Transcript
Films, Docs, and Green Bay Talk (Hour 1)
Nite Lite with Pete Schwaba and Greg Bach · Tue Nov 4, 2025
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Welcome to Night Light.
Happy Tuesday, everybody.
Let's do this.
It's time for another episode of Night Light, coming to you live from beautiful downtown Green Bay.
And it is a gorgeous night here in the state of Wisconsin, wherever you are joining us from, welcome.
Sit back, kick your feet up, turn on the radio or the app or the stream.
However you choose to listen, however you choose to nightlight, it's great to have you.
And we have a special surprise here tonight because producer and our friend and wedding crasher, Conrad Krieger, is back in the producer's chair.
Hey, buddy.
Hey, yeah, it's good to be back.
Is it?
Yeah.
Good.
I thought I was half expecting to get a text from you saying, I've decided to do nails and I'm going to pursue my dream.
your
How was your wedding?
You had a good friend get married.
You were in the wedding party.
That's exciting.
Yeah, beautiful area.
lot of
Beautiful setting,
would imagine.
Yeah.
yeah oh it was yeah it was it
really fun wouldn't that be terrible if they were divorced within a year i don't know that would be that would be bad it would be bad anyway but i mean with that kind of setting when people drop that kind of coin on a wedding man you really hope they make it
that's a lot of pressure
It's best just to elope and get married at the beach, I think.
But that's fun.
What did you, was the rehearsal dinner fun?
Did you guys party or was it not that kind of wedding?
No, I mean, the first day I flew in, so it was, I got delayed a little bit on the way there, so I didn't have a ride to Gatlinburg from Knoxville, so I Ubered there.
Ooh.
Which it wasn't terrible.
I thought it was going to be more expensive, but it wasn't bad.
But the guy just knew his way around everything.
He's like, I'm taking this way.
It's faster.
I'm like, that kind of
I got a
Oh, I love those
just pulled the old,
see who can be quiet the longest.
quiet game, please?
That's hilarious.
Well, that sounds like a good time.
That's
Really?
Yeah.
fun.
What
Okay.
Yeah, nice.
Yeah.
So 200 feet, how far, well like a par three, so that's like a wedge, right?
Well, yeah.
How did you do on that course
Did any of your scores did make it into the scorecard?
okay.
that's
now on the way down.
It was very exciting because you told me that
You were watching a film I co-wrote called A Guy Thing from MGM on the plane.
Oh, really?
if you
you some change, yeah.
I didn't understand your last text though.
You said something about one of the gags.
I said let me know and I'll tell you if it's something we wrote or the other writers Yeah, I didn't understand what you said.
that's gotta be you Maybe I don't even remember honestly.
I remember the big gags, but I have not seen the movie It's probably been 11 years because I remember my son Joe and I went to a Northwestern
Game in Evanston and stayed at my friend's house and the movie was on TV.
So we watched it and Joe was like 15 at the time or whatever.
And even then I was like, oh yeah, we wrote that.
We didn't write that.
But anyway, that's funny.
That's
Sleeping with the girl, yeah.
That was Greg's actually.
You know what's funny is, I remember when you write a movie like that, the script we sold, if I can toot my own co-horn here, got us in every room.
We had meetings with Spielberg's company and all these great, these huge producers who had deals, Kathy Conrad and Michael Costigan and all these people.
But the movie was so different, like they brought in other writers who are phenomenal writers.
Matt Tarsus and Bill Rubel.
Tarsus wrote on Scrubs, Rubel wrote on Modern Family, and other shows are very accomplished TV writers.
But it was like a different sensibility, and then you had the director, and then Julia Stiles, in order to get her in the movie, they had to listen to her notes, and she wanted her character to work odd jobs.
Okay, that is nothing to do with the story, but they tried to make her have the whole movie a lot of it doesn't make sense And they shot it in Canada where it was raining all the time It just they just blew it MGM blew it and I know they had good intentions But it really hurt because I thought we've sold a pretty flawless script which sucks.
see I Had a on the way down.
