136 - Martha's Vineyard - Special Report

Weirding Way Media. Welcome to episode one hundred and thirty six of the Film Youmentaries podcast. This is your host, Jamie Benning. A bit different to usual. This is not going to be an interview episode.

This is going to be a bit of a rambler episode. But I thought it was about time I gave you an update on our trip to Martha's Vineyard. We did in June to continue to shoot our Joe Al's documentary, which we've been working on since twenty twenty two. So the project kind of really began when I interviewed Joe for the podcast this podcast back in twenty twenty one, and Joe is known for Jaws and close encounters, but what became apparent to me when I was interviewing him is that there's so much more to his life and career. So we thought, you know, in the same vein as the interviews I did with Dave Barkley, the puppeteer, Robert Watts and Evil Power, the producers that my friend and cameraman Patrick Tindall, and I decided that maybe Joe was worth the same treatment.

So like a thirty minute short documentary. Now we always say we have the most fun of all the jobs we do in a year. When we do these little projects, it's always great to you know, go and visit these people and talk to them about their long careers, both off and on camera, create friendships, and also find out things that maybe aren't out there in the public domain, things that would interest us if we saw them in a documentary or you know, read them in an article or or heard them in a podcast. So back in March twenty twenty two, we traveled over to Los Angeles. We managed to get a bit of money together to go out and see Joe, and on the way over on the plane, we were kind of laughing with each other about, you know, how do we get ourselves into these situations, and that we hope that Joe, you know, still had some stuff from his career.

And when we went to visit Evoor a couple of years prior, he had some old annotated scripts from Alien and Blade Runner, and they were annotated with some Ridley grams, and he had some bits from two thousand and one, some of the patches and a piece of the fabric from the spacesuits, from the astronauts' suits, and he had like the tape of the things you see in them monitor display in both Alien and Blade Runner. They recycled those, so you know, we were hoping that Joe would have some stuff too. So we arrived in Los Angeles, we booked ourselves into a crappy motel with all of our gear, chained it all up with bicycle locks and put it in an awkward place so that hopefully nobody would steal it, and we drove over to the north west of Hollywood to go and see Joe, and as we pulled up at his house, he was standing leaning up against his car, you know, instantly recognizable there he is, said, Baddie, you know, in this kind of enthusiastic voice, and immediately he was super welcoming.

It was just so welcoming. And at this time, when was it, It was like, yeah, So March twenty two. We were still COVID testing then, and we'd done multiple tests leading up to the trip. We did one I think I did one on the plane, and then we did one that morning to make sure that we were still negative. And we said to Joe, you know that we've got masks.

He said, no, no, don't worry. You've shown me that you've done tests. And then negative, come in, make yourself at home. And we went into the house and we met his lovely wife, Jerry, and his daughter, and I think our cousin was there visiting, and we met the dog, and immediately we just felt at home. You know, they made us feel very welcome, and the house is full of like amazing character, just like you'd ex back from somebody who's an artist and a production designer.

And to cut a long story short, it was apparent that he did have a lot of things in his possession from his career, including blueprints, storyboard sketches, photographs. There were like polar or continuity polaroids, and it was apparent immediately, you know, Paddy and I kind of looked at each other and silently communicated, this is not going to be a thirty minute documentary. This could be a feature. And we've always talked about maybe trying to do a feature at some point. So over the next five days we interviewed Joe.

We've got some amazing stories. We got, you know, the kind of ones that he often would tell on the podcast, but we got also stories that we never thought we'd hear, and we saw some of those incredible items that we never expected to see as well. And luckily, Joe's a bit of a hoarder. He's kept so much of his artwork, so much of what connects him to those films. They're kind of like these physical memories, you know, this kind of living history.

While we were there, I also managed to get permission to shoot at the Academy Museum, right next to Bruce who's hanging there from the ceiling. And to have Joe stood there in front of that shark telling us about his experiences. It was a proper, you know, spine tingling moment. So fast forward to March twenty twenty three, we managed to get out to la again thanks to the fact that Paddy was already out there working. He had his kit with him, and it was a matter of me getting over there, paying for my flights and the hotels and stuff.

