats, 2001.

Wow, going back 24 years.

Nice, Nick.

Joseph McClure on Facebook says, best song ever written for a film.

The rainbow connection for the Muppets.

God, the Muppets have had some amazing songs over the years.

I like anything Kermit sings, I like.

It's not easy being green.

Rainbow connection is fantastic.

Great stuff.

Conrad Krieger, look at the kid chiming in on his day off.

That's a workhorse for you, Sam.

The grind don't stop.

The grind don't stop.

Conrad says Raiders March from Indiana Jones.

I think that might be score.

But listen, K-man, I'll take it.

Thank you.

Hope you're having a good time, buddy.

Oh, it's Lambo.

Conrad might get drafted, let's be honest.

To time off for the draft,

he might get

drafted.

Does he play football?

No, no, not football.

I mean,

the

military, they might scoop him up.

Might need someone.

I like to cut off his jib, sign him up for the Marines.

Be careful out there, Conrad.

Emerson Layman, our pal from WBAY in Green Bay says, send me on my way rusted boot from Ice Age.

I don't know that song.

It's always fun when you find new songs.

Thank you, Emerson.

That's awesome.

Chad Fran says, Little Miss Sunshine, super freak, Rick James.

I remember that.

That was great.

Thank you, Chad.

JB, the guy behind the guy, JB Thompson, everybody by Elephant, featuring Azalea Banks.

Sam, you're a young guy.

Help me.

I'm clueless.

No, okay.

I'll pull that up later.

If I

knew the movie it was from, I might have a

better idea.

He included a link, so I think I can probably

I'll click on that later.

Thanks, JB.

Yeah, we'll take a look at that.

Daniel Wheeler says, pure imagination from 1971, Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory.

Yeah.

Wow.

I forgot about that one.

Great one, Daniel.

Sam, you're going to get to know probably a few textures that you're not used to.

Daniel is a guy who says, in order to say my last name properly, which is Schwabba, you have to wet your lips first.

It was just so weird the first time I read it.

Schwabba.

Sam just crushed it, Daniel.

He learned quickly.

Mike Dessertal says, on the dark side, from Eddie and the Cruisers.

Mike, that's a great one.

And you know what else is great?

From Eddie and the Cruisers, a song by John Caffery in the Beaver Brown Band called Tender Years.

Just a beautiful song about high school sweethearts and remembering great tune and a fun movie.

I wonder if it holds up.

I haven't seen Eddie and the Cruisers probably in

25 years, but great music, no question.

Rich LoCasio, the wrestling announcer and WRJ in personality says anything from Xanadu is great.

The music from Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, oh yeah, and Tron Legacy is excellent.

Look at Rich's diversity there.

That's impressive.

Xanadu to Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, he goes Tarantino and then Tron Legacy.

I love it, Rich.

I can still see Rich wearing the sunglasses from last night.

He says, my absolute favorite is Send Me an Angel by Real Life from the movie The Wizard.

Okay, thank you, Rich.

Kim Chefchick, our friend Kim Marie says, entire forest-gump soundtrack is epic.

Yep, hard to argue with that.

Thanks, Kim.

We gotta have Kim back on soon.

Eric Rathsak, he should know something a little bit about music.

He's the lead singer for Ask Your Mother, Revenge of the Nerds.

Oh, but he included a link.

Hold on, I gotta find out what this is.

Can you hear that, Sam?

I can hear that there's noise.

You can hear that there's noise.

I just muted it because I'm like, are you ready for the sex girls?

The gleaming spires.

I don't even think I could play this song anyway on the radio.

Thank you.

Great stuff.

Keep in coming, folks.

What is your favorite song from a movie?

We've got some texts on the text line also coming up.

But my guest tonight, this is exciting.

In just a few minutes, Toby Jones will be here and Ben Hansen.

They made a film called A.J.

Goes to the Dog Park.

If you're at home and you have access to YouTube, check out the trailer.

It's very funny.

These guys are great filmmakers and they're going to be here in just a few minutes to discuss their film, which screens at the Milwaukee Film Festival.

And we'll get to some more of your text too.

Sam, how am I doing on time?

The new clock, I'm doing my best to keep up.

You got about a minute.

Oh, you got a minute?

Yeah.

Oh, I can sing something.

Beautiful.

All right, so we've got all kinds of stuff happening.

Good question.

Great guest.

Great to have you with me.

Love doing the show for Madison.

Always fun to be here.

And now a great song taking us to the break.

I hope you're having a great night, folks.

This is Pete Schwab at Nightlight on the Civic Media Radio

Network.