Oh remember last week I was talking about how they lock up
moisturizer at Walmart.
So when I go to Walmart, it's like 10 o'clock at nine o'clock when I'm rolling back into Marinette.
And there's not a lot of workers around.
So I'm like, I'm not waiting.
I'm out of facial soap.
So I just left and I use my wife for like a week or whatever.
And last night, I bit the bullet.
I go, I need my charcoal cleanser.
So I go in there and I get the generic version because I'm cheap, the equate version.
$3.88 and it's behind glass.
And it takes me five minutes to get a Walmart worker.
She comes over, she's very nice.
She couldn't find the right key.
So that took five minutes.
Then Conrad, and I'm not lying, she takes the bottle to the counter.
She wouldn't even let me, she wouldn't hand me the bottle and had me walk up to check out by myself.
She goes, I'm sorry, this is our policy.
I go, who's stealing?
equate charcoal facial cleanser.
And she goes, well, a guy took a bottle of whiskey into the bathroom last week.
I go, OK, that's a $30, $40 bottle of whiskey.
That's not cheap.
That's totally different.
I mean, what am I going to do?
It's just insanity.
So the bottom line is my skin should look amazing today because I finally bit the bullet and got my facial moisture.
But that's insane.
$3.88.
Yeah, I don't get it.
Yeah.
The other thing I realized today is I really truly hate pop-ups.
And even when I like, do you go through your, you know, your system settings and everything and take out the pop-up options or whatever?
Oh yeah.
And the porn stuff comes up.
I mean, other sites are fun.
I'm talking about the others.
No, we would do that too.
I think I talked about that on the show that when my parents will come over and we watch, we put the game on and I have to pirate it.
It's like, you know, all these horrible websites that some people have a lot of fun on, but my mom and dad are in their 80s, you know, and they're even they're used to it now.
It's like, Oh, here we go.
It's like, well, it's either this or pay 500 bucks for the NFL package.
Oh, I did hear about that.
Oh, interesting.
Go to...
Well, I want to
We've talked about that.
It's funny because I, you know, we wanted to watch on Sunday, the bears were on at the same time the Packers were on.
And I thought, I told my dad, it's not going to be on because the Packers, it's going to block out.
It's not.
When you stream, the bears were on Paramount Plus at the same time the Packers were on Fox.
That must be, I was like, maybe it's a prize at that because usually that's not the case.
It's awful.
It's terrible.
What I was going to say though is every time I clicked on something today, I think the programmers know when a new site opens up, when I write my beats, I'll go to like, you know, people.com or something.
And the page will be open.
The minute I move the cursor up to click on something, an ad appears there.
And I know they're delaying it so that you have, you know, they can just get the clicks.
They're tracking you.
Oh, it drives me nuts.
All right, let's do the... Got great guests tonight, folks.
It's gonna be a lot of fun.
But first, let's go to the nightlight.
Question of the night.
Let's talk about the question.
Okay,
question.
Question.
Question.
What is your favorite documentary?
We had a great guest on last night, Wisconsin native Doug Prey, who has been a part of some really incredible films.
He's a documentarian and documentaries are bigger than ever right now.
They're all over the place, whether they're true crime, true story, historical, whatever.
You can't even keep up.
It used to be when documentaries came out.
It's like, oh yeah, I saw that one.
Now it's like impossible.
There's so many of them out there and so many of them are so good.
So that's tonight's question of the night.
What is your favorite documentary?
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Perusing our sites and our social medias our socials as they say We also post the question of the night on Facebook every day So if you can't listen to the show you can respond and we'll still read your text on the radio Great to have you with me tonight.
Let me know what your favorite documentary is and we will We'll get into that.
Do you have a favorite doc?