And again we spent time with Joe, but we also visited his colleague and friend, Roy arbergast special effects wizard down in Arizona. That was like a twelve hour round trip, but so worth it. We interviewed Dennis Prince, Joe's biographer, Taylor Hackford, who's a director Joe worked with. He's married to Helen Mirren, and we interviewed him in their back garden in Hollywood. We went to visit Greg Nicotero his creature shop.

He's a friend of Joe's and says that Joe was a big inspiration to him and also a huge Jaws fan. And we also went to see Jeffrey Kramer, star of Jaws and Jaws two, at his house in la He was very welcoming and accommodating and fun to be around. And we went up to northern California to interview Kevin Pike, another special effects wizard who Joe employed on Jaws. Nice story behind that as well, which he may have heard on the podcast before, which started off Kevin's career. He famously went on to build a DeLorean fall back to the future.

At the time up in northern California, it was very snowy. He'd been snowed in in his log cabin. I think we're the first We were the first visitors that he had for a couple of weeks. So the project was basically getting bigger and bigger, but we still knew we had a ton of work to do, and you know, people take six months to a year to do these things working in full time, and really at that point we'd only just had two weeks on it. So at that time we'd only really had two weeks to work on it.

We've gathered some amazing footage, some amazing views as a wonderful b roll, but you know, we're always trying to push to the next step. Now I can't remember the order of things, but no, I can't remember things the order of things exactly. I'm doing this off the top of my head. But we did do a Kickstarter campaign where we hoped to raise eighty thousand pounds I. Think it was.

I think we got forty two forty three, but I don't know if you know. But with kickstars, if you don't reach your goal, you don't get any of it. So you know, that eighty thousand figure was a number we've kind of worked out roughly what we'd need. I mean, actually, if you want a proper audio mix on a documentary for a cinema release, you could pay double that just for the audio mix. So I thought eighty gram was the reasonable amount we could really have done with that forty two thousand, But no, we didn't get it, But you know, we carried on so in twenty twenty four, we were working on editing, We were putting comps together, just getting a feeling of what was missing, what else did we need to do.

We spoke to some editors and producers. We had a bunch of meetings with producers who said they could probably sell it, but the message was that we really needed to finish it first. You know, gone other days where one of the big streamers would say yes to a concept and give you money up front. So it was on us to try and push on as much as we could, you know, and it can be complicated sometimes. You know, Paddy works away, I'm working in the UK, we're not He lives.

In Northern Ireland. I live in London, and we're both trying to co direct this and we both got our own ideas and we've both got our kind of joint ideas of what the film should be. So it's very difficult to kind of push it forward in any great leaps. But we did make some really good progress putting like a reel together to try and share internally, and we've had some amazing reactions from people in the industry saying they love it and they wish they could do more. To help and all this kind of stuff, but it does mean that, you know, the feel of the piece, the feel of the documentary is something that we've managed to communicate to people, and yeah, it really felt like, you know, it definitely had legs, which was a which was a great thing.

Patty and I had always talked about the fiftieth anniversar of Jaws maybe as a point where we could try and release the documentary, but that was back in twenty twenty two that we were saying that, and it became apparent that we were not going to reach that and probably it's probably probably a good thing because there's loads of draw stuff being done for the fiftieth and the documentary about Joe could easily been buried. La rom Bouseureau had that Jaws at fifty documentary coming out. There's all the celebrations going on, the Academy Museum stuff, So we kind of knocked that idea on the head. But what we did think that is, if Joe is going to go to the vineyard for the fiftieth, we have to be there, you know, to to shoot kind of Joe's legacy.

