(bouncy 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 BBS, and guess what?

I'm also a film maker.

(bouncy music) Okay, I'd like to introduce my two awesome guests, Jeremy Osberne and Misti Boland.

You guys, thanks for being on the show.

- Thanks for having us.

- Let's start with Jeremy.

Jeremy, you guys are really good with IMDB.

Was so easy to research you.

So, I checked it out.

You got 27 credits as a director, but here's what totally blew me away, you guys.

Jeremy has 130 credits as a cinematographer.

And his latest work is a film he shot with Vinnie Jones.

- [Vinnie] And what's my purpose.

- [John] Y'all remember Vinnie Jones from "Snatch".

How about Ron Perlman, how a hellboy?

- [Man] Preston.

- And not the crappy new one, the old cool "Hellboy".

And then Malcolm McDowell.

- [Man] Harris is the top man.

- This amazing and when we can't forget Malcolm McDowell from the amazing Stanley Kubrick "Clockwork Orange".

Jeremy, that's the last feature you shot.

Here's the thing about Jeremy that I love, we all want to start our first feature, right?

So what does Jeremy Osbern do for his first feature?

He does a musical on 35 millimeter.

♪ Living in two worlds ♪ ♪ Ever since you ♪ Jeremy, thanks for being on the show.

- Thanks for having me.

- Okay, and next up is the amazing Misti Boland, and Misti thanks for being here.

- Thanks for having us.

- Misti is a writer, director of over eight films.

She's a producer but she's a big time production designer.

(crowd cheering) She did a lot of work with Kevin Willmott on his films, including "Jayhawkers" - Just trying to keep this town safe.

- "Bunker Hill."

So she's done a lot of production design work and she also was the production designer on air, on Jeremy's first amazing feature.

That's a musical on sean 35.

Welcome Misti.

- Thank you.

- Okay, so let's... We're gonna talk about how you guys met, but I'm gonna kinda go in the past a little bit.

Which brings me back to Jeremy at KU.

When you got there, they had rebuilt Oldfather by the time that you got there.

And tell me about your KU experience because that's where you really got this brotherhood of this Lawrence film group that you guys are still working with together today, tell me about that.

- Yeah.

I went to the University of Kansas in their film program and I had Kevin Willmott and Matt Jacobson as professors.

And then afterwards, went on to work with both of them in a professional capacity as well.

My very first film class, we shot on reversal film and then we edited the actual film.

So we would cut and hot-slice it together, and then whatever we've cut and lost, like it was gone forever.

So had to be very careful about the cuts that we made.

And then after that, I went into another film class where it was more in depth than magic and Jacobson was the professor of that class.

And initially when it started, there were like 20 to 25 students that enrolled in it.

And it all shook out after the first week, there were six of us left in the class.

And so it was the best, most intensive, class where there were six of us and all six of us got to shoot our own film on film.

And at the time I ended up shooting, I think as director of photography for of the six movies, and I was joking, it was because you know most of them had high angle shots and I was the tallest person in the class.

So it defaulted to me to do it.

But it was an amazing experience that after one semester I got to shoot, four different projects and be a part of six different films all shot on, on 16 millimeter Kodak film.

It was a fantastic experience.

- Yeah, Jeremy, was that an amazing timeframe, you kind of peaked at the right time because it was right before digital and that they still had those... Was that ARRI's?

Yeah, and to be able to start your career as a DP on film to where out of college you could shoot, you could be a DP on film.

That was a real big deal, wasn't that you were doing film then?

- Yeah, for sure.

And then the first three features that I shot straight out of college were all shot on 35 millimeter film.

And you know, I feel like I was the last generation to go to film school and learn how to shoot on film.

I feel like it really does help a filmmaker learn how to really think about the shots, and set them up, and light them very specifically before you ever roll, as opposed to with digital, you have the luxury of just you set up the camera and you hit record and you let it go for four hours and so it's another way of thinking about the process of approaching filmmaking.

- Yeah, you did.

You hit that window perfect, man.

And so, that's amazing.

So what about you, Misti?

What was your... You got to KU and yours was writing.