They stop making them which I'm sad about but it's
It's five seasons Four seasons are football and then the last one's basketball It's all about the last chance they have to play the sport that they like in University Juco College or you
know
It's so funny because if my kid wanted to do anything they could to play sports in college You can go to a D3 or an NAIA or whatever they call that now.
I would say I would advise them against it
I would say focus on school, but you also, like, it's so great when someone's that passionate.
I mean, we had a family friend.
They said, where are you going to college?
He said, anywhere I can play sports.
That's awesome.
Good for you.
Okay.
Yeah.
So that's kind of cool.
My documentaries, my favorites are coming up after the break.
And I'm going to tell you about tonight's guests.
They're great.
We are coming right back.
This is Nightlight with Pete Schwabba 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.
This is Night Light.
I am Pete Schwab.
It is so great to have you with me tonight, folks.
Great show tonight.
At 6.35, Ian Teal will be here.
He is the festival director of the Waiwega International Film Festival.
And I think that's fascinating because Waiwega is such a tiny town, but they have this great opera house that works as their venue, but it's still the International Film Festival.
in Why We Get.
That's so awesome.
Ian will be here.
He'll talk about the festival itself, some of the films.
It's their 14th year.
Pretty good stuff.
So Ian will be with me at 635 and then at 705.
Conrad, you know who's rolling in?
Heather Heil from the Green Bay Children's Museum.
She is the director of business affairs.
They've got a ton of stuff going on.
over at the Green Bay Children's Museum, such a great facility.
She'll be here to discuss that.
And we have, Heather is kind of a Green Bay it girl too.
She kind of knows everything that's going on.
She seems to know everybody.
And we decided, I think this is the third quiz we're gonna give Heather.
I think she's taken two previously, maybe three even.
Maybe 10.
Probably.
But we're gonna give her our Green Bay.
Did we
as
And did you make it easy?
my... First name chat.
That's what my wife calls it, her best friend chat GPT.
quarterback for the back?
I want Conrad's funny answers, though.
Oh, yeah, there's a few of those.
You got a few of
All right, sweet.
So, Ian Teal, Heather Heil, going to be a fun night here at Nightlight.
Our question of the night is, what is your favorite documentary?
Conrad gave his answer before the break.
Say it again.
Last Chance U. I have heard of that.
Docuseries.
OK.
I kind of went with the sports theme, too.
At least the first one that came to mind was Hoop Dreams.
Yeah, and it's I'm probably due to rewatch it now I also love the Civil War documentary.
That's a series as well So you've got so many to choose from I also like one that I've talked about on this show before called long shot a very short 40 minute documentary about a guy accused of murder and Thanks to a Dodger game and a certain TV producer that could prove that he was at the game that
ended up being his alibi and a really great feel good story.
Also loved a food documentary called Forks Over Knives.
Love a documentary.
So let us know what your favorite one is and be part of the show.
So I have to say, where was I gonna go next year?
I got so much to talk about tonight.
I did see a tow truck.
You ever see this?
This cracks me.
I'm on 41.
It's dark now when I leave.
Yeah.
Terrible.
and a tow truck is towing a car, and it's got the lights going.
And I'm like, that is so unnecessary.
First of all, they're very bright.
I'm trying to focus on the road, and this guy's hauling a car in, and it's like, you don't need those lights on, buddy.
This is not an emergency.
It's like, what is, why do they have to do that?
It's like hauling a trailer.
You don't put lights on.
It's like, I've got a 1980 Chrysler Champ.
I need to get this into the mechanic now.
out of my way.
I don't understand it.
I don't either.
It's ridiculous.
There's a word for that that I can't say on the radio.
Let's get to some texts here because we got a great question.
Our documentary question, what is your favorite documentary?
Let's go to our social media responses on Facebook.
Khan says, last chance, Sheila Rosenberg said, could the font be any smaller?
By the way, this is like Superman with his X-ray vision could barely make this out.
