June 27, 2023

Behind the Scenes with a Maverick: Harry Greenberger's Creative Empire

Behind the Scenes with a Maverick: Harry Greenberger's Creative Empire
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Season 2

Step into the world where creativity knows no bounds and curiosity breeds mastery. Meet Harry Greenberger, the Renaissance man whose name echoes across the realms of filmmaking, music, and beyond. With a resume that includes award-winning films, collaborations with iconic talents, and a symphony of artistic endeavors, Harry's story is a masterclass in turning passion into empire. This episode peels back the layers of his extraordinary journey, offering you the blueprint to forge your own path of success. Listen now—where inspiration meets action.








To discover more episodes or connect with us:


Chapters

00:02 - Harry Greenberger

13:28 - Film School and Career Connections

23:27 - The Influence of Romero on Filmmaking

28:25 - Pittsburgh to NYC

42:14 - Balancing Multiple Creative Outlets

49:20 - Late Night Writing and Musical Connections

01:02:16 - The Journey of Creativity and Perseverance

01:06:36 - Filmmaking Journey and Future Projects

01:17:14 - No Wrong Choices

Transcript
WEBVTT

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Hello and welcome to No Wrong Choices, a podcast about the adventures of life that explores the career journeys of successful and interesting people.

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I'm Larry Samuel, soon to be joined by the other fellows, tushar Saxena and Larry Shea.

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If you've been enjoying our show, please be sure to follow us on your favorite podcasting platform and to give us a five star rating.

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Also, to learn more about us, please visit our website at knowwrongchoicescom or follow us on social media by searching for No Wrong Choices on Instagram, facebook and Twitter.

00:00:34.792 --> 00:00:47.192
This episode features someone we've been referring to as the world's most interesting man the filmmaker, writer, producer, director, musician, guitar tech and sculptor, harry Greenberger.

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Larry Shea, why don't you lead us into this one?

00:00:49.546 --> 00:00:49.981
I'm sure?

00:00:50.021 --> 00:00:55.331
you left off at least 20 hats that this guy could be wearing, because he has.

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So many jobs It's tough to keep track.

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We love this conversation.

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We can't wait to share it with everybody here on Know Wrong Choices.

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He's just a man of incredible diversity of artistic outlet and that's something I think I truly admire about him.

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I watched his films, i've prepared for this interview and I'm just fascinated with the character that he is and how many hats he wears and doesn't just put them on, he wears them with style.

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He wears them well.

00:01:25.662 --> 00:01:30.409
It was exciting to talk to Harry and we really can't wait to share this with you.

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I gotta tell you, the one thing we weren't able to do was talk comic books with him, and this still was a really long interview.

00:01:36.602 --> 00:01:37.858
I don't mean like super long.

00:01:37.858 --> 00:01:41.263
I think you did talk comic books, we just had to edit it out.

00:01:41.626 --> 00:01:42.489
Yeah, exactly.

00:01:42.739 --> 00:01:47.403
I mean, imagine what's on the cutting room floor of this interview, and I still didn't get to talk comic books with him.

00:01:47.403 --> 00:01:51.965
You said it right, Shea is that what he is is not really.

00:01:51.965 --> 00:01:57.947
He's not a movie director, He's not a musician, He's not a sculptor, He's an artist and he makes art.

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That's what he does and whatever the medium is whether it be, whether it be you know, whether it be paint, whether it be film, whether it be music, the guy is just a creative person.

00:02:07.052 --> 00:02:14.367
I gotta tell you it's rare that we get to speak to someone of like that kind of ilk and really that kind of a creative force.

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That's what Harry Greenberg is.

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He's a creative force and I gotta tell you we had such a great time with Harry just to kind of pick his brain a little bit and to hear his journey.

00:02:23.348 --> 00:02:27.830
I gotta tell you, I came away so juiced and jazzed after this interview.

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I want to make movies like Harry.

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Greenberg, i'm telling you this This is what I want to do.

00:02:33.338 --> 00:02:37.449
No, we had a great time and I wish we could have spent another three hours talking to him.

00:02:38.259 --> 00:02:39.383
Yeah, and picking up on that.

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You know, the thing that's going to come out is all about being genuine, being real, building an amazing network, and how opportunities in a lot of ways can find you and will find you if you are, you know, that type of person.

00:02:52.050 --> 00:02:54.967
His music background is very interesting.

00:02:54.967 --> 00:03:03.174
He's, i think, as he put it, an average player, but that got him all kinds of opportunities along the way.

00:03:03.174 --> 00:03:05.908
So just a fascinating guy.

