(bright music) - [Jade] Look through the lens with artist Lothar Osterburg.

Chat with filmmaker Spencer Sherry about his upcoming short film, "The Monkey", and catch a performance with Steve Candlen.

It's all ahead on this episode of "AHA: A House for Arts."

- [Announcer] Funding for AHA has been provided by your contribution and by contributions to the WMHT Venture Fund.

Contributors include the Leo Cox Beach Philanthropic Foundation, Chet and Karen Opalka, Robert and Doris Fischer Malesardi, and The Robison Family Foundation.

- At M&T Bank, we understand that the vitality of our communities is crucial to our continued success.

That's why we take an active role in our community.

M&T Bank is pleased to support WMHT programming that highlights the arts and we invite you to do the same.

(upbeat music) - Hi, I'm Jade Warrick and this is "AHA: A House for Arts", a place for all things creative.

Here's Matt with today's fill segment.

(soft string music) - I'm in Red Hook, New York at the studio of Lothar Osterburg to learn more about the intricate process of photogravure and to learn more about how Lothar uses it in his work.

But first, I need to find where he is.

(eerie music) No way.

That is awesome.

You were inside the "Tower of Babel".

- Hello.

Nice to meet you.

- Nice to meet you.

(eerie music continues) - I am an artist working in printmaking, photography and sculpture and in various orders of those combinations.

I never loved photography in art school because it always looked to me like it was just surface and the surface just didn't interest me and I loved the ink of printmaking, I loved paint, I loved the tactility of making art.

And when I first learned photogravure, photography suddenly had that tactile quality for me and I just suddenly fell in love.

So, I have a plate here.

Photogravure is a 19th century photographic printmaking process that etches a continuous tone image into a copper plate and then is inked up and printed like a regular etching onto rag paper where you have a very deep, rich black in the shadows and very shallow, very light, transparent ink layers in the highlights and the mid-tones.

So it's a really rich, beautiful, old printmaking process that very few people are doing.

- [Matt] So you still get excited every time you do this?

- Yeah, yeah.

Especially if I have just etched a plate and I proof it for the first time.

It's just an amazing experience, sometimes really nerve-wracking, too.

But it looks good to me.

My process does involve, probably way more processes, way more steps, than absolutely necessary.

But I just love the journey there and all the derailments that you could have along the way.

I start building my models, whatever they may be, like the "Tower of Babel".

Then I just traditionally stage it, photograph it, sometimes in the studio with studio lighting, sometimes outside, I bring them out and build them into the landscape and incorporate them.

Once I have the photograph, I then start making decisions which ones to print.

And I print all my photographs in the 19th century photographic process of photogravure.

So I build my models basically of anything that sort of comes to mind and anything that kind of inspires me.

Most of the times, it is something that has been sitting in my memory for a while, something that was inspired by reading a book and some image popped up, an image that, of course, has something to do with my own experience, but is becoming more like a universal experience.

It was much more also the idea of the emotional memory than a specific memory.

It's not like seeing the pyramids in Egypt for the first time, but the mood that I was in and the kind of awe I was in when I first saw them, the scale of it, it's like, "Oh my God".

And to capture that, it's not just taking a snapshot or taking a photo or trying to replicate it, but it's also to get some emotional thing in there.

The materials could be very much that I'm on the beach and I see some kid building a sand castle and say, "Oh my God, I could make my pyramids out of sand" or my museum out of sand, which I actually did.

Which I also built out of snow and here it is out of plaster.

So I then play with the material, see like what does the different material do, maybe to a singular idea or subject or model.

The tatami mats I'm in the middle of weaving.

I got inspired by walking, trying to identify all the grasses out in our meadow and realizing that some of the grasses are, in fact, the grasses that they make the real tatami mats out of.

And then I found a smaller version of the same family of grasses that works in the scale I wanted to work in.

And I've kind of built my own loom for those, kind of figured out how to weave it in the scale I needed them.

So it's also for me the process of learning how is something even done?

And even if it's becomes a little weird and not off, it's actually, it's good, it's good for what I want.

If you build a model that is perfect, it looks like a model.

Once it gets worn, then there is life in the piece and in our world around us and the awe is because those pyramids have been eroded and kind of are no longer at the original glory.

When I said earlier my final product was a photograph, or a photogravure, that actually has been changing, too.

I had a show where I was placing models behind the wall with lenses, with magnifying glasses or lenses, in the wall embedded.

With a lens, it looked like you looked through the viewer of a camera except when you move around it's actually, you see it's 3D.