Can you read this?
yeah.
Sheila on social media says, the wild and wonderful whites of West Virginia and dancing outlaw.
I don't know.
And you know, we're not going to hear about, we aren't going to know a lot of these, which I think is cool.
Because we'll get some information.
Absolutely.
Thank you, Sheila.
Rich LaCasio says, ladies and gentlemen, my name is Paul Heyman.
Okay.
Thank you, Rich.
right?
Matt Harper, Green Bay rock rap artist says, the new Billy Joel doc on HBO Max, I've heard that's really good.
My wife saw that one, said it was fantastic.
need to
and see your
Oh, thanks.
Rocker Smith says, the life of Brian.
Awesome.
Rich Luccasio posted a picture of said documentary in response to Rocker's text.
Our pal Rich Talarico from Key and Peele says, salesman 1969.
I don't know that one either, but thank you for the recommendation, Rich.
Mike Desatelle on social media says, plan nine from outer space.
Wow, I'm learning about a lot of new documentaries here.
Mike Preston says, searching for Sugarman.
My friend Mike, a very funny comedian, Mike Preston.
Boris Hamilton, very funny LA based comedian says, hearts of darkness and filmmakers apocalypse.
That was on my list too, hearts of darkness.
I haven't seen it in a while, but I'm due for a rewatch on that one, too.
Thank you, Boris.
Jenny Brand says, the act of killing and gray gardens.
What is the act of killing?
I feel like I should know that one.
And Tim Baker, a very funny gentleman as well, says, kiss meets the phantom of the park.
I know I haven't seen that one.
These are awesome, you guys.
Thank you.
And we're going to get to some of your texts on the text line soon.
Ian Teal is here in just a few minutes talking about the Why We Get International Film Festival, which takes place next week.
It starts November 12th through the 15th.
He'll be here to discuss that at 6.35.
And then our pal, Heather Heil, from the Green Bay Children's Museum will be here to talk about a whole bunch of stuff they have coming up there.
Our question of the night is, what is your favorite documentary?
Tom from New Berlin says, Conrad, that's the joy of golf is the scenery.
plus the holes, each is a challenge.
Well said, sir.
Thank you, Tom.
Mark from Prairie to Sac says, it is an old one, but alone in the wilderness where Dick Prananke built a cabin in the wilderness by himself using hand tools.
That is cool.
That's as close as I'd ever want to get to an experience like this, watching it on TV.
Tyler from Wisconsin Rapid says, grizzly man, horrible ending.
Terrible ending.
That might be the first text Tyler sent a while that didn't involve women's breasts.
So thank you for that, Tyler.
We'll get to the rest of your text after the news.
And Ian Teal will be here, folks.
It's Pete Schwabba in Nightlight.
You are here on a great night on the Civic Media Radio Network.
This is Nightlight with Pete Schwabba.
Great to have you here, folks, on a Tuesday night in the beautiful state of Wisconsin, another balmy, gorgeous evening.
Hope you're having a great evening.
Heather Heil will be here at 7.05.
Heather's going to tell us about some really cool stuff happening at the Green Bay Children's Museum, and we are going to give her a Green Bay Packers quiz.
A little quarterback-centric, but we'll have fun with that.
Heather is a lot of fun to have in the studio.
and take our quizzes.
She does very well typically.
So right now though, we're going to turn our attention to independent film and more specifically a really cool film festival.
It takes place right smack dab in the middle of our beautiful state.
Joining me now over the stream is the director, festival director for the Why We Get International Film Festival.
He's been here before Mr. Ian Teal.
Hi Ian.
Hi, how are you doing?
Doing very well.
Thank you.
How are you doing tonight?
Pretty good.
Keeping it together?
Yeah, long day.
I fell asleep earlier and was like, oh, I gotta wake up, have some coffee.
Good idea.
Running
errands all day.
It's gotta be really hectic as this festival gets closer.