Tell me a little bit about your KU experience there.

- So at KU, I mean, I did writing, but I also was in the film production classes.

And again, I think those classes are pretty special.

I also got to work with film and develop working relationships.

That's the same class, my basic film classes, where I met Patrick Gray, who's another filmmaker in the area, Michael Stoker who's a big time gaffer now.

- [John] Yeah, he's huge, yeah, he's awesome.

- We still work together after all these years.

And so again, that's where I got my start.

I started concentrating on writing after I graduated from KU.

One thing that's really helped me was getting a part of KU Filmworks and which was I think at the time kind of led by Matt Jacobson.

And it was just a group of people that met and we actually really got to, you know I wrote a piece and they selected it and we got through really just go ahead and make it with the equipment that was their Oldfather was fantastic.

- Yeah, Filmworks is kind of the IFC of Lawrence right?

At the time.

That was kind of a consortium of you guys kind of getting together.

And how many people do you meet at Filmworks that you still know today?

- I mean, when I was going to Filmworks, I think there was maybe five of us, we're all still connected today.

Bobby McGee is working in film in Germany.

Chris Martin is in LA and I mean, yeah, we all are still connected, it was a very good foundation and a lot of support that we continue supporting each other today too.

- Okay, so the elephant in the room here, 'cause we're at that point because you did work on air and I want the story of how you two met.

(gentle music) - We started working together in 2004 and dating around that time.

Then we got married in 2011 and now we're still here and we have a lovely son to show for it and a whole bunch of movies.

(laughs) - A great son and a whole bunch of movies.

(laughs) That's what I can't wait for people to see on the show, is that we have these two heavyweights yet an amazing in their own right.

But not only that, they're married and they're still in Lawrence.

I mean that's so amazing.

Let's bring up the...

I don't know this guy I might bring my sister's story.

So (laughs) let's have Misti tell me that one.

I just think that was great.

Tell me about how you met and all that.

- So I was at a KU Filmworks meeting and Matt Jacobson was just saying, hey, if anybody wants to go work on a set tonight, I know these two great guys, and they're making a film downtown on mass, be there at this time.

And so I was like, okay, I want to go, but I'm not gonna go by myself at night.

And I wasn't sure who they were I hadn't met them before.

So I dragged my sister who was in town.

She was a student, a veterinary student at K State at the time.

And she had no background or really interesting filmmaking.

So I dragged her along.

And then that's how I met Chris Bonk and Jeremy.

And it was great.

- We were the only two crew for the whole movie.

It was just the two of us.

So we're very happy to have someone show up to double our crews.

- Yes, it was crazy.

They were filming on film and they had a dolly track.

I will say it was probably the first and last time I pulled focus.

That's not my forte, but you know I showed up.

So that's good.

And yeah, and again just that chance meeting.

I mean, I work with Chris all the time now and I married this guy.

- Okay, so let's get into some of the stuff that you guys did.

We're gonna jump a little bit forward here.

I'm want to talk about "Red Bird", because that was kind of a big deal for the both of you, at eight episode.

What would you call it, like a western drama that picked up by Amazon and then they forgot about it, then the Emmy's happened.

So tell me about "Red Bird."

- Red Bird was our first experiment with episodic storytelling.

- For the war.

Some men came from Missouri.

Killed every man they could find.

Henry was big for his age.

He thought he was a man.

(gun blasts) (yells) - And so we self funded it.

We did a small kick starter to sort of get the word out and raise a little bit of extra money, but we basically funded it ourselves.

And it was a Western set, shortly after Quantrill's raid.

That happened in Lawrence.

It's a story of a woman whose son is murdered.

And then she goes on a quest for revenge after Quantrill's raid.

- You go up there, you won't change things, - It'll change one thing.

First he's breathing then he's dead - Brought out some actors that we wanted to work with.

And Ian stark and Alexandra Goodman played in the leads.

And then also who were our connections through the theater group to these other actors.

- Give me the toy you stole from my boy.

- We made it, we put it on YouTube initially and then racked up some views and then had a window where we could put it on Amazon.