00:03:05.908 --> 00:03:13.908
He's going to talk about his relationships with Bruce Springsteen, ryan Adams, phil Lesh and his very good friend, jesse Mallon.

00:03:13.908 --> 00:03:20.867
It's important for me to point out that this was recorded prior to Jesse publicly sharing that he's been dealing with some complex health issues.

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We wish Jesse all the best.

00:03:22.664 --> 00:03:24.664
Here is Harry Greenberger.

00:03:24.664 --> 00:03:33.427
Now joining no wrong choices is the award-winning filmmaker, director, writer, musician and even guitar tech, harry Greenberger.

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Harry, thank you so much for joining us.

00:03:35.800 --> 00:03:36.805
Hi, thanks for having me.

00:03:37.199 --> 00:03:37.441
Okay.

00:03:37.441 --> 00:03:40.789
So, Harry, you do all of these things.

00:03:40.789 --> 00:03:45.199
I want to know exactly what is your job title.

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How do you describe yourself?

00:03:49.699 --> 00:03:51.225
I usually fail to do so.

00:03:51.225 --> 00:03:54.449
I usually just say it's complicated.

00:03:54.449 --> 00:03:59.051
I go with that a lot of the time, but I depends on who's asking.

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If it's somebody in film, I'll say I'm a writer and director and sometimes producer.

00:04:05.652 --> 00:04:10.629
If it's somebody in music, I'll say I'm a guitar tech or a musician.

00:04:10.629 --> 00:04:15.210
I sort of just try to aim at it whatever audience is asking.

00:04:15.860 --> 00:04:16.843
So wearing that many hats.

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I need to know when did you decide to put those hats on?

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Let's take you all the way back to the beginning.

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Let's talk about your dream When you were growing up.

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What was the big dream?

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What was the one thing that you said?

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I need to do this with my life because I need to let this creative outlet flow.

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What was the dream?

00:04:36.540 --> 00:04:38.889
Well, i think I always wanted to do something artistic.

00:04:38.889 --> 00:05:06.540
I started out I think probably the first inclination was towards drawing And then I saw Star Wars and, like so many kids of my generation, i was exactly the right age for that And it hit me like a ton of bricks And I immediately started thinking well, who did that and how does somebody do that And what is that job called?

00:05:06.540 --> 00:05:20.290
And my parents luckily understood enough to say that some guy named George Lucas did that And I started trying to figure out how to make films And as I've gone along in the industry, i meet a lot of people who have that same story.

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It feels unique when it happens to you in your small town, but then you find out that was fairly universal.

00:05:27.605 --> 00:05:32.870
There's people all across every continent that have that same story.

00:05:33.920 --> 00:05:48.526
So as you're growing up and you're going through school obviously like the movie The Fablemen, for example, like where you have Spielberg who's out there as a child making movies I'm assuming that you made movies as a kid then too, at some point you picked up.

00:05:48.526 --> 00:05:52.745
But you picked up probably an eight millimeter camera somewhere and was able to start making movies.

00:05:53.427 --> 00:06:19.548
I did, i did, except, i believe it or not, i actually started with the VHS camcorder, the exact one that Marty McFly is using in the movie Back to the Future, that sort of read it back to ABC camcorder came along just when I was the right age for it And my dad was sort of an early adopter of technology And he had sort of before that.

00:06:19.608 --> 00:06:29.146
He had like a whole large video camera with a sort of shoulder slung pack that would feed a sort of a VCR He would carry around and feed the signal into.

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So he was more advanced than I was And he knew that I wanted to be a filmmaker And he bought me, along with my mom, a little JVC camcorder And I started making little films on a format that doesn't really exist anymore called VHSC, which were little mini VHS tapes that you had to pop into a VHS style VHS size adapter.

00:06:49.221 --> 00:06:50.144
I don't remember those.

00:06:51.327 --> 00:06:54.627
Yeah, i have probably two or 300 of those.

00:06:54.809 --> 00:06:55.209
Oh, my God.

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Little films and home movies and stuff that I made.

00:06:58.970 --> 00:07:03.093
But then in high school I had a big high school.

00:07:03.093 --> 00:07:13.766
They had a filmmaking class, which was unusual for those days, and that's where I got an eight millimeter camera in my hands And that was the challenge that they threw at you.

00:07:13.766 --> 00:07:16.112
Was you only get one roll of film?

00:07:16.112 --> 00:07:20.149
make a film with one little, you know, full roll.

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So you kind of had to do your editing in camera And I saw that as my chance to prove to my parents and my friends that I deserve to, you know, follow this dream.