I am kind of in awe of your festival based on what I've read because it's such a small town.
And it's so great that you have this international film festival in Little Waiwega, a town that barely has hotels.
Do you have hotels?
No.
So where do you put people in Wapaka
or Appleton?
Wapaka, yeah.
There's a Green Fountain Inn.
Give a shout out to Green Fountain Inn and Wapaka.
And they have four rooms which we...
rotate filmmakers through and they're very generous and it's a great place.
They also have a little restaurant there and they serve food.
And we've also rented Airbnb's in the area when needed.
Nice.
Well, I think that it adds a certain charm, I think, to the festival when it is a small town like that and you're bringing people in from everywhere.
You're showing great foreign films, independent films.
I just think it's terrific.
So for those that aren't familiar, this is your 14th year, which is really
15th.
15th year.
That's
exciting.
Okay, I didn't mean to to shortchange you by a year.
I know every year.
So tell us about how, tell us about the Why We Get Film Festival.
How did it get started?
Well, my partner Kathy and myself, we used to live in New York and we worked on some films and we did theater and stuff and we moved back.
I grew up in O'Connor Walk.
And my folks had a house fixer upper they bought in Wapaka and I moved back here to help fix fix it up and then eventually never left.
And we sort of got out out of the creative stuff.
So in 2007, the upper house came up for sale and why we go so well, let's let's let's buy this.
Why not?
And so we did that and we started a nonprofit.
Of course, a year later, the economy tanked.
So it was a struggle for a while.
And we actually started out showing, because it was set up as a movie theater.
They had shown movies there since it started.
1915 it was built.
And so they were set up for 35 millimeter projection.
So we started showing first run films.
We fixed it up a bit.
And that didn't work out.
We couldn't compete with the multiplexes.
And so the studio stopped giving us the first round films.
We're getting the second round films and others isn't working.
So we started showing some local indie films.
I think one of the first things we showed, oh gosh, I can't remember what it's called now, but it was a film out of Green Bay with Tony Shalug.
Feed the Fish.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
We showed that.
And a few others.
I can't remember the names now.
And I was like, oh, this is, there's something here.
So I think in 2001, we started with, so let's do a film festival.
And let's make it a foreign film festival.
We like foreign films.
We're big fans of Fellini and Buuel.
And why not?
So this is now our 15th year.
Incredible.
Congratulations.
That's a really amazing run.
I want to ask you, I live in the Marinette area and I spent time there when I was in high school and I lived there kind of for the second part of my childhood.
And I live there now and I, you know, probably similar to you having come from a bigger city.
How was, was that an adjustment?
Like I'm still kind of adjusting.
Like there are things I love about a small town.
It's very easy to live there.
But it can be quite boring at times if you're used to theater and just going out and being part of a bigger scene, I guess.
How do you guys, how have you adjusted to Central Wisconsin?
Well, well, I grew up in O'Connor Walk, which at the time was maybe five, six thousand.
And now it's more of a, it's much bigger.
It's now, you know, it's a big suburb of Milwaukee, essentially now.
But then I moved out to New York.
And New York is great, especially when you're in your 20s and you're young and you have a lot of energy, but it takes a lot of work to live there.
It's expensive.
You're always fighting.
You're always struggling.
And our intention was not to move here.
It just sort of happened.
And it's beautiful here.
You have seasons, which you have in New York, but you notice them a lot more here.
Yeah.
And things just sort of fell into place that this was like, well, we've built a life for ourselves here.
But yeah, in terms of the small town, it's different.
And trying to start an artistic, you know, an arts organization in a small town, which is probably predominantly conservative as is most of central Northern Wisconsin.
It's a bit like, you know, missionaries in Africa.
It's like, you know, we're not sure we're really wanted here.
But after 15 years now, I think we feel like we're part of the community.
And our community is not just why we... Wapaka is probably our biggest audience, because we're just literally less than 10-minute drive from Wapaka.