Then because of that, it ended up getting forwarded to Emmy nominations.

And that day that the nominations came out, got a phone call from Amazon and they said, wait, who are you?

And how did you just give up four Emmy nominations?

And so then after that, Amazon paid for everything for the Emmy's, for the ceremony.

And, they were great to work with through that whole process.

And, but that was definitely our introduction to that level of Hollywood.

- Yeah.

And Misti, I mean, like, what did you wear?

Did you do you glam all out or what was the deal with that?

- Sure.

(laughs) I love a nice dress.

(gentle music) - What'd you think of it?

Did you have fun?

Were you overwhelmed?

I mean-- - Oh, I didn't, I wasn't overwhelmed but it was a lot of fun.

- And then it's also interesting, just you, you also both leading into the free party and the award ceremony and it's all good, you walk a red carpet, so there's like Guillermo del Toro right ahead of us.

And then-- - That was amazing.

I was shocked by that.

I will say that.

- You know, we're walking the red carpet with people like that.

It was pretty awesome that something that we just funded out of our own bank account and made it dwindle down, ended up at the Emmy.

So it was pretty cool.

- [Lady] I'm doing this for Henry.

(gun blasts) - And then "The Square Root" happened.

Misti tell me about that and what it's about and what you want to do.

'Cause that's still going on.

Tell me about "The Square Root."

- So "The Square Root" is our second exploration of short form episodic media.

- [Lady] David never left a work in progress.

Past relationships glued on top of this man I thought I loved.

A copy and paste of things that worked a deleting of things that didn't.

- And so we really wanted to delve into making a drama that was also visually very interesting.

And so Jeremy, I'll let you kind of take over talking a little bit about the story elements.

- Oh, just so that brave synopsis is that each episode takes place the moment before a character makes a decision that will change their lives forever.

And, so every episode focuses on a different character but we really wanted to do it with, it's sort of, the drama that you would find in daytime television, but it would be visuals that you know are up to a whole nother level.

And so it's really extremely fast paced.

And there's was one magazine that called it something like a soap opera on steroids.

- [Child] One said, When his mom died, his dad cried for three days straight.

After that he never saw him cry again.

- Yeah, it's great that they're short.

It's like now Quibi is thinking they're all smart for doing these short episodics.

And I'm like, no, wait a minute.

I've got Mitsy and Jeremy that were doing that way back even with "Red Bird."

- I want my daddy.

- Another thing that's too great about the amazing shoot for the 11th straight year, you've gone to Slamdance and Sundance.

You two are regulars in Utah at that time.

Tell me how important that is.

And some of the stuff like Jeremy don't you teach him stuff there or do some, do some talks and Misti you do some stuff there about festivals.

Tell me about...

I mean because that's amazing that two filmmakers in Lawrence, are so involved with Sundance and Slamdance.

Tell me about that and now this is the 11th year you've gone.

- Sure.

- Yeah.

- In 2004 was my first year going.

When I was a student at KU, I helped out Kevin Willmott make his film, "C.S.A."

- [Man] Slavery like nothing else.

As a part of that, it finished and it got into Sundance that year Kevin invited us all out.

Everybody that worked on it.

And so there were like 40 of us crammed into Kevin's condo and sleeping on the floor.

And, that was our first experience.

My first experience with Sundance and Slamdance.

And just had an amazing time.

And then, I went back the next year and then was a director of photography on "The Only Good Indian" that Kevin Willmott directed.

And it went back in 2009, Matt Jacobson and I were both DPs on that.

That was my first time going with a film that I had a key position on.

And Misti was our director on that film.

In 2014, I produced, Misti was production designer on film comes to volume a beautiful which got to Slamdance and that was our first film in Slamdance.

So the next year we had a short film in Slamdance and then, became involved on the programming side at Slamdance.

And so this past year I was a captain on the programming for the narrative shorts.

And this year Misti is captain for narrative shorts for programming at Slamdance.

So I've been there 11 times and done both festivals and just really love it.

There's, really nothing like it.

January work in the film business usually slows down anyway.

So I usually just plan on into January we'll be out at Park City and take part.