Really in our minds, it was the part of the documentary that would allow us to talk about Joe's legacy and how fifty years later the film is still loved, still adored, people are visiting all of. That kind of stuff. So it became apparent that I just wasn't going to be able to afford to do this. The flights alone were looking expensive. Then you've got to hire a car, and then you've got the ferry, and then you've got accommodation on the island, and the island is a very expensive place to be.

You know, once you're on the island, they kind of got you. Everything just costs that a little bit more. I hadn't been there previously, but Paddy had, and that was one of the things he came back with, you know that if you have money in your pocket, they'd find a way to get it out for pocket. Yeah, so I wasn't going to be able to do this. Paddy was talking about going there as as a punter, you know, just as a fan, but it's so difficult for me.

I've got you know, I've got three kids, ones about to go to university. At this point. It's a very expensive way to live. It's not like I've got huge amounts of disposable income. So yeah, I just knew I wasn't going to be able to do it.

I've got three kids and a mortgage, and I've already plowed quite a few thousand pounds into this, you know, we both have, So with a matter of weeks to go, I just thought I'll do a gofund me and see what happens. And incredibly, within a couple of days it had reached two thousand pounds. But whilst you know, we were the days were ticking by. The accommodation prices a math as vinyl were increasing exponentially, particularly in Egatam where we would need to stay, which is where Joe was going to be based, and the fiftieth anniversary event organized by Michael Fortcher. Was going to be there as well.

But it was kind of apparent that this amount on go Funny was ticking up and up and up, and within a week he got up to five thousand pounds I think it was, which meant it was now entirely possible. Michael Fortcher, who's doing the fiftieth event, kindly offered us at access to his event at the Wolf Pub, where Joe was going to be and Greg was going to be Greg Nikota and Jeffrey Cram and Jeffrey Vorhes who was the kidna kid in the film, and a bunch of other people associated with Jaws. So after that five thousand pounds was reached, we booked our flights. We booked the car we needed to find. Actually that's right, because the ferry tickets, the car ferry tickets had sold out, so then we had to book the car rental in Martha's Vineyard, but then find a way to get from Boston to Martha's Vineyard.

Flights were just ridiculous. From Boston to Martha's Vineyard, they were like five hundred dollars each, maybe five hundred pounds each. So we ended up getting a car down from Boston Airport to Woodshole where the ferry is, and we booked that. Then accommodation had gone up even more. There was a hotel in Encatown, the only one left that had places, was charging nine hundred dollars a night for a room, and that was for a single.

So as again the gofunding amount kind of was ticking up towards the seven thousand pound mark, we booked this house in Edgartown, which is more money than I've ever spent on a piece of accommodation for a holiday, let alone for a shoot like this. But thankfully, because of the amazing generos t you know, we were able to book that and it was going to be a great base where we had hopefully somewhere to interview people. If that was the case, or. You know, if we wanted our kit all kind of laid out, we needed more than a hotel room. I also had to buy some audio kicks.

I wanted to make sure that the audio side of things was really kind of autotype for this shoot. And so I think for that two three hundred pounds that was raised, every single penny was spent. I even spent some more of my own money, and Penny spent some more of his. But the incredible generosity of people had just been amazing, you know, the faith that people had put in us to make this film. Some were friends, some were family, some were people that have followed me on the film Youmentary's Quest for many years, some of people who listened to the podcast.

Some were people I sort of tangentially knew via my association with my love of film, And honestly, it was quite emotional. I was quite moved to see how many people are putting in money in, even a few strangers. People I had no idea who you were. Must have came across the project and decided to put money in. Amazing, So thank you.

I'm going to say thank you probably several times through this Ranby podcast episode. I've since found out the bad news, which is I'm probably going to be taxed on that income, so I also need to find twenty percent of it back, which is going to be a bit of a struggle. But that side will figure that out when it becomes you know, really it should only be taxed on it when it becomes a commercial prospect, and at the moment it is not a commercial prospect. You know, when it sells, if it sells, No, when it sells, then it's commercial, right, So hopefully I can figure my way around that. But yeah, without that incredible generosity, to go from zero to being able to do what we wanted to do within that short period of time was just kind of mind blowing, and honestly it still hasn't quite landed in my brain yet just what we managed to pull off.