Okay.
And we also get, that's for all our events, we get a lot of people in WAPAC and we're pretty tight with the folks there, all the arts organizations.
In fact, the WAPAC at community theaters now, I think for the fourth or fifth time, they're gonna do a show this winter at the Opera House.
They're doing Odd Couple, the female version.
Next February.
And again, we also get audiences from Stevens Point, Appleton, Green Bay, Oshkosh, New London, especially for the film festival.
We get people from all over.
But yeah, I guess back to your question, adjusting how to live here.
I mean, I like being outdoors and we bought an old farm.
We have an old farm and we have 10 acres, but we're surrounded by 200 acres of farmland.
And so I just, it's like, I'd spend as much time outside as I can and that's nice.
It's a big plus of being here.
Yeah, you can't find that in
New
York.
I will say this, my next question was gonna be, where do you get most of your, like you mentioned, it's very small town and some of these films you're bringing in,
you know, you don't typically people in small towns aren't exposed to that.
So I think it's really cool that you're exposing such a small community to that.
But as you say, Wapaka as well.
But where do most of the people that attend your festival, do they come from out of town?
Or do you have, have you kind of ingrained yourself in the local community so they come out as well?
Yeah, I think we have a lot of locals.
And then
You know, we show a lot of Wisconsin films.
So we have a lot of the Wisconsin filmmakers show up and then their friends and family.
And we usually every year we get, oh, 10 or 12 out of state folks and even a few international folks flying in for the film festival.
And I tell them, you know, I warn them, you know, this is just we're a small town.
There's not a whole lot to do here.
But it's a charming community, and you'll meet some filmmakers and see a lot of good films.
And everybody who comes here from overseas have had a great time.
Well, it's really, I love the idea of the Opera House.
Tell us a little bit about the venue.
Like I know you said it was built in 1915.
What is the capacity?
Is it haunted?
Are there some fun stories behind it?
The capacity is roughly 300 to 400, depending on the seating configuration.
300 for us is a full house, but we've you can get more in there because we do take we do a tables and chairs a cabaret seating type thing.
Nice.
And we do have a balcony so we can get people up there.
But I suppose if we were to just cram chairs in there, we could probably fit 400 people in there.
But we've had 300 plus in there for shows.
Yeah, it's so it was built in 1915 basically is a vaudeville house.
So it's not real fancy, but
It's got, and like most theaters, and back in the day, everything like that was called an opera house.
I think in the late 1880s, 1890s, opera sort of became a thing, and so they built these venues, and they'd call them opera houses, thinking, oh, we're not gonna do opera, but vaudeville is starting, so we'll get the vaudeville acts, and opera just sounded better.
So around the Midwest, you have a lot of opera houses.
Oshkosh has an opera house, I think.
Walsa has an opera house.
And those are fans here.
So the bigger this was this one was actually built by George Gerald, who was a farmer who did did pretty well for himself.
And I think he was retired.
He's like, oh, I want to build a entertainment venue.
I guess.
And so this was it was this this was built with it.
It does not have a rape floor.
You know, most theaters have a rape floor.
This was built with a flat floor so they could have dances and things like that.
It sounds.
Really charming.
My guest is Ian Teal.
He is the festival director for the Why We Got International Film Festival, which takes place November 12th through the 15th.
We're talking about the venue.
All the films are at this venue, the Gerald Opera House, which I think just sounds so exciting.
And it sounds like it's going to be a blast.
Do you have documentaries?
Because we're talking about documentaries tonight, Ian.
Do you have some good documentaries this year?
Yeah.
I got my list here.
We have oh One one that's interesting what you may have seen is green blah the history of the Green Bay punk rock scene And this was filmed I think the past few years and it's shown in Green Bay I think it they showed at the Green Bay Film Festival But this is about I think the late 80s and early 90s.