- Perfect timing.

So does the son go with you?

- He does.

- Yeah, so the first time he went out, he just had learned to walk and Slamdance every year gets him his own pass, an all access pass.

And so the first year he wore it and it was around his neck.

He was so tiny that he would walk and it was dragging between his legs as he was walking around.

- And that was a year it was 2015.

And we had a short film that was playing in slamdance.

And so Roman, Jeremy carried him.

He was just kind of a very young toddler.

And so he'd walked the red carpet with us.

And by the end of the last video, he was just sound asleep while Jeremy was giving his last interview on the red carpet.

So he's got out every year.

- That's great.

So great connection I think between the two of you is Kevin Willmott and Matt Jacobson, and how right out of school, you got to work on some features with them.

And tell me how important Matt Jacobson, Kevin Willmott have been to your careers and still are, and what kind of great people that those two guys are.

- Yeah, I mean, absolutely.

Kevin and Matt were definitely mentors in college and then right out of the gate jumped in and Kevin right after I graduated made Bunker Hill.

- Okay, and push it, push it guys.

- And, I was gaffer in charge of lighting and Matt Jacobson was the DP on that film.

And then from there started working with Matt as a DP on a couple of the future films.

"The Only Good Indian" had a pretty healthy budget and being trusted to oversee your crew.

I think, one day we had 80 people on set and I think I was 27 at the time and shooting on 35 millimeter film.

So the fact that they put that level of trust into me at a young age, it speaks volumes for them as mentors and supporters of home community.

- I missed the... production design.

You know, it's kind of a lost title, but it's one I think it's...

I think it's one of most important titles on a film.

And tell me about what you do as a production designer.

What you did as a production designer on some of those early Kevin films.

- Sure, so I'm passionate about projection design.

When I was at KU, I was very interested in it and there isn't art work at KU, there's not really a specific course to follow that.

There's some photography classes, but there's not production design.

So I took a ton of courses in the theater department that were all designed related, costume design, stage design.

I kind of built up my own strange visual production design course.

So when I was done, I kind of had sort of a portfolio that I could show people and Kevin and Matt again, they're amazing people for allowing...

I mean, for mentoring young filmmakers and for me I'm passionate for production design.

You're in charge of the visual look for the entire film.

So you're collaborating with the director and the DP to create a streamlined look throughout the whole film.

And they were wonderful to work with.

They put a lot of trust in me.

They were always open to collaborating and listening to ideas and you know coming up with something new.

And I will say after you know working on other things, bigger commercials and different things like that, you don't always find that a working relationship with the director and the DP, but with those guys you always do.

And I just always love working with them.

- Yeah, and Jerry talk about director of photography.

Okay, so you get a script, your get with the director and you're a visual storyteller, I mean, people don't, the painting with light and you know the most important light is the light you don't turn on.

We're gonna stick with a 35 on this.

You know we're not gonna do any dolly shots in this whole movie.

I mean, tell me a little about some of the challenges of working with different directors and just the process of being a director of photography.

- Sure, yeah.

As the director of photography, you work with the director to create the look of the film, but you are the author of the image.

So you craft it both through framing and camera movement and lighting.

And I've always considered camera movement, sort of like, to me it feels like choreography.

And so through dance, you tell a story through movement, and I've always viewed filmmaking as choreography of the camera movement to tell a story.

And a part of that is how you craft the look of it with the lighting.

And I work a lot as a gaffer, which is in charge of the lighting department, and then I would work as a DP and so I worked on a million dollar movie as a gaffer, and then I film as a DP, a hundred thousand dollar movie.

And then I work as a gaffer on a five million dollar movie, and then I'd film a million dollar movie, And then it got to the point that I did several 10 million dollar movies in a row as a gaffer and was about to move up to even bigger movies as a gaffer and wanted to just focus on being a DP.

So I'm still very focused on the lighting when I am filming.

And that's definitely like a passion of mine.

Is crafting images through lighting.

But at one point in my career, I had to decide like, this is, more of a focus than this other thing.

I can't do both at the same time.