So I quickly got a scheduled together of interviews and you know, a shot list and the time we were going to spend with Joe and where we were going to take him because he had commitments. He was on the island for this fiftieth event with Michael Forlcher, so he had commitments there. Each night he had one at the Martha's Vineyard Museum where he was doing a podcast, and then he had some book signing in Edgar Town in the bookshop there for his Designing Jaws book and the new biography by Dennis Prince that was just out at that time. But we had, you know, some key things we wanted to do with Joe. So on that Wednesday I headed up to Easthrow Airport to meet Paddy and we headed to Boston.

We arrived about four o'clock I think that day, and we picked up We met up with the taxi transfer guide to get to woods Hull where you catch the ferry to Martha's Vineyards, and we arrived very late. The traffic was rubbish and we managed to squeeze on to the very last ferry that night, and there was one point where we thought going to have to stay in woods Hole, but no, we managed it and with our seven bags between the two of us, just four hands, but seven bags. Because we've got all the kit, tripods, cameras, lenses, you know, our clothing, all that kind of stuff. We got on as foot passengers. There was a lot of balancing and wrangling going on with all this gear, and by the time we landed in Martha's vineyard it was gone eleven, I think.

So by the time we got to our house it was nearly midnight, and then it was raining and the code wouldn't work, so I had to ring the guy who was managing it and all a bit of a fath but we got in and the house was great, a couple of bedrooms, a nice bit of space to put all the kits out, because what we realized is we needed to stay kind of agile, and yes we did have these things that we wanted to do, but what if an opportunity came up. We wanted to be able to kind of pounce. So we had all the kit was built by Paddy, that's his area of expertise. While I was kind of ringing around trying to sort things out. So on that first morning we went to the local diner and edgar Town.

It was about a twenty five minute, twenty minute walk into Edgartown, and when you arrive, you just, you know, you instantly realize you're kind of in the film, you know. I've looked at that film so many times, having made Inside Jaws as well as this project. And you walk around and you've got those picket fences and the boarded houses, and it was a gorgeous sunny morning as well. So we went into the diner and we waited for our friends, and after a few minutes of perusing the menud, we were starving by this point. Joe and Jerry and his bark for Dennis came in and Dennis's wife as well, and it was all hugs and kisses and handshakes and lots of big smiles, and everyone was happy to see each other again and embark on this next little bit of the adventure.

Joe was on good form, cracking a couple of jokes at the table, and on that first day it was difficult not to be kind of a bit rudderless because we were just trying to work out what we could do, you know, And Michael kindly invited us to the Jaws fiftieth event for the guests before the actual sort of signing and Q and A event was happening the following night, so we went to see Joe and Jeffrey and I. Don't think Greg was there yet. With Jeffrey voorhe's the kid. The kid was there. Marty Milner, who also worked on the movie as a construction guy.

I think he was the first hire on the movie. You know. Super grateful to Michael Fulture for that opportunity. We didn't end up shooting anything at that fiftieth event. It was kind of too crowded and too busy, and you know, we had a big camera gear and stuff.

But we were able for one of those nights to use it as a bit of a base and you know, touch base with Joe and talk about what we could do, you know, in the following days. And that first evening we walked around egg a town down by the dark, and we bumped into a few people who were wearing Jaws T shirts and had a chat with a couple of people who actually recognized me from my filmingmentaries from years ago. And we had a nice long chat on the road and we were talking about the documentary, and yeah, the atmosphere was just kind of electric there because everybody was there for that common reason that, you know, that love of the movie. And it was really warm and really welcoming, friendly atmosphere.

