Hello, I'm John McGrath.

I'm a producer for Kansas City PBS.

And today on Art House, we're going to bring you the Kansas City Lens to feature film, comedy Midwest Skidmark Midwest Skidmark was written and directed by Philip Dixon.

and we caught up with Philip in the studio to talk to him about his debut feature film.

the trials and tribulations of writing a comedy and his passion and unique perspective he wants to bring to filmmaking in Kansas City.

Oh.

Are you all right?

Jade, wait.

You don't even know what Jade looks like.

Who's Jade?

Real close out, the rapper.

Are you ready for this weekend?

Hey, of course man.

this movie is about, two people of color in the Midwest, who went to college together.

Undergrad.

they go their separate ways, they graduate, and now they coming back together for one final weekend to kind of recapture their, glory partying days, one last time before one friend goes off to med school in Guatemala.

you had Wendy's.

But no, you had a large two.

started writing it in 2000.

And yeah, the writing is, I lived in Belton, Missouri, Iola, Kansas.

I was living in Lawrence, Kansas at the time, getting a master's at Ku, and, being a black person, in the Midwest and small towns, you kind of have to maneuver in a certain way.

you experience, you know, life and culture, Midwestern culture in a, through a very specific lens.

And, a lot of people do not understand that, that live outside the Midwest and, and even a lot of people in the Midwest don't understand that the aren't of, you know, of are people of color.

Right.

So, I made a movie and I decided to make a movie that, showcased that, but also the light hearted way, because at the time, I was getting my, master's in, African-American history at CU, and I was this I was watching and reading and listening to so much heavy, heavy content.

and I wanted something to have substance, but kind of counteract that at the same time as well.

Yeah.

Oh, sure.

what did you see that was missing from, African American stories about people that are live in the Midwest, well, mainly because African-American perspectives after American stories, a lot of them either, there's there's a lot of formulaic aspects to it.

So the either really super rich, super poor, or they're either living on the East Coast, the West Coast, or major cities.

But black people live everywhere outside of Atlanta and, Kansas City, Kansas, Missouri, falls in line with that as well.

So I wanted to, just showcase that there are perspectives of people that are in just major metropolitan areas, but throughout the entire United States as a whole.

JP.

Justin.

Hey.

Be.

Who are you?

Yeah.

Whoa!

Black.

What?

And the genius of it is, is that you made it a comedy.

yes.

Instead of Disney, like you say, this deep, you know, heavy duty thing.

You made it a comedy.

Yeah.

Well, have you ever written a comedy before?

What are the tricks of writing a comedy?

A I love comedy, always have, always will.

and, once again, I made it to counteract kind of the heaviness that I was in at the moment.

because I love Midwestern like subculture.

Right.

And I would say, and I would quantify that, black perspective, people of color perspective in the Midwest can be looked at sometimes as niche, but niche does not mean bad news can be good.

and doing that in a comedic way is kind of, in my opinion, especially the headset.

The mindset I was in at the time was a way to easily convey that to people outside of these, cultures in the Midwest as well.

Hold, please is about a telemarketer who keeps falling asleep.

And when he wakes up, Who is this?

Why?

Were you asleep, Levi?

Asleep?

What are you talking about?

he eventually blames, he blames capitalism and capitalism for making them wake up so early and, all these different aspects to it.

and then it turns out that capitalism is just the name of his boss.

He and, you know, a little twist the end for everybody, but, once again, I kind of wrote that when I was in grad school and there was so many different people from different perspectives.

And, I met somebody who sometimes told me that sometimes when they were on call, they put people on hold and they would just take a nap real quick, then wake up from that.

And I was like, ooh, I could spin this into something for everybody to laugh at.

So All right, here we go.

Go, go!

Hey, you're going crazy.

Hey up up up I wanted this to be at all Kansas City crew, because I wanted it to have a grounding in the Midwest.

Like I wanted to be found in the Midwest and everybody even behind the camera, to have a foundation here.

So all cast and all crew, were either born in Kansas City or raised in Kansas City.

in some aspect.

there is maybe one person that was not from Kansas City outside of that.

So like it was a purposeful thing to make sure that that was the case.

the Kansas City film scene.

And Kansas City is growing every day, every hour, every second is growing and growing and growing.

Kansas City has much more than just sports.

We love our sports.

We love the Chiefs.

We sometimes the when they're good, we are a very passionate city for the things that we, that we're passionate city for, the things that represent us.

And film is bubbling here.

It's about to explode.

And the Kansas City is going to be very, very proud of not just my projects, but other people's projects that are to come.

I'm not trying to tell you how to live your life.

I'm just saying that you should be living better than you are right now.

So when somebody watches the feel Dixon film, What do you want them to come with?

I want them to walk away with an understanding of perspective.

Honestly.

And that perspective can be outside your own.

Right.

I think the world would be much more selfless as people understand other people's perspectives.

And I want to do my part in making the world more selfless and less selfish.

And I think movies and showing my perspective and showing open perspectives and subcultures of the Midwest really adds towards that conversation.

Hurry up!