(bouncy upbeat music) - Hello and welcome to Art House, a Flatland conversation about all things art and cinema.

My name is John McGrath.

I'm a producer for Flatland at Kansas City PVS.

And guess what?

I'm also a filmmaker.

(beep) - Joining me today is Michelle Davidson Bratcher and Patrick Rae.

You guys, thank you so much for being on the show.

- Hi, thanks for having us.

- Yeah, okay I got these two awesome heavyweights that work together.

This is gonna be a great show.

Patrick, so I'm gonna introduce him.

Patrick, he's directed five features, his latest, "I Am Lisa" just premiered at the Boulevard Drive-In, and Art House was there to capture it all.

So I got some stuff to show you that later.

So Patrick, thank you so much for being on the show.

- Thanks for having me.

I'm glad to be here.

- And Michelle Davidson Bratcher.

I've known you for a long time.

She's a producer.

She's an actress, and she's an accomplished writer.

She's like a triple threat.

She's done it all.

And we've got a lot of talk about 'cause these two work together.

So Michelle, thank you so much for being here.

- It's great to be here, and we're a big fan of you John as well.

- Oh gosh, well, that's incredible.

Okay, no, stop, don't say anymore.

(laughs) Okay, so let's talk about you two working together.

Like what's going on now?

Like we talked about last night.

So Patrick, tell me about what's going on now with you.

- Okay, so right now we are in the process of looking at distribution for "I Am Lisa".

Obviously a lot of film festivals aren't happening at this point.

We've submitted it to several film festivals.

Some of them are getting pushed to 2021.

So we see an opportunity now to get the film out there, since there's gonna be a lull in product.

So right now we're looking for distribution and I think we're very, very close.

So hopefully the movie will be, hopefully in more drive-ins 'cause we were very surprised by the success of last Thursday.

And I'm excited about it because it's a horror movie and when I was making the film, I jokingly said, "It's my first drive-in movie."

So, appropriate that it's kind of my fate is become this movie that premiered in a drive-in.

So hopefully we'll have more drive-in screenings and some form of streaming in the next few months.

And in the meantime I've got some short films I'm promoting as well so.

- So Michelle, what's going on in Michelle Davidson Bratcher's land.

What do you do?

What are you working on?

What's going on?

- Well, as you know, I wear a lot of different hats, and so I'm just trying to optimize all of those opportunities while we're stuck indoors, which means I'm writing a lot, which is fantastic.

Patrick and I are developing a TV series that was based on one of the feature scripts that we wrote, a few years ago and it's been in development.

And it kind of slowed down a little bit because of the current conditions, but we're excited to see what happens next with that.

I have a new feature script that is a sci-fi that I'm hopeful to my other writing partner, Jeffrey Field and I hope to get that out to folks here soon.

And we, fingers crossed could potentially be sold out to one that's the goal, right?

- Right, exactly.

- (laughs) So I'm also doing some acting as well.

I was just on set yesterday on a feature filming in St. Joe, directed by Jason Hudson.

So we're still doing it, and I'm helping Sandra Martin and Isaac along on one of their features that...

So we're still doing it.

It's just on a smaller scale with much tinier crews and much smaller sets of actors.

- Well, that's awesome.

So it's so great the two of you work together, and you've done some shorts.

But I wanna talk about Arbor Demon 'cause.

- [Man] I won't let you do this.

- [Woman] Maybe we have no choice.

- That's a great story.

And when we were talking about it last night, I couldn't believe you did it in how many days you did it.

So, let's start with Arbor Demon, the story of that.

Let's start with you Michelle about writing it.

How does this whole Arbor demon thing come about?

- So Patrick and I had written short films together, and have we written another feature?

Or just-- - We did, we wrote one right before this so.

- Yeah, so this one we just wanted to have a very like minimal locations, a really small cast.

(omnious music) - I had that dream again last night.

- A couple going camping, and they both have some secrets.

And then there's this supernatural element at play in the woods.

So it's scary.

And there's conflict among the two, newly married couple, and kind of what's next for them.

So, we try to like tap into a lot of different audiences.

We wanted it to appeal to women, even my mom who hates scary movies, she watched it.

She covered her eyes like this several times.

But we wanted to appeal to a lot of different people.

And so, Patrick and I just, we write together so well because we genuinely like each other, and we have a lot of fun and we make each other laugh.

And we usually get off track, but we get back on track.

We try to find the best characters and then also the best creature.

Because it is a creature feature, to be unique and in this case, (baby crying) we took it in a very feminine direction.

So if you...

I don't wanna like ruin it for anyone who hasn't seen - No spoilers here.