So from that Thursday to the Monday when we left, we did not stop. You know, we woke up, we went to the diner. Some days we met Dennis and Joe and Jerry, and other days we just ate and we jumped in the car and we went shooting. We shot some color in Edgar Town with Joe and without Joe. He was due over at the museum for part of a podcast with Michael Smith, and then we later joined them at the museum and Joe was still in the middle of his podcast, and we were told by the museum that we couldn't shoot there, despite having contacted them earlier and it being a possibility.

You know, they wanted money up front, and we just weren't able to spend any more money, and it was quite a bit of money, and we were trying to explain the city situation that we were just there with Joe and we just needed a couple of shots, but they just weren't interested. But they were pretty accommodating and letting us go and see the exhibition there, which was cool, and then later on we were able to shoot in the Orca interior replica that was outside that was created by a very friendly guy named Court Carino. We met him and his lovely wife, who got very emotional because we managed to introduce Court to Joe. Joe had just walked out after the podcast and he came to meet us, and there we were at this Orca interior which was based in another building just across the lawn from the main museum, and Court was kind of blown away.

He got to show Joe, you know, the guy who'd originally found the warlock that turned into the Orca, and show him around and Court let us sit in there. Oh yeah, I bumped into my longtime online friend Charles de Lauza, Rica, who if you don't know, he has been a guest on this a couple of times this podcast. He was Ridley scott right hand man, behind the scenes guy for many many years and a filmmaker and director in his own right. So it's great to see him. And we got to sit in the Orca, me, Paddy and Charles and then Joe sating there having a chat with Court, the guy who created who rebuilt this interior and talk about you know, the aging of it and all the items in the in the cabin and ask Court why he was doing it, and you know it's going to be Court's office actually, which is quite funny.

Anyway, Court was a super nice guy and his wife, who really did get emotional. We had a big hug and she was so grateful that the opportunity just to meet Joe was there for Court. She could see what it meant to him, and it was just a great atmosphere. Just it was a total loving, honestly at yours loving. So as each day passed, we continued our ritual of visiting the diner, working our way through the menu, making notes in our pads about the day ahead, what we could do, what we couldn't do, what we wanted to do, and what we hoped to do.

And so during that five days that we were there, we ended up in the famous town hall. By stroke of luck, we bumped into somebody who invited us in and we shot in there. We took Joe to Mnemshire where Quint's Shack was built, and you know that plot is still empty, and Joe took us up the hill like oh, I went up here fifty one years ago and we just followed him with a camera and we got these just so charming, these moments with Joe just walking up the hill looking for the spot where Joe originally looked down on that really charming fishing village and chose it as the location and suggested it to Stephen. We were right there, you know, with Joe, with the man who did it. Fifty one years later, we went to the Fourth of July Beach, the Jaws Bridge, that book signing that was talking about the Egg of Town bookshop, and it was great to see Joe.

You know, he always turns it on. He's really charming and as is Dennis. You know, they do it. They're like a great little duble act. So interviewed Marty Milner, the guy who I said worked on construction, very eccentric character.

We interviewed Charles de la. Za Rica, who is really good at kind of putting the movie landscape with the context a context of the documentary, and they're talking about the film culture at the time and just where the movie business was, and it's a good setting for some of Joe's stories. So yeah, it's great to. Finally meet Charles like in person and hang out with him and some of his friends that he was staying there with. He was there just as a fan, and now he's part of a documentary, which I couldn't be happy about, honestly.

We also hung out with two guys who were making a documentary about Jeffrey Voorhees. That was good fun. They were nice guys. And we're also accompanied by one of Patty's friends who we'd known since they were kids and who was a Jaws fan. And he come down for a few days and was soaking up the atmosphere and just enjoying the fact that he got to meet all these Jaws folks.

You know, we were kind of his VIP ticket. We're also lucky enough to bump into Laurent Bouceau. I just interviewed him the week before, two weeks before for the podcast about his Jaws at fifty and he was just sitting on this bench out the back of the fiftieth anniversary venue and we took him down to the dock just where Richard Drapus's character arrives in the movie, and we interviewed Laurent, and yeah, it was great to sort of soak up some of that enthusiasm that was going on around the around the island at the time. And I'm very grateful to Laurent for giving us his time as well. He's a great filmmaker and a really good guy.