Sometimes to ignore it, it's something that I'm supposed to be.

Someday we'll find it, the rainbow connection, the lovers, the dreamers.

It's yellow.

He was right.

I thought it was like art of noise or something.

Welcome back to Nightlight, folks.

I am Pete Schwabba.

Our question of the night is, what is your favorite song from a movie?

One of our textures said, oh yeah.

That's what you're hearing right now.

Lots going on here tonight, folks.

We are live from Madison, Wisconsin tonight.

A beautiful day here as we overlook State Street and do nightlight on the road, so to speak.

talking about the Milwaukee Film Festival tonight, a little Jack Nicholson, a little Estelle Harris, two big birthdays in the showbiz world.

And right now, I'm very excited to welcome my next two guests.

I watched the trailer for their film, which is in the Milwaukee Film Festival.

And it's on YouTube, I encourage you to check it out.

The film is called A.J.

Goes to the Dog Park.

It's a delightfully funny, at least a minute, I'm sure the movie is just the longer version of the trailer.

And it's great to have these guys here, director Toby Jones and producer of A.J.

Goes to the Dog Park, Ben Hansen.

Guys, welcome to Nightlight.

Thanks so much for having us.

I'm a little nervous.

Thanks for introing us with this secret to my success soundtrack.

Was that

in that movie too?

Alright, that counts.

I don't know

what other movie could possibly be in, but Michael J. Fox making out with a MILF in the back of a limousine in the 80s is where that song is associated.

Wow, we are getting some insight into Ben's mind here.

I love that.

I love how you just catalog that and you could pull that up.

I would say it's a collective universal mind.

Do you guys have a favorite song from a movie?

Uh, I would have to say probably Com Sousa Todd from End of Evangelion would be my favorite.

Wow.

We've heard that so much, though, on this show.

Yeah, it's overplayed.

Google that, Ben.

Sam, will you?

What about you, Ben?

Are you just going to go with, oh yeah?

Because it brings back a fond memory of Michael J. Fox necking.

Listen, it does, but I'll go with a more mainstream pick.

I happened to just rewatch recently with my partner and I'll go with what condition my condition was in by Kenny Loggins during the bowling dream sequence in the Big

Lebowski

pre-mainstream answer, but I was the introduction to that song for me.

No, I love that.

That whole soundtrack is fantastic.

So that's a great one.

Well, it's great to have you guys here.

Let's talk about, before we jump into the film, tell us a little bit about yourselves and then how you guys came together to make this film, if you would, please.

Sure.

Yeah.

I'm Toby Jones.

I'm from Fargo, North Dakota.

I spent most of my adult life working in the animation industry on cartoons like a regular show and love

it.

Okay.

K.O.

Let's Be Heroes.

And several years ago, I got together a group of friends and returned to Fargo, North Dakota to create a movie, a comedy movie called Aja Ghost the Dog Park.

That's great.

What about you, Ben?

What brings you to the movie world?

And I'm also from Fargo, North Dakota, and I have always been a cinephile and someone who's like to participate in making film lists with my friends.

trying to catalog and see as many movies as I could, and dreamed a long time ago about trying to be in the movie industry, as many do in, say, high school or college, and never quite got there and was delayed when my friend Toby called me in the midst of COVID and said, hey, do you want to try and produce something that I'm going to make a live act, my first four-layer, into a feature-length live-action movie?

And I jumped in and I'm very glad I did.

First of all, I want to say, I'm a huge fan of the regular show, Toby.

It's great.

My son and my buddy Jack Thomas worked on it, I believe for a while.

I remember Jack.

Yeah, I don't think he

was there when I was there.

Yeah.

Okay.

And my son would call me in and we'd watch.

I love the one where I.

It's just such a crazy, funny show.

You have horses yelling, bros, bros, bros, with dude time.

If you haven't checked out the regular show, folks, it's fun for all ages.

It's a great show.

So are you guys both, you knew each other in Fargo then?

Correct.

We met in eighth grade in Fargo, North Dakota.

based on our shared love of film and kind of our, we've remained friends ever since and our film obsession has grown ever since.

And this was our first opportunity to kind of like work together on a larger scale project.

That's great.

And Ben, you, I know you have a different job, a different day job, so to speak that brought that you were doing before you came to this film.

What kind of an experience was this for you?

Had you produced other films or did you just kind of hit the ground running and learn as you went?

Absolutely the latter.

I made an attempt to figure out what I would all need to do to help make Toby's vision come to life.