Arbor demon (indistinct) right now.

But there's a really great, we think there's a really great storyline and more built around this feature that we just made up ourselves.

We just, it's kind of fun when you're making a movie and making up the world and the characters, you also get to make up kind of realities.

(laughing) - That's so awesome.

So now she's written the script.

You had to adapt it for some locations.

Okay, so how did you direct this film, Patrick?

And again, I just wanna let everybody know that he shot it in 12 days.

So tell me the challenges directing Arbor Demon.

So what was the deal with that?

- Right.

Well, it ended up being that we were able to secure financing for the film and shoot it in Charleston, South Carolina.

And Michelle and I had written the script to take place in the Ozarks.

- Where is she?

Where is she?

- So we had to kind of change the lore of the creatures to fit the setting that we were in.

And it was funny cause originally they were like, "Can you make this movie in 17 days?"

I was like, "Sure."

And then they were like, "Can you make it in 15?"

And I was like, "Okay, sure."

(laughing) And then I think it was about two weeks out before I flew to Charleston, and they're like, "Can you make this movie in 12?"

And I'm like, in my head, I was like, "No" but it was an opportunity and I had to take it.

So yeah, we made the movie, we did six days on, one day off, six days on, and it went fast.

And luckily, I had been prepping the production for a while and so I had storyboarded out every shot for the film.

So we had a roadmap that we could follow and kind of tailor to whatever location we were filming in.

- Where is she?

Huh!

- Jake Busey is one of the actors in the film and I think he was cast maybe four days before we actually started shooting.

- Wow.

- So it was a pretty crazy experience and we shot in late December, and so one of the reasons why we had to shoot the movie during the day, which originally the movie was shot or written primarily for nighttime.

But because of expenses and the budget we had to shoot daytime.

The problem was in the forest.

There wasn't a lot of time for the sun to be up, like it was December.

So basically the sun comes up at seven and then in the woods it becomes pretty much unusable about 3:30.

- Jeez.

- So we were hustling to get those exterior scenes shot in the woods, but then we built the actual tent where primarily most of the movie takes place, was built on a soundstage.

So we could control the light and be a little bit more relaxed.

And Michelle was there on set for I think the second week of shooting, where we were filming on the soundstage.

So, it was interesting.

- You know how to use that thing?

(creature growling) (woman screams) - Baby turn the light off.

(screams) - Did that lead to The Inspectors?

How did The Inspectors come about?

Was that after Arbor Demon?

And tell me a little bit about.

Michelle, tell me about how that happened, and how the two of you work together.

'Cause this amazing and people don't realize it.

This is for network television.

- [Presenter] Don't miss The Inspectors part of the CBS Dream Team.

It's Epic weekends on CBS.

- That I'm sitting on Saturday and I'll be like, "Oh my God, there it is."

And I would see your name.

So, that was so cool.

Tell me about the whole Inspectors thing Michelle.

- What's really interesting because it is a relationship type industry and you think we're at Kansas city, we don't have any real connections or that pipeline to Hollywood, but the producer on Arbor Demon, Grant Fitch, he became the show runner on The Inspectors, the CBS show, which is about a Postal Inspector solving crime.

And then there's the Postal Inspectors, and then there's an intern that's the Postal Inspector's son.

And so there's kind of, it's for a young audience, but also a lot of middle-aged people really seem to enjoy it.

So, because Grant believed in us as writers, and as a team, he brought us on in kind of a trial basis like, "Let's see how you do with one script."

And then it ended up we wrote seven episodes.

And we learned so much because it is a procedural, but it has to be consumable by a young audience as well.

And it was just bottom line entertaining.

So it was really fun to play in that world, and those.

You're limited on time.

But then Patrick was able to direct a couple of episodes that we wrote which was very exciting.

- Yeah, what was that like, Patrick?

I mean, I couldn't believe like, I mean I would watch it and I'd be like, "Okay I know Patrick Rae's directing "this episode."

But I knew the restraints that you would be under.

You know what I mean?

Like the certain cameras and stuff.

Tell me about, like that had to be one of the most challenging directing things that you had with this.

Did you have union crews and everything?

What was that like?

- And it was funny 'cause it was kind of like a family reunion because it was also shot in Charleston, South Carolina.

So a lot of the same crew members that worked on Arbor Demon worked on The Inspector.

So it was in some ways it was very comforting.

But it was a big crew and yeah, we were shooting 10 to 11 pages a day.

Which is I thought insane.

But because the crew's been working together for so long, months and months, you're jumping from set to set, they have like for instance, the house set is only like maybe a few hundred feet from the coffee shop and all that.