That was one of the very few evenings actually where we had a bit of bound time for some food and a drink and a laugh, and the rest of the time we were just putting our kit together, disassembling it, transferring footage from cars to laptops, charging Mike's, sorting out everything for the next day. It was pretty full on, but it was just pure Lynn, you know. I also have to say that throughout this Jerry has been fantastic. She used to be a production manager and an assistant to Taylor Hackford, and she's been great at making lots of connections, including Taylor Hackford when we were there in twenty twenty three, and helped us with the Academy Museum where we shot in twenty twenty two, and then she managed to chat to Richard Drafus's manager.

I asked if we could get you know, like twenty five minutes half an hour with Richard beforehand, we kind of decided that perhaps we didn't need Richard for the documentary because you know, his experience isn't. Hugely related to Joe's work. But if we you know, we were there, he was there, if we could get him to talk about Joe, that would be fantastic. So a few days into the trip, I got a text from his manager saying, yes, you can have Richard for twenty five minutes, pick a location and let us know he has to be before this time because he has to be at the fiftieth event. So thankfully we were able to shoot at a friend's house on the island, and we set up in the driveway of this house, nice little quiet road, picket fences and all that, because I had such a nice little background where you could see like you know, those paneled houses.

You know, it really felt like Amity. Well it was, you know. So me and Paddy and Charles and some of his friends were pacing around for a little while waiting for Richard to arrive, and then suddenly there he was. You know, he got out of the car. You know, he's not a young man anymore.

We're all getting old. But you know, as soon as you see him smile, there's absolutely no doubt that you're looking at Richard Dreyfus, you know. And I have to say it was a bit of a buzz, you know, probably the biggest name I've ever interviewed. I'm sure it is. I'm sure it must be.

And then he sat down and his manager had said that he'd been talking about Joe on the drive over and they had a good couple of stories. So we sat him down, we miked him up, and we started the interview. Now, you know, Richard has these stories and over the years he's talked about, you know, the Shark is not working and all of that stuff with Robert Shaw. But we really wanted him to becaus in on Joe's contribution, you know, picking Eggo Town and his first reactions when he arrived as an actor. What does that do being in an environment like that, or walking into Quince Shack for the first time seeing what Joe and his colleagues are built.

But Richard really wanted to talk about Robert Shaw. So for the first half of the interview, maybe more, he was talking about his reactions to Robert Shaw, and I was kind of constantly trying to get back on track. But Richard really wanted to say these things, and he wanted us to hear them, so I'm kind of editing in my head, and actually we've got a good few minutes of him talking about stuff that is related to Joe, not only on Jaws, but about close encounters as well, which of course they both worked on. Sometimes these older guys they do go off piece. You know, they've got their kind of repertoire and they have to run through that first.

I wish we had a bit more time with Richard. Unfortunately he had to go, and I was a little bit disheartened when, you know, I couldn't steer him back towards the subject of Joe out. But you know, it's not every day you get to interview a bit of a cinema legend, really. I mean, it's Richard Bloody Dreyfuss sat there in front of me, smiling at me and engaging with me, and there is some great stuff that we got. You know, some of it isn't good for the documentary, but the release he signed says I can use that footage on my podcast on my YouTube channel, So look out for that stuff coming in the future as well, you know.

So looking back at the trip as a whole. I mean, it's incredible that we even got there. There was a point where I was just saying that I just can't afford to do it. I just can't go. I couldn't justify it.

But to make the trip, actually make it, actually go there, and to have all of that kindness and warmth in those donations to the GoFundMe, it's just incredible. People's incredible generosity and that trust and that love I felt from people who were just willing to part with the hardened cash to see this project progress to the next step. You know, we boarded the very that last day and there was Joe and Jerry and in the queue and a bunch of other fans we could see wearing T shirts and it was just a bit of a whirlwind. We had not stopped working. We just didn't have downtime.