There was a big punk rock scene in Green Bay, which I'd never heard of and
These guys have a lot of interviews with these guys who are still around, who are in these bands, and they talk about the venues they had.
Bart Starr's son was in one of these bands, and he was a big deal.
No
way,
that's great.
And they talk about, oh, we used to go to Bart Starr's and rehearse in his basement, and he was really cool about it.
And so that film, that film is for local interest that these guys did a really good job of pulling all this information together, which I had no idea was going on.
Another we have one called no one cares about crazy people, which is basically looks at how there's no treatment for mentally ill.
A lot of these people just end up on the street because it used to be there'd be mental health centers.
That's not a thing anymore.
I think now people just want to give them pharmaceuticals and say, you're fine.
So this takes, I think, three or four cases where these people are just sort of lost in the wayside and are not getting the treatment they need because it's not something that our society, I guess, thinks we need or not sure.
Well, we'll do we're gonna do a quick break here with our guesty and teal and when we come back We're gonna tell you about some of the films you can see at this year's internet.
Why are we get international film festival which starts next week?
Mark from Prairie to Sax says he filmed it himself.
Oh, he's talking about that documentary Conrad.
guy the guy that built a cabin in the wilderness himself build it with his or filmed it With his own camera.
Oh my god
That's a great one.
Thank you.
Mike from Cottage Gross says, my favorite documentary is John Mayer, Someday I'll Fly.
Keep those texts coming, folks.
Thank you, Mike.
We're coming right back with Ian Thiel.
It's Pete Schwabba in Nightlight 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.
Keep on the sunny side, always on the sunny side.
Keep on the sunny side of life.
It will help us every day.
It will brighten up.
I'm Pete Schwab.
This is Nightlight.
Great to have you with me.
Conrad Krieger working the board tonight.
My guest is Ian Teal.
He is the Festival Director of the Waioiga International Film Festival, which takes place next week, starting November 12th.
And it goes through the weekend.
He is joining us tonight via the stream from
Wapaka, Ian.
I live in, I live near Fremont, actually.
Okay.
The Burbs.
Yeah.
Township of Wolf River.
Oh, wow.
Okay.
Very cool.
So how long does it take you to get to the opera house?
about nine minutes.
Oh, that's not too bad.
That's not a bad commute.
No
stoplights.
So tell us about some of this year's films.
What are you excited about?
I know we've had Daniel Wheeler on and he's got his film, The Voice in the Vessel, which I saw actually, I thought it was beautifully shot in a really pretty
cool
movie.
It's a short, yeah.
Yeah, it's kind of a sci-fi, twilight zone.
type of vibe.
Nice, nice film.
Oh, we have a film you may be familiar with called Failsafe.
Yes.
Yes, full disclaimer.
My son was part of a film.
He's the lead actor in a short film called Failsafe.
Yeah.
That one.
Not sure when that shows, but so here's a film that I definitely need to talk about.
So last year, one of our big main things is creating new works in theater and film and involving kids or youth.
So last year, and we've done a bunch of film projects over the years.
So last year, we were like, let's try and make a feature film.
So we got together with a bunch of high school kids.
came up with some story ideas with them.
And then over the spring and summer, we made a feature film.
It was very, it took so long because these kids are so busy, they're like, they got sports, they got banned.
In the summer, they all had jobs.
So we'd knock off a scene, like we'd have, oh, Saturday, we can get these two kids together.
So we'd knock off a scene.
And I think we shot from like March to, March to September, but we got it done.
And we're
screening
that film.
This is a film about a group of high school kids who are sort of throwing curveballs and they have to deal with it.
So it's sort of, you know, a day in the life of a handful of high school kids or more of a summer.
It sort of takes course over a summer.
And that's called Shooting Stars.
And we're showing that on Saturday, I think at 6 p.m.
And that was a great project because we had all these kids, the kids served as the crew.
They help come up with the story, and then again, they all acted in it.