Honestly, and we've done this at a couple of Q&As now, it mostly came down to being a project manager and being good at scheduling.

Scheduling a lot because we have a lot of just regular people who have regular day jobs who are also

Real theater actors shout out to Theater B in Moorhead, Minnesota, Jason to Fargo, North Dakota, who helped join us and some folks who are new to acting.

and people who made the practical props that are in the movie and people who are very willing to last shoot on location in Fargo and Moorhead in the lakes country in western Minnesota out in farm country in eastern North Dakota but it all takes coordination so it was basically just being a project manager and trying to be on hand but also you know making sure that there's no job too small if I have to

lay flat on a grassy knoll underneath my old film professor Greg Carlson and yank down his suit so he can rip it off to reveal that he actually has a literal gorilla suit underneath his regular suit and that he is a gorilla man.

That's the thing I have to do that day outside of the shot.

That actually sounded like a monologue from the regular show.

That little soliloquy there was beautiful.

I also noticed, Ben, you're not wearing a seatbelt.

So for the love of God, please be careful.

You're coming to us live from your car.

I am

fully parked in my car

because

I needed to plug my phone in

because

the battery was almost dead due to my day job.

But I am certainly not driving

right now.

OK, good.

We have a question for you guys.

PJ on the stream says, is the movie Fargo or the series?

More accurate.

That's it.

Ben, have you watched much of the series?

I've only seen the first episode of the series.

The movie is accurate in some ways.

Yeah.

I've watched the first three, four seasons of the series.

The fourth season doesn't even take place in Fargo.

They just get the guns from Fargo.

Yeah, that's right.

The first three seasons have a bit of accuracy around the feeling of the weather.

The movie

I feel has extreme accuracy with flat, pure white landscapes during winter times.

But the most accurate scene in the movie Fargo is where she orders Arby's in the drive-thru.

And then later on says, oh, Norm, you got some Arby's on you.

You got some sauce on you.

That is the most accurate scene in the movie.

And it's not close.

That is the most

accurate one by far.

I love the Coen Brothers.

They grew up in St.

Louis Park, Minnesota, not very far from where Toby and I grew up.

Toby went to college in Minneapolis right next to St.

Louis Park.

But that is by far the most encapsulated Midwestern experience you could possibly have is going through a drive-through line.

And then,

yeah.

I love it.

That's great.

You guys are going to love Wisconsin, by the way.

Sam, neither one of these guys has been to Wisconsin.

This will be their first, their maiden voyage into our fair state and- Whoa,

whoa, whoa, whoa.

I've been to Wisconsin a couple of, several times

now.

You did tell me you were gone.

I've been to

Madison, but not Milwaukee.

Okay.

Well, you're gonna love Milwaukee then, dude.

I'm telling you, my guests are Toby Jones and Ben Hansen.

I've been to Menominee.

Wisconsin.

So come

on.

You're just name dropping now.

I worked on a recall of a state senator there.

Anyway.

Oh, okay.

Well, thanks, I think for your help.

I don't know.

All right, so tell me a little bit about the story, guys.

The film is A.J.

goes to the dog park.

It screens Friday, right?

Is the first screening at the Oriental Theater at 10 p.m.

And then you've got a screening on the 20

9th, I believe, which is Tuesday, maybe?

Yeah, Tuesday, the 29th, also at the Oriental, and then Friday, May 2nd at the Downer Theater.

Great venues.

Tell us about the movie.

What can people expect?

What's it about?

It's about my friend AJ.

He's a real guy playing himself in this movie and he has two adorable chihuahuas and it's about a man named AJ who loves his life.

Everything's going great.

He has a perfect daily routine, but that routine is upended when his dog park is taken away and he decides to do everything in his power to get his dog park back.

from the mayor who has decided to change it to a blog park.

And the movie is a increasingly bizarre, strange, surreal odyssey of all the different steps he has to take in order to get his dog park back.

What is a blog park?

A blog park is something, probably the stupidest idea I ever had in my entire life, to base the plot of a movie around having a dog park turn into a blog park.

It's exactly what it sounds like.

It's a bunch of people in a park sitting in desks blogging.

That sounds like a lot of fun, actually.

2004 style.

Yeah.

you say in the in the trailer you allude to this is a nano budget like beyond a micro budget nano but you have all these gags and all these camera tricks were those hard to pull off with not much

budget uh yeah i would say that we're incredibly hard to pull off because it's like what do you do if you want to have you put what is essentially like a naked gun or airplane

Style visual gag into a live-action movie, but you don't have the resources above a studio system behind you You just have the resources of you and your buddies and what you can pull together that day So it was very difficult and really what it came down to was just finding the right people who were specialized in trying to make those things happen kind of on the day You

mentioned

you talk about them

go ahead Ben.