We were constantly working. I don't even remember going to bed at night, honestly, I just remember I was asleep before my head hit the pillow. I think. And each morning, just wake up, grab a coffee in the house, go through our routine, go to the diner, work on what we were going to do. So none of this, I mean, I still don't think it has really landed in our minds yet, just what we were able to achieve on the island, and also just the experience of just being there in a place where they shot Jaws, you know, fifty one years ago, back in nineteen seventy four, and be there with Joe and Dennis and Jeffrey and Marty and Richard and all of those people who were there back then making this film, just doing a job.

You know, they had no idea that it was going to take off to be this incredible worldwide blockbuster and industry defining movie. You know, we've made so many friends along the way, But sitting on this ferry, you know, holding our tripods and cameras and sound gear and miscellaneous cables being rocked by the gentle waves, we kind of looked at each other, Paddy and I, and we just couldn't compute how cool an experience it had been. Each time we see Joe and Jerry, you know, that bond gets stronger and the trust gets stronger. You know. One of the things about this project is that we really have kind of fallen in love with Joe and Jerry and his daughter and their dog, and we kind of have this responsibility to make the film.

You know, Joe is eighty nine. None of us are getting any younger, and we really want to get this finished, to be able to show Joe and to have this as a mark of his legacy and for his family and future generations to be able to, you know, appreciate what Joe did and for the fans to see what an amazing career he had. I'm sure this part of show that things come on. Guys, bloody, get on with it. You've been doing this for four years because he is one of those guys, you know, always forging ahead.

He's always looking to the next project or the next part of the project. Maybe less so now he's retired, but he still has that in him, you know, that shark like attitude of keep swimming forward. And we take inspiration from that, you know, nudging the project forward little by little. But this Martha's Vineyard Trip had been a huge leap forward. It really had.

You know, there's that saying that you know, the more you know, the more you realize what. You don't know. And the more we create this film, the more we realize how much more we have to create. But that just spurs us on you know that wonderful footage of Joe walking around Martha's vineyard to you know, him dipping into a drawer and pulling out and Escape from New York storyboard in his house, and the story is about Disney and Jews two and Jaws three and working with John Carpenter. You know, there's still a lot of work to do, and there's still funds to be raised.

But our next target is to get some money in the pot, to be on standby, to be able to take an opportunity when it arises. And what we're doing is we're going to try and get Dean Coundy, the cinematographer who worked on Escape from New York, John Carpenter who directed Escape from New York, and starman Joe who worked on both of those. Leah Thompson, who Jaws three was her first film and she, you know, she saw Joe at convention a few years back and get with a big hug and said, this is the man that got me in the movies. But the big one, Steven Spielberg himself, We're going to try and get. We've got connections to all of these people in some form or another, and I'm going to try and attack that from multiple angles.

You know, maybe if Steven's over here in the UK, we can get him, then maybe we can go to La again, you know, if we can raise the funds, and it certainly won't be as expensive as the Martha's Vineyard trip, because you know, you can find somewhere cheap to stay in La. We could even crash at Joe's I'm sure if we needed to. But wouldn't it be great to just get Stephen and Joe on camera just talking about old times. It's kind of been a bit of a dream of ours since since we started the project. So I have kind of relaunched the go fund me over the last week or so.

There's a bit of a drip feed of money coming in maybe I think about one hundred pounds so far, which is great, again thanks to everybody's generosity, But we really do need your help again because you know, studios aren't going to do this. It's fans that are going to do this. And we haven't got an endless pot of money, and I'm sure you haven't either, But just a little donation, if enough of you give a little donation, that could mean that we could get out there we could interview Stephen and Dean and Leah and John and it would just bring so much to the project. So if you want to have a look at gofund me, just search for gofund me and Joe out and I'll leave it in the show notes as well the link to that.