And really actually like one of the big points where I had drawn that line in the sand said I'm not gonna work as a gaffer anymore, but I got called up for a David Fincher movie to be the leading gaffer on it.

And, I turned it down and got off the phone and was like, well, this is definitely a very distinct moment in my life to just turn down the key position on a David Fincher movie.

- Yeah, when you turned down a Fincher movie, that's a line.

That's some discipline there.

So, that's amazing.

And I want to talk real quick with you Misti on "Wolf".

(piano playing) - So Women of Lawrence Film is an organization that I co-founded with other local filmmakers.

Parlo, Angel, Christy Dopson and Lamar Kirk.

We started in about 2013 because we were just all kind of casually hanging out one time.

And we were all noticing that when we were on set, we often found ourselves being the only female on the production side of things.

We came together to try to think about, well, how can we maybe try to change that locally here in our own community?

So we started this organization to help mentor women in filmmaking especially if they want to go into camera work or anything behind the scenes.

And so that's what we've been focusing on.

- Yeah, Misti I'm so proud of you for doing that.

I hope you wish a lot of success there, so let's kind of wrap this up.

I know... And we talked about this earlier, so the future, you guys.

Misti I know you said it's giving you time to write and Jeremy you're kind of waiting, but this COVID thing.

Tell me a little bit about the future where you guys are right now and where you kind of hope things are gonna be.

- Sure, we... for "The Square Root" we've filmed three episodes of it an additional VR 360 episode.

And so we have those available and we do have more that we can produce in the future.

So that is an option on the table.

- And real quick, I'll just kind of jump in there too.

What's been really strange is that with "The Square Root", we were just starting the festival route and the COVID happened and everything just completely stopped.

And this weekend was so amazing and crazy.

All these festivals are going online, - The award for best director.

- The award of best director at die Seriale 2020 to.

- To Misti Boland and Jeremy Osbern.

- So we've been doing this weekend.

We did Zoom Q and A's and Zoom different things for the different festivals, but I'll tell you, it was hard in a way to keep track.

'Cause one day we did three different festivals in three different countries all in one day.

- Last series with one of the final six, "The Square Root" by Misti Boland and Jeremy Osbern.

- Hello.

- Hello.

Hello Bigates.

- Hi.

(speaks foreign language) - And it's the most bizarre experience as a filmmaker I've ever experienced.

I mean, could never have guessed that we would have been doing that this weekend.

- Cause Jeremy, you were waiting on yet Some big projects coming up.

Tell me a little bit about that.

- I had a couple pretty big budget movies in a row.

One was for a pretty big streaming service and then one was definitely by far like double the budget of any movie I've ever shot.

So they're still on their horizon and they still will hopefully happen at some point, but it's sort of...

I'll wait and see at the moment but you know, hopefully we'll get a vaccine soon and we'll start up film production again.

So we'll see, but at the moment it's hard if you have a crew of a hundred people and you have a cast of 20 and you have a hundred extras, like how do you protect all those people?

So at the moment, where it's sort of a scramble to figure out what the film industry will look like in this current world.

And hopefully once there is some sort of preventative medicine, then we can go back to a little more how it used to be.

So we'll see, - I wish the two of you so much luck and success and thank you so much for being on the show.

Is Roman around?

Can you make one quick appearance?

Get him in.

Get him in here.

- Hey, Roman do you wanna come say hi or no?

- You can if you want to.

- Okay.

(laughs) Hey, he is already very, conscientious of his image on wide web and is going to keep it off for the moment.

- So he said no thank you.

(laughs) - So not this time.

- Got stood.

I'm getting dissed by a kid that's awesome.

All right.

Well, you two are incredible.

I can't wait for... Let's get this COVID thing over, 'cause I want some more awesome DP and some director work from you Jeremy and Misti you're a production design and you're a writer and a director too, and you're just two amazing, talented people.

And thank you so much for being on the show.

- Well, thanks for having us.

It's been a lot of fun.

- Thank you.

- All right, Well, that's it for another edition of Art House Flatland conversation about all things art and cinema.

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

Thanks for joining us.

(bouncy 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.

(bouncy music)