Go ahead.

No, no, please

Oh, let's talk about airplane to the sequel, the parody movie that everyone remembers.

I was hoping you there's a

bit in that movie.

Yes, everyone, every William Shatner fan does.

And the there's a gig in that movie where they said, well, the pilots turned to jelly and they cut to the pilot.

And he's literally made of jello.

And he's a jello shaped man with a pilot's hat on and a suit and glasses.

And it's wiggling around.

And it just kills you.

It's really funny visual.

And it's on screen for five minutes, five seconds.

And now that I've made this movie, I've been permitting this movie, I have to realize, how do they mold a human sized jello person and shoot it in a way where the lighting made sense for the gag, where it didn't melt, where it didn't make a mess, where it didn't smell terrible.

And the answer is those last two absolutely happened because we have experience with a 14 foot fish.

that you

can all

see when you see the movie.

But every gag has to have someone literally physically create it.

We have some CGI, homemade CGI in the movie.

But for the most part, the effects are made practically from someone who truly makes costuming professionally for theater productions.

And so many of the creative people we worked with in the movie were great to work with because we got to tell them,

It was like telling a painter, we want you to make this landscape.

We want you to make this painting.

We're not going to tell you how to do it.

Go in your lab and create it and come back with it.

And I would say, I mean, Toby, I would say every time we did that, well, we got back with something we were in.

If anything, frankly, we were almost condescending.

We were more impressed with it than we thought we were going to get.

We're like, oh, this looks a lot more professional than we thought we were going to do.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I think that's absolutely the case because, you know, you, you, luckily you have a, you know, community in Fargo of talented individuals.

And we, you know, the thing about a town like Fargo is you always know somebody who knows somebody who can solve pretty much any problem you have.

So it's like, we need a long, we need, we need a 20 foot long fish.

Well, somebody knows somebody who knows somebody who we can call to make that happen.

You probably have like,

you just call up a friend in Fargo and like, yeah, I can do that.

Like that's what I love about towns like that.

Go ahead.

Well, listen, there's a stress to it because you have a deadline, you have to get things together.

And something that Toby had mentioned because he'd worked in animation was, and I'm not going to use the terms correctly, but when you have to redo something in animation, you can do that as a drawing or an edit in live action.

If you don't have it there live in real time, you're out.

So it has to be there and the stress is on.

That is the voice of Ben Hansen.

He's the director of A.G.

Goes to the Dog Park.

Director Toby Jones is with us too.

We're talking about their film, which screens at the Milwaukee Film Festival.

You have three opportunities to see it, folks.

We'll have more with these filmmakers when we come back after a very short break.

You got Night Light with Pete Schwabba on the Civic Media Radio Network.

You're listening to Civic Media.

Find the latest news, information, and archives of all your favorite shows on the Civic Media website,

civicmedia.us.

I'm Pete Schwabba.

Join tonight by Sam Davison.

Conrad has a few days off to attend the draft.

The NFL draft, let me clarify.

Conrad is not joining the military, but he might get drafted.

My guests right now are Toby Jones and Ben Hansen.

They are the creative team behind AJ Goes to the Dog Park.

A film you can see at the Milwaukee Film Festival up to three times if you really like it, but you have three opportunities.

The Milwaukee Film Festival is a great festival on the east side of Milwaukee, one of my favorite neighborhoods in the whole world.

Check it out if you've never been there.

And if you've been there and you know all about it, then you have to see AJ goes to the dog park.

How many festivals have you guys done so far with this film?

Well,

this might be number six or seven or something like that.

Okay.

Five?

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

And hey, shout out to the Milwaukee Film Festival too, because all the film festivals we've been at have been very generous and very helpful with us.

But Milwaukee in particular has been very, for a small nano-budget film crew, very communicative, very supportive.

And the fact that they're giving us three screenings is awfully generous.

So like, really truly, thank you.

Yeah, that's great.

I think you guys will love the venues too.

The Oriental Theater is just this old beautiful majestic theater and the downer is really cool too.

So good venues, you should have great crowds.

Has the response to your material or your film been what you had hoped?

What's it like watching it with a crowd?

I mean, honestly, it's kind of been beyond what we've hoped because, you know, we made this movie really for ourselves to entertain ourselves.

For no other purpose than that.

You know when we were shooting this thing over the course of three years in Fargo

we really were just kind of like, I don't know if anybody is going to care about this thing.