So, everything's built on a soundstage.

Michelle and I had written an episode that took place in a newspaper.

That was where one of the Postal Crimes took place.

And so they had built this really cool looking newspaper set just to be used just for that episode.

And it was funny 'cause I ended up creating, we created quotes that were on the wall.

And how I basically said, my dad said the quote, and then a friend of mine said the quote.

It was funny to kind of see that all printed out on the walls and stuff.

- That's awesome.

- But there was a day where we had to cover 10 or 11 pages of the script.

And you know when you're doing television, you're allowed maybe two, three takes and you got to keep moving.

So, I was very involved with casting some of the supporting characters for the day players for those episodes.

But the actors were just pros, they could memorize an entire episode just like that.

And so it was great to work with them, and we had a really great steady cam operator.

So he was able to get a lot of coverage really, really fast to get to the episode in the can so.

- Wow.

- Yeah, which leads me back to you Michelle.

You're a professional actress and we joked last night that you were a journalist, and then you became an actress, and then a lot of your roles were you playing a journalist in these films.

But you've done a lot more than that.

Tell me about your acting career, and how that started for you.

And what's some of the cool stuff you are doing now?

- Well, I started off as a journalist.

Good morning everyone, and welcome to Kansas City Live.

And so I was very, very comfortable in front of a camera.

I spent usually 30 minutes to an hour depending on what I was doing in front of a camera live, where you don't get a take two.

Which I have found helps me, once you step on a film set.

Because for most recently I worked on a show called "Mind Hunter" and David Fincher was the director.

- One more thing.

Mansel is small, like really small.

- And we did a million takes, so many takes, but then the makeup artist came to me and she's like, "You're doing great, we're not doing that many takes."

So I was like, "What?

This is like, "we were doing so many takes."

And then I worked right after that on a feature film with Tyler Perry.

DC police are looking into surveillance video from several neighborhood cameras.

And he blocked us out.

So kind of like where, you stand here and we're gonna come up here.

And we're gonna (mumbles).

The camera's gonna come around, right here, that's when you deliver this line, then you're gonna (mumbles).

And we didn't do any rehearsal, like with camera, we just went for it.

We did two takes.

And then he was like, "Okay, great, moving on."

And I looked around and I was like, "Oh gosh, what just happened?

"How terrible was I?"

(laughs) - Oh my God.

- It was so nerve wracking.

So, it is interesting how having that experience as a news anchor and a news reporter, helped me find that comfort level on set.

'Cause I think that's the biggest thing for actors that I've found, because I'm on both sides of the camera, whether I'm a producer and writer, or on the other side as an actor.

And I see these other actors, how well they work and how comfortable they are.

And that's it, it's kinda just like finding your confidence and taking ownership even if you have one line.

- Bluedell is a victim of circumstance.

- You're saying it's coincidence that both times pageant girls died, Patty Bluedell got the crown.

In this TV show or film, you just bring that, I know exactly who I am.

I know what character I'm playing and having that confidence really helps because you can tell when you're on set, and that's when you do a lot of takes is when someone's genuinely nervous.

They have the butterflies going, and they get in the way of themselves, the nerves get in the way of themselves.

- So I'm just so curious.

What was it like working with David Fincher?

Did he... lots of takes, right?

- Yeah, lots of takes.

He was amazing.

I think that as an actor, you always wanna work with the best directors.

And I feel so fortunate because very early on in my career, I worked with Patrick who's one of the best directors, and I'm not lying.

And not just saying that because he's right over there.

(laughing) But you do.

I found that you wanna work with the best people.

You wanna work with people that have a vision.

And so when you're working on television, you don't know exactly who the director is going to be until you get your call sheet the day before.

- Right.

- And I knew David Fincher was the executive producer on Mind Hunter but I didn't know if he'd be directing me for this particular set up.

And so, first of all, he's very detailed down.

Wardrobe is very important.

He wants everything very tailored.

I was playing a news anchor and it was on four different days.

So I had four sets of wardrobe and we spent a lot of time adjusting to make sure everything looked perfect.

He has such an eye.

The wadrobe had to look very specific.

The set had to look very specific.

And even though there's a part where you could just hear kind of me like a little murmur of me while the main actors, the real stars of the show are talking, he was very specific even about that.

(reporter speaking softly in the background) He wanted to every word to be perfect.

So even if you like turn down the audio of the main actors, everything I was saying, it wasn't just like that, and it fit the storyline.

- [Reporter] They are convinced it is tied to the recent slades of Black children.

Mayor Manor Jackson will update the community and address concerns tonight, at a local Baptist church.