I'd be super grateful if you consider contributing to the documentary again or for the first time. If there's anybody out there as well that wants to be involved outside of the go fund me, as maybe an executive producer who's got a bigger donation that we could talk about, then yeah, give us a shout. Info at filmnumentaries dot com. That's the email address you can reach me on. I should also say good news that one of the editors that we were chasing, who's a mutual friend of ours, we spoke to him for the first time a couple of years ago.

I think about the project and how we'd love to have him involved, but unfortunately he's just too busy to work. He's great, he's a great editor, great guy, and thankfully he has plenty of work. But what he has done is suggested a edit assistantly work with who really wants to make the leap to features, and he's willing to kind of get the project in some shape for us, So we've recently sent him the drives. He's getting it all in the avid and transcribed, and yeah, we're really excited to see what he's going to put together. It's great to have him involved.

And the that I was talking about as well is going to work with us editorially, but just not do the editing because he wants to see the project made as well. And it's just this mutual love we have for you know, this subject, and it's people like us that are going to do it. Like I said before, there's nobody else going to make this documentary, so we need to do it and we need your help. So if you can help, be super grateful. It's amazing to think back at you know, at the start, back in twenty twenty one, when I interviewed him and then us visiting la in March twenty twenty two, the idea of getting Spielberg and Carpenter and Kundy and Thompson would have seen completely out the realms of what we're able to achieve.

But now we've got I think something like fifteen interviews in the bag. Oh there's one I didn't mention. Actually, when we're in Martha's vineyard. You remember the girl who shouts shark shark, shark, shark in the pond, Well, that was Joe's girlfriend at the time. He was dating her whilst he was on the island.

You know, that was his private life. But we did interview her and a bit of a reunion between the two of them when we were at Michael's event and they talked about some of those experiences. That was cool. But yeah, getting Spielberg and co. Would have been totally out of the realms of something that we thought we could achieve.

But we've got those fifteen interviews in the bag, and we're getting some wonderful feedback from that trailer that we're sharing internally. The reason we're sharing it internally, by the way, is because we don't have copyright for public posting of that of that trailer because it uses copyright music and visuals. But we just want to. Share it with people internally in the industry to get some feedback and to show people the quality of the thing we're putting together. And I have to say, each time I watch it, if I have a couple of weeks away from from it, I go back to it and I'm like, wow, I want to see that.

And that's what continues to spare us on. You know, this is what we want to see, and have really embraced this kind of idea from both personal point of view and also for the documentary itself, about making your own luck. You know, Joe was able to maneuver his way up and through the industry pretty quickly out of particular jobs where it would have been difficult to get to the next rung of the ladder, and he sort of skipped the rungs of the ladder. And I like that idea of making your own luck. You know.

I've had a pretty amazing couple of years with now writing for Lucasfilm and visiting Skywalker Ranch and go to Martha's Vineyard, interviewing Richard Dreyfuss, and you know, so many highlights that are there because we've just kind of made it happen. We've made our own luck along with the you know, the generosity of people who follow what I do. It's just been great. So I'm hoping that next year or so that we are going to have a documentary to show you folks, you might take longer than that. I don't know.

I can't put a date on it yet because it depends on so many things. It depends on raising these extra funds getting back to LA. Who knows what's going to happen in the next year or so. But if you'd like to contribute, check the gofund me and the show notes, visit for me inimentaries dot com. Keep an eye on Jamie SWB on Twitter or x film youmentories on Instagram of Facebook.

Yeah, and thanks for listening to this little bonus ramblier episode. And I'll be back twice each month, two episodes each month of the podcasts as you would normally expect it with some interviews. I've got some great ones lined up in the coming months. I'm going to be going under the knife in the next week, so I'm going to be out for the count for a good week or so. They're recovering.

But yeah, I'll make sure that the two episodes a month are going. So if you want to support that as well, Patreon dot com, forward slash Jamie Benning and yeah, I look forward to hearing some feedback from you and hope you can join me for the next episode of the Film Your Entries podcast. We are Gekauay Media H