And that was a really amazing experience.

So I've started building more of those, including them in little boxes, that are movable.

When I said earlier, like I'm a printmaker, photographer and sculpture, it seems right now, I feel like I'm more primarily a sculptor right now, then a photographer and then a print maker.

So it's sort of reversed in the priority, in the order.

But I think that's gonna constantly shift anyway.

(eerie music) - Spencer Sherry is a filmmaker based in Albany, New York.

He's currently in post-production on his short film, "The Monkey", based on a Stephen King story of the same name.

So how did Spencer become the first person allowed to adapt the story into a film and when can we look forward to seeing it?

I spoke with Spencer to find out.

Welcome to AHA, Spencer.

I'm happy to talk to you today.

- It's great to be here.

- Yes, I'm ready to talk about all things film.

So to begin, how did you find yourself getting into film, since this is something that you seem very passionate about?

What got you into this?

- By the time I tried a couple colleges and settled on a major and realized what I actually wanted to do, I tried music first, I tried criminal justice next.

So it took a couple years outta high school to figure out that I could and wanted to pursue film.

I was going to school at U Albany, trying to pick up some classes and use their equipment.

And then a assistant director slash producer that had come up to do a Q&A, 'cause he had gone there years ago met me and I kind of berated him after his lecture and said, let me, I want to do what you do.

And his name is Glenn Trotter.

He gave me his email and said the program that you want to do isn't for, until the winter, but you know, come and email me and we'll see what we can do.

And he ended up giving me a job on a Netflix film in New York.

Yeah.

I never, never worked on a film before, never been in production before.

And so then I had a couple weeks to decide and then make the move to New York City from Albany, after saying that I didn't wanna live in New York.

- That's really awesome that that one opportunity kind of catapulted you into something that is now your main focus.

- Yeah, I mean it teaches you all about environment on set and how films are made from beginning to end as far as production is concerned.

And so it was a whirlwind.

The first film I worked with Lucy Liu and Taye Diggs and Zoey Deutch and so it was, yeah, it was thrown directly into the lion's den.

- Wow.

Some big celebrity names for your first real toe dip into it.

- And it only got crazier from then on out.

So I was down there for about a year before I came back up here trying to do my own stuff.

- That's beautiful though.

That's so cool.

So give us a little bit of background about your current project.

We know you're working on this really awesome short film right now.

- Yes.

So it's a Stephen King adaptation.

For many years, he has a program where he lets young filmmakers and college kids adapt some of his short stories.

And so I looked at the list of short stories and I wanted to do one that wasn't on that list.

I've been reading him for years since high school.

And so I connected with one called "The Monkey".

It's about that little cymbal-clapping wind-up monkey toy.

- Yeah, creepy one.

- Every time it claps it's cymbal, somebody dies.

Classic Stephen King.

Wrote the whole thing out and plotted it out.

And then after realizing it wasn't on that list, I reached out to his agent and asked, well, I left a very vague voicemail at his office.

- To Stephen King?

- His agent, his talent agent, about who I was and what I wanted, hoping that they would just have to do due diligence with their client and call me back.

And then they did.

So I emailed him back and forth for a little bit and then when he found out who I was, he said, no, absolutely not, we have no idea who you are.

You don't have enough producer credits that Steve would be familiar with.

And so he told me no.

He said, check the list and do one of those.

And then I emailed him back humbly and said, I thought this was on the list.

I don't actually have the money for an option, a commercial option for your work.

I just wanna do it 'cause I love the story.

And the next day there was a contract in my inbox for a non-commercial, non-exclusive contract for this story and I will be the first person to do this.

- That is so cool.

And really awesome of them to let you, to hand the torch over to let you just recreate the story.

- Yeah, the program I think is born of Stephen King trying to help people and trying to give young filmmakers an opportunity to create something that his name can be attached to.

And you can't profit from it, of course, but it's a altruistic gesture I think in general.

- I love that.

So what are some themes of "The Monkey", without giving us a little bit too much?

'Cause you don't wanna spoil it for the audience but what do you, in your opinion, what's the theme and story of "The Monkey"?

- So the original story was written in the '80s, so it takes place, the present takes place in the '80s, and it's about a father and his young sons and they're cleaning out their aunt's attic and they find this monkey and the father freaks out because when he was a kid and it flashes back to the '50s when he was a kid, he found it in his attic.