It was just such...

I have to be honest like that was the one time that I had some butterflies and my palms were sweating.

Like, "I can't let this director down," and "I just wanna do such a good job."

And you've got a huge crew, and you're in on the soundstage.

So it can be very nerve wracking with a lot of people staring at you, but he was very kind, very encouraging.

So once I found that out, and he just wanted the best take, and he wanted it to be as perfect as possible.

Last spotted at a rally that was held on the Morehouse College Campus.

Anyone having any information on his whereabouts is encouraged to call the Atlanta Task Force Tipline.

So when I walked off set I was just on such a high, like, "Can I do more?"

(laughs) Because he was really great.

The whole crew was fantastic.

- Yeah and Patrick, Oh, the jealousy of money and time to have on a set.

- Right.

I know you're sitting there you're saying, Oh, I get it with all this take.

And you're like, but what about if he, what if David Fisher only had 12 days to do all of mine under?

- I mean, someday.

Someday I will have that time to have that many, like even with the features, generally speaking, when you're making a low budget feature you break down 90 page script into 14 days, just to figure you're gonna have to shoot, six, seven pages a day to make it, you know.

So you don't have the luxury of doing as many takes as David Fincher, but someday (laughing) I will have the luxury.

But you know, it's one of those things where I have to, I do so much wrap on the front end that I think that it kind of alleviate some of that.

"Cause I like to obviously rehearse with the actors, make sure everybody's prepared.

So then when something goes wrong, you can deal with it.

'Cause I've seen it where if you come in and you don't have a battle plan for the day, you don't have a roadmap.

And then for some reason police just surround your location, (laughs) which may have happened on "I Am Lisa" granted it was not our fault.

It had something...

So a house got robbed several houses down from our location, and the guy who was on the run with whatever he stole, dumped it into the backyard where we were filming.

- [John] Oh my God.

- So I'm in the middle of one of the kitchen scenes in the movie where the two actors are having like a heartfelt discussion, and all of a sudden there's police everywhere.

So I'm like, "Well we gotta stop filming because I literally am seeing police in the background on some of these shots.

So it was one of the things where, luckily we had prepped, and we were ahead of schedule, and we had worked with the actors.

So we had the luxury of having getting to stop for a few minutes to wait for the police to leave.

So it's just one of those things where, for me preparation is key.

And if you come in with a good battle plan, then there's always gonna be some crazy thing that happens that you didn't anticipate.

That you can actually deal with it because if not, it just can derail your entire day.

- Patrick is such a planner.

- Yes-- - Oh, sorry to interrupt.

- No, that's exactly what I wanna ask about.

The storyboards.

(playful upbeat music) Have you seen this guy the way he plans out a movie, Michelle, that's gotta make you comforty as a producer or working with this guy, right?

- It's fantastic because you know where you are.

The whole crew is on the same page.

And he has such detailed storyboards, he has such a vision for what he wants.

The first time that I worked with Patrick was on the movie "Nail Biter" (spooky music) And I was two weeks away from delivering my daughter.

Which child was it, was my daughter.

(laughing) And so, talk about preparation.

It was hilarious because I was huge and we, it was supposed to be like, I was pregnant with a creature, and so we had all kinds of weird things that he did.

We had like a glove underneath that it was like being blown up.

So my stomach went like, wooo wooo.

It looked very, very creepy.

- Wow, nice, Patrick.

But i genuinely think like if I would've gone into labor at that moment, Patrick would have been like, "Okay, well we're gonna do this and we're gonna do... And he would have directed that moment because that's how great he is.

And also, you know and things are, like Patrick was saying, inevitably go wrong.

And sometimes that creates like the best moments, because you have to be creative, you have to think outside of the box.

And he's really great at working with that, especially when you have a limited budget (laughs) and limited time.

But he just, you know, so much creativity and sets, you do work long hours.

I think a lot of people don't, they just watch a movie and they're like, "Oh my gosh, that looks like so much fun.

"I wish I could be on a set of a movie."

It is really hard work.

But when you can be around people that you genuinely like and respect and you just admire their work, it makes it so much fun.

- Yes, and Patrick's knows it all starts on the page my friend, doesn't it.

And I'm so proud.

You wouldn't believe all the props of the actors I talk to, of "I Am Lisa " because I asked them, "So what was it like to work with Patrick?

And they just said, he's just, like literally everyone said you were the best director they've ever worked with.

So tons compliments from your actors and they had fun.

- Did they have a lot of cash in their pocket?

(laughter drowns Rae) - Yeah there were a couple of Kris' twenties, you know, kind of sticking out so I wasn't sure.