And that was pretty, also, our filmmaker friend, John Joest, who, if independent filmmakers may know him, he is kind of, he's one of the guys that first started making feature films for nothing back in the 80s and 90s.
And he was, I worked on a film of his back in New York called All the Vermeers and New.
But all the viewers in New York back in, was it 92 or 93?
Anyhow, he was out here a couple of years ago, and then he came back last summer.
So I said, John, we're going to put you in this movie.
So he plays Farmer John, and he has some very nice scenes in the film.
Anyhow.
That's great.
The one with the kids, that's a really impressive, that's a big undertaking.
Yeah, it was.
it was, it was, you know, I'll say it was, I'm glad we did it, but I'm never going to do that again.
Shoot it over nine months.
Because it's just, you know, it's like, it's kind of nerve wracking.
But
we got it done.
And I think it came out pretty good.
And so we got that.
Yeah, some of the other films
You've
got the last rung on the ladder, Ian.
And
I've
interviewed Jeff Blankenship on the show, Max Blaska, Kurt Krause.
They've all talked about that film.
I still
haven't
seen it.
So that's exciting.
I think that, and it's based on a Stephen King work, which
is kind of cool.
It's a Stephen King short, yep.
And I think, so Wednesday, I think starting at 6pm, I'm sorry, Thursday is our Wisconsin day.
Starting at 6pm, I think it is, we have...
Oh, nine or 10 Wisconsin shorts, including last rung on the ladder.
I think we're also showing your son's film failsafe.
Yeah.
Um, there's a embodied, which is a limbroso documentary.
Um, uh, what else we have?
There's, um,
the dreams fuel greatness.
That that sounds like an interest about a young athlete that looks interesting.
Yes.
We have two films like that.
There's one about a boxer.
These very short little documentaries, I think they're both out of Milwaukee.
One's about a boxer and one's about a baseball player.
That's part of the fun for me in going I love seeing short films at a film festival They're all anywhere from you know two to 15 minutes long And it's just like it's just such a great format because you don't get to see great short films typically anywhere other than film festivals So
exactly.
Yeah, you're not gonna.
Yeah, I mean if you if you wanted to I suppose you could find them on the internet if you want to but
But usually you go to film festivals and most of these are calling cards or their student projects or college projects.
But some of them are just great.
They just tell a terrific story.
They're beautifully shot.
And it's amazing what you can do in 10 or 15 minutes.
Here's
that we got a text on the stream Ian from Craig Kinnit who says, the Why We Could Film Festival is a fantastic place to see great movies, rub some elbows and have a tasty old fashioned or three.
Also, you can see Daniel needs to leave as well, which is Craig's movie.
Yes.
Yeah, yeah.
Craig and I are good buddies.
He's done a he's done a bunch of theater projects with that's in the past and he's also helped us with the film film workshops with the kids over the years Yeah, he does a lot.
Yeah
Go
ahead.
He's he has he's I think the artistic director at the Green Bay Boys and Girls Club
and he does a lot of great stuff with them.
Well, you're doing great stuff there too, buddy.
I just, I can't wait to, I'll see you on Thursday, I guess.
I'll watch, I'm gonna watch that film
as
well as all these other great films.
It was great having you on last year and great having you on this year and break a leg this year.
Exciting stuff.
All right.
Well, thank you so much for having me.
Anytime, Ian.
All right.
Okay.
That
is Ian Teal.
Folks, check out the YWiga Film Festival.
Go to their website.
It's a great website and you can see.
all the films they have to offer.
In just three days, the amount of films they're putting on in such a great venue is really, really exciting stuff.
And it's a great little festival that gets fantastic reviews.
So check it out.
When we come back, Heather Heil will be here from the Green Bay Children's Museum.
We're going to give her our Packer Quiz, and she's going to tell us about all the cool stuff they have coming up.
It's Pete Schwabba and Nightlight on the Civic Media Radio Network.
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