And every time he turned the key and it collapsed it's cymbals, somebody around him would die, whether it's his babysitter or his uncle or his dog, or in horrific, gruesome, traumatizing ways for a child.

So I have modernized that for my adaption.

So I've kind of shifted that up a generation, the timeline.

So technically I've kind of written a sequel.

One of those kids is now older.

The father, the protagonist of the story, is in the hospital, he just suffered a heart attack and the son is trying to get his brother to make amends with his father because of his health conditions, just in case.

So there were a lot of really great themes in the original story where the father is wrestling with loving one of his children more and having a favorite.

And so there's a lot of human drama and emotion in there that I wanted to bring into mine.

And so I've kind of continued those themes.

The son is now about to be a father, his wife is nine months pregnant.

He's not really sure if he's ready, as a result of the trauma as a kid and watching his relationship with his father and his brother deteriorate.

So it is, there is kind of a generational trauma aspect to it.

And then watching your parents and how they make mistakes and not wanting to repeat those mistakes.

And it's the consequences of watching your parents become and be people and what impact that has on you as a child.

- All because of that crazy monkey.

- All because of that crazy monkey.

That's what's great about Stephen King is he really, the foundation of his stories are human drama and emotion and then he uses a horror device to push that story forward and to make those characters change and adapt.

- That's how he hooks us.

So with this being more of a small, being a smaller production, how do you handle tackling those horror elements and making it, 'cause you know Stephen King's known for making some pretty spooky stuff, so how have you been able to build the tension within this film with more of a limited, smaller production?

- Sure.

Well, that was part of the motivation to do this story.

When I read it, I knew that I could, that it was feasible.

A lot of the stories on that list that he lets people do are either not the top tier Stephen King narratives or they're just very, very hard to adapt for that reason.

So when I read this story, I was trying to be, I was trying to write to shoot, which is I think what a lot of independent filmmakers, gets away from them sometimes.

Where they'll write these crazy big sprawling action, sci-fi, whatever, and it's like, oh well how are you gonna do that with no money or a very limited budget?

And so I read this story, it's just a toy monkey.

And my adaptation let me have some liberties with what it does and how it affects the environment and what types of horror we're dealing with.

So there are, I try to do as many practical effects as possible.

I don't want to give too much away about this.

There's a little bit of body horror, there's a little bit of Sam Raimi, "Evil Dead"-looking, fun stuff.

Yeah.

He's a huge influence.

And so most of the challenge of this movie was writing a story that had compelling characters that you could relate to and get behind emotionally.

That way, while we're building this tension with the monkey device, which is the inevitable, is kind of how I've transformed this symbolically, is that the monkey and it's clapping and death.

It is signaling the inevitable.

And even in the original story, it was unclear whether or not the monkey was a harbinger of the bad things or it was causing the bad things.

So I'm trying to play into those themes to create that tension where I don't need.

- Okay, so it's a lot of like drama, like on the edge of your seat kind of vibe.

- Hopefully.

I hope.

Yeah, that's the goal.

- This is a random question, but how many of those monkeys, will we actually see the toy monkey?

- Oh yeah.

Big time.

- How many props of those monkeys of you have?

- I end up getting three.

There's one that's '80s monkey, which is a really, I found a really nice clean, well preserved, nice dark fur, clean cut costume that I used for all the flashbacks.

And then I have one that's a little bit more beat up, that for all intents and purposes, I'm calling Zombie Monkey 'cause this is 30 years in the future.

It's got a hole in the head, everything, the eyes are a little glazed over and it's a little rowdier.

And then there's another monkey that is something totally different and more horrific, that I'm not even going to classify on camera.

- Oh my God.

- So we use three of them at the end of the day and two of them went to donors from our Indiegogo campaign that donated the amount of money to get one.

And then I've got one in my, I've got Zombie Monkey.

- Oh my God, that's amazing.

I'm super excited to see this now.

Where can people see the movie and how do we see the movie?

- That's an interesting question.

So tomorrow is, I am meeting with my post-production team to go over the rough cut that I've done in the assembly.

I've edited it myself, released the broad strokes and then music has to come and sound.

I am waiting until the whole thing is complete in my hands before I announce any sort of release date or premiere.

It will be screening locally.

It will be screening for free because I cannot profit off of this movie in any way.

So it's benefit to everyone that wants to come.

They don't have to pay for it.

So I want to put it in local theaters and anyone in the region that's willing to work with those parameters of, you're gonna have to make your money off the bar and the food, we can't charge admission.