But I think it should really take some prop of it because unprovoked, everybody said.

And what was it like working with those actors?

You'd say, "That was one of the best times you had working."

- Yeah, it really was.

I mean again, it was like hanging out with a bunch of friends and it was fantastic.

A lot of local actors I worked with on this movie, Manon Halliburton.

- And that was such a great night, Patrick, all those people.

(suspensful music) - Hi guys.

- Hi.

So masks are required If you leave your vehicle.

Just parking one car in the center of two speaker polls.

And if you brought lawn chairs put those between your car and the screen not to the side of your car, okay.

Thank you, enjoy the movie.

- Well, when I first pulled in, I was a little worried I wasn't gonna get in.

We were way back there and I was just like...

I showed up at a little after eight o'clock and thinking that, I'll be one of the first ones there.

And the line was, I was getting text messages while we were driving in.

And they're like, "This line is epic."

And I'm like, "You guys are messing with me, whatever."

And then when I pulled in, I was like, "Oh dear."

I mean this is a little overwhelming to be perfectly honest with you.

But I could get used to it, I like it.

It's good, 'cause I mean, you know, you make films for a long time and you show them at film festivals and sometimes five people show up.

So it's really rewarding to see this many people show up, and a lot of local actors, the lead, Kristen Vaganos came in from Los Angeles, and she's actually here.

So you should probably interview her at some point.

- I am here for the premiere of our feature film, "I Am Lisa " and I am Lisa.

- [Reporter] You're gonna see yourself on the big screen, how does it make you feel when you see yourself acting?

- Nervous, you think you'd get over it at a certain point, but I just somehow haven't.

I'm like gonna hide the whole time, like peeking out like this.

- I played Jessica.

- [Reporter] Jessica.

- Yes I'm the lovely daughter of my mother over here who's the town sherrif.

And yeah, we're not very good humans.

I think that's the best way to wrap that up.

- Eric should have printed more posters.

And they go, the timing was great.

'Cause I think a lot of people wanna get out of the house and see a movie that was locally produced.

- I think it's a little bit inspiring that, through everything that's been happening with the pandemic and all that, that we're still able to kind of like come out on top of, be able now to showcase our art.

- And still social distance 'cause they could stay in their cars.

The weather was perfect.

So it was kind of like the perfect storm of good things, I guess is what I'm saying.

I wanna get on the last speaker and say, "This is a $75,000 movie edited in my basement, enjoy."

And hopefully there's not a lot of kids 'cause it's kind of erotic, it's a horror movie.

But I'll be honest with you.

I had a lot of anxiety that night.

You know what, this is the last one before the actual movie.

So.

- It is?

- Yeah.

- Already, okay.

Because the whole time when you're showing your film, it's one thing to show a short film because it's over in 10 minutes.

We'll see how that looks on the screen.

- We good?

- Yeah I think so.

- [Man] No thank you... - But if you're showing a feature the whole time you're thinking, "Oh God, what if the file stops working about halfway through the movie?"

Everybody's gonna get mad and start honking their car, honking the horns and stuff.

So you can't help it, you think of these things.

So then when they don't happen, you're like, "Oh, that was great."

- [Man] (indistinct) - Yeah.

It was weird 'cause when I pulled in I said, "You know everybody's in line to see this movie "that I edited my basement."

Right here in this basement.

So it was cool and I was was humbled by it too.

335 cars.

I think we were, I was expecting 200 many at the most.

It was just very exciting.

Then you're kind of like, "Okay, well every screening after this "is gonna be a letdown."

I mean, I hope not.

But you think that because... And it was a good reward for the cast and crew.

And I think it was a good shot in the arm for the Casey Film Community.

Just because they got to see some hard work, in front of the big crowd and everybody's been kind of down the dumps with being locked up in their homes and stuff.

So, I think it was just a really fun night.

- Wow, so in lockdown, Patrick's in his basement editing and Michelle is in Europe in her house writing.

That's so awesome, you're still doing your thing.

I'm so glad you guys did the show with me.

I want people to know about this great duo here, and the amazing things that you guys do.

So I'm so proud of you and thanks for being on the show.

- Thank you.

- Thank you so much.

This was fun.

- Okay, great, all right.

Well that was it.

Thank you for another edition of Art House, a Flatland conversation about all things art and cinema.

But I want you to do me one favor, I just want you to watch a movie.

Thanks for joining us.

(bouncy upbeat music) Well that's it.

Thanks for watching Art House to be kept up to date on what's going on, go to our website, flatlandkc.org and subscribe to our newsletter.

Until then, I'll see you next time.

(funky upbeat music)