We didn't know if we get into one film festival.

And that's kind of like, you can maybe feel that when you watch it, because like these are just guys who are going through all this effort to do this thing just for themselves, just to make themselves laugh and to entertain themselves.

The fact that we happen to get into some really amazing film festivals has been such an incredible bonus, you know?

And what's really cool about it is that like, you know, we've played at a lot of a genre festivals, which is kind of something that proved to be kind of surprising.

is that genre festivals took a shine to the movie.

And it kind of makes sense because you end up with these really open-minded audiences who aren't freaked out when they see a movie that kind of speaks its own vernacular.

It doesn't necessarily walk and talk.

It's not pretending to be a big-budget Hollywood movie.

It's doing its own thing.

And festival audiences are so open-minded and enthusiastic to see something like that.

That's a great answer.

And it must be like, when you come from the world of animation, Toby, or the shows that you write for on Cartoon Network or regular show, are there times you get to see those with an audience?

Or did you have to make a movie to see what your funny stuff?

Honestly, I've written on staffs a couple of times and it's like, we don't have screenings of the show before they go out.

You don't get that joy that you might have at a festival

like

this.

You're totally right about that.

The closest thing I had was going to a screening of the regular show movie.

Sometimes there'd be like a local screening or like a press screening.

You know, I remember I went to like a press screening of like the Adventure Time finale or the Steven Universe movie or something like that.

But it's very rare.

And usually when you're working on a TV show, you're stuck.

Looking at Twitter or something when your episode airs very different experience sitting in a theater of like-minded individuals laughing and laughing at the jokes pretty different So it's been quite an opportunity to sit there in a room and have the room like literally vibrate with people laughing at the stupidest jokes ever written in your life, you know That's a great

answer Ben genuinely like one of the better nights of my life was screening in Los Angeles where many of Toby's and his mutual friends's animation

and industry friends came to the screening at, and it was Beyond Fest.

I'm getting the name right, Toby.

At Beyond Fest, we had a packed screen in the theater in Los Angeles, and the idea that we had worked on this thing for the length of time we did, and it had come together, and the audience was like, laughing hard enough that you couldn't hear parts of the movie.

It was obviously very gratifying.

You can't describe how satisfying that is.

That's so great.

Ben, all right, so for you, you said you kind of learned on the job.

What was it like?

You've got this friend from childhood who's done some really cool things in the entertainment business.

He's got his chops

and all

that kind of stuff, knows what he wants, wrote and directed it.

What was it like for you?

This is your friend, but I'm sure he had an artistic vision that you had to compliment somehow.

Was that an adjustment for you?

He seems competent and accomplished, and yet he believes in me.

It was fun being

a

perfect, but but it was Perfect, but uh, no it was fun reading the script was it was clearly funny and There are various parts of it and he and I have I've tried much more minor cracks at writing that he's well aware of But both of us have a tendency to write things that are very fun on the page and then when you try and create them you're like oh But this is incredibly complicated

Oh my God, this is going to take two weeks to set up.

And then you look at like the shot in the movie and it gets a laugh, which you're gratified by.

But the shot in the movie is 30 seconds at the most.

Okay.

So it's against all about project management and working backwards.

And I have a million things I could armchair and I do armchair quarterback myself on thinking like I should have set that up two months beforehand or it's especially about location shooting because we shot on real locations.

And something that I'm very proud of with the final product of the movie is

The movie has a variety of locations and scenes and feels, even though it was all shot within about the same 50 square radius

in

Fargo and Moorhead, North Dakota and Minnesota respectively, and a couple of scenes outside in Lakes Country, Western Minnesota.

But I feel like the movie has a lot of very good variety, but that takes a lot of work.

It takes a lot of aligning the stars of people's schedules.

Again, people who have full time other jobs, plus families, plus just personal lives.

And we shot this movie in multiple parts.

And I think by the time we got to the third part of shooting it, I felt like I had a well-oiled machine going, something I felt proud about.

I hope others felt the same way, and I am proud of the final product.

Well, it must have worked out.

You guys seem like you're on a roll with the film.

Toby Jones is here, and Ben Hansen.

They are the creative force behind AJ Goes to the Dog Park, playing at the Milwaukee Film Festival.

They're going to stick around for a few more minutes after the news, folks.

In the meantime, Civic Media's news team will tell you what you need to know.

Mark Evans coming up at 7.20.

And our question of the night, what is your favorite song from a movie?

We'll get to those texts too.

This is Pete Schwabba at Nightlight on the Civic Media Radio Network.

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