Anyone that wants to show it, I'm so, so happy to be able to bring it to your theater and your space and get really, really creative about it.

I'm down to show it anywhere, on a projector outside, on a bar wall, I don't care.

I just want people to be able to see it.

- Well alright, well I'm excited to see it.

And thank you for talking to us today, Spencer, and I'm really looking forward to seeing "The Monkey".

- Thank you Jade.

Thank you very much for having me.

- Please welcome Steve Candlen.

(calm guitar music) ♪ I watch the moths fly by my head ♪ ♪ To the light ♪ ♪ To the light ♪ ♪ To the light to the light ♪ ♪ I watch the moths and I wonder why why ♪ ♪ To the light ♪ ♪ To the light to the light ♪ ♪ To the light ♪ ♪ Is it any wonder you and I ♪ ♪ Seek the light with blind desire ♪ ♪ Fill our wings and learn to fly ♪ ♪ Lose ourselves and find the fire ♪ (vocalizing) ♪ See them smile so big and wide ♪ ♪ In the dark in the dark ♪ ♪ In the dark in the dark ♪ ♪ See them smile and I wonder why why ♪ ♪ In the dark in the dark ♪ ♪ In the dark in the dark ♪ ♪ Is it any wonder you and I ♪ ♪ Open doors and feed that fire ♪ ♪ Is it all simply just desire ♪ ♪ To fan the flames of the funeral pyre ♪ ♪ Whoa ♪ (vocalizing) ♪ I watch the trains go rushing by ♪ ♪ Through the night through the night ♪ ♪ Through the night through the night ♪ ♪ The tracks they run for miles and miles ♪ ♪ Through the night through the night ♪ ♪ Through the night through the night ♪ ♪ Is it all just really here to there ♪ ♪ So willfully we paid the fare ♪ ♪ Live a box car life and make believe ♪ ♪ Trade life's truths for fantasy ♪ ♪ Whoa ♪ (vocalizing) ♪ I watch the moths fly by my head ♪ ♪ To the light to the light ♪ ♪ To the light to the light ♪ ♪ To the light to the light ♪ (calm guitar music) ♪ I've looked for love ♪ ♪ And I've only found pieces of puzzles as good it's parts ♪ ♪ Now I've known a few who were hopeful and willing ♪ ♪ Turned 'round and broke this man's heart ♪ ♪ Then there was you ♪ ♪ Then there was you ♪ ♪ Now I've held the hand of the devil God willing ♪ ♪ That's something akin to a sin ♪ ♪ Now I've wrecked upon the rocks in the morning ♪ ♪ Breaking up bourbon and gin ♪ ♪ Then there was you ♪ ♪ Then there was you ♪ ♪ And the casualties litter the fields of my warring ♪ ♪ My dignity's stretched at the seams ♪ ♪ Gallantly sliding from rooftop to awning ♪ ♪ Eventually footing the green ♪ ♪ And I've seen the eyes of a viper in white slacks ♪ ♪ I've kissed the top of her head ♪ ♪ Now I've felt the tug on a late morning bootstrap ♪ ♪ At the edge of that venomous bed ♪ ♪ Then there was you ♪ ♪ Then there was you ♪ ♪ Then there was you ♪ ♪ Then there was you ♪ ♪ And I've placed my head in the jaws of the big cat ♪ ♪ I've pulled the thorn from its paw ♪ ♪ I've seen the rivers of heartland freeze over ♪ ♪ I've watched them shudder and thaw ♪ ♪ And then there was you ♪ ♪ Then there was you ♪ ♪ And the casualties litter the fields of my warring ♪ ♪ My dignity's stretched at the seams ♪ ♪ The cream that collected was wrongly inspected ♪ ♪ And curdled and drifted downstream ♪ ♪ Then there was you ♪ ♪ Then there was you ♪ ♪ Then there was you ♪ ♪ Then there was you ♪ (upbeat music) - Thanks for joining us.

For more arts, visit wmht.org/aha and be sure to connect with us on social.

I'm Jade Warrick and thanks for watching.

(bright music) - [Announcer] Funding for AHA has been provided by your contribution and by contributions to the WMHT Venture Fund.

Contributors include the Leo Cox Beach Philanthropic Foundation, Chet and Karen Opalka, Robert and Doris Fisher Malesardi and The Robison Family Foundation.

- At M&T Bank, we understand that the vitality of our communities is crucial to our continued success.

That's why we take an active role in our community.

M&T Bank is pleased to support WMHT programming that highlights the arts and we invite you to do the same.