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And so I made the best film I could And, as I always say, i won all the awards in that little high school film class where I was probably the only student that actually gave a shit.

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And you know so I you know, but I was, i was very determined and I wasn't going to leave it the chance.

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So I made the, the best little nonsense film that I possibly could, and I was hoping that would get me to Hollywood and it didn't.

00:07:55.362 --> 00:08:01.444
Well, with that, you know I was I was going to ask you know whether it was the VHS cam quarter, whether it was the eight millimeter.

00:08:01.444 --> 00:08:08.545
You know what is that first project you remember being proud of, that was like a, that was a thing.

00:08:10.399 --> 00:08:24.103
Well, that, that all the little films I made with the VHSC camera were kind of just learning the grammar of filmmaking and you know the vocabulary of filmmaking and the techniques of filmmaking.

00:08:24.103 --> 00:08:24.665
but I did it.

00:08:24.665 --> 00:08:28.005
Almost all of those were with my friend Glenn and we.

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we just made very silly films and there was no attempt to do anything beyond.

00:08:33.644 --> 00:08:58.663
you know, sometimes derivative jokes, sometimes vaguely original jokes, and but then with that film and filmmaking class the challenge was you had to make a music video because we couldn't do any sync sound So you had to just play something that you could sync to at that point, a cassette, because there were, you know, there weren't CDs.

00:08:58.702 --> 00:09:01.029
yet I'm old, And we're on, we're on.

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We know, we know.

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So you had to make a film where you had a little sync point at the beginning.

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that would be when you would start the cassette in class and play that silent film.

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otherwise, silent film over a song, and I chose Bob O'Reilly by the Who.

00:09:19.706 --> 00:09:25.759
Very nice, and made a film in my high school using you know the, and it fit well, like you know it's.

00:09:25.759 --> 00:09:27.687
It sort of fits into that perfect.

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Teenage wasteland, the theme that is so readily yeah, it's so readily available to you as a teenager in school, and I managed to sweet talk the principle into appearing in it and being the villain.

00:09:40.293 --> 00:09:40.953
That's great.

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You know and, and it was just, you know, like a lot of it, you know, flag waving imagery, you know sort of cross cut with other students in the school and then a few students running towards a chain link fence and breaking out of the school, kind of you know simple and derivative that it made for.

00:09:59.565 --> 00:10:03.240
You know, for that was probably 1984.

00:10:03.240 --> 00:10:04.905
It's kind of the early days of MTV.

00:10:04.905 --> 00:10:12.706
You know, if it had been made with better technique at a bigger budget, it would have kind of fit in with the aesthetic of the day.

00:10:12.706 --> 00:10:13.268
But it wasn't.

00:10:13.268 --> 00:10:21.552
It's you know, it's kind of it's pretty amateurish, but you know, the ideas were, you know, were fun to play with And it was a challenge.

00:10:21.552 --> 00:10:23.827
Like I said, you had to pretty much edit in camera.

00:10:23.827 --> 00:10:25.947
I could make cuts, but you only have one role of film.

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You're not going to make a very long music video if you don't make the most of every frame that you've got.

00:10:31.860 --> 00:10:36.248
So so let me ask you this And obviously you won all the awards in high school.

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You've now essentially said to yourself yes, i want to be a filmmaker.

00:10:41.485 --> 00:10:52.509
So was there anyone in your school you know whether it be a guidance counselor or a teacher, other students who said to you no, don't do this, you are crazy.

00:10:53.270 --> 00:10:53.831
Yeah, yeah.

00:10:53.831 --> 00:11:05.131
Well, i had other student friends who were very, very much in the same mindset as as I am and I'm still in contact with them And I, you know, they all wanted to make films, but I was probably the most gung ho.

00:11:05.131 --> 00:11:19.304
And then there was a guidance counselor, mr Musko, who when I told him what, what I, when I told him what I wanted to do with my life, in answer to his question you know, he just said no, you don't want to do that.

00:11:19.304 --> 00:11:28.826
Hollywood is all homosexuals and drug abusers, which you know was a astonishing thing to hear from the school official.

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Is that bad?

00:11:30.100 --> 00:11:44.254
I didn't know what, yeah exactly That's what I said, and I'm supposed to be upset about that And and but he I liked how bizarrely quick he was to dismiss my life's ambition.

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Right.

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And it didn't dissuade me at all, not even for a moment.

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I remember thinking, well, and you know that's then I guess I'll be, you know I, i guess I'll be in Hollywood doing you know.

00:11:57.940 --> 00:11:59.908
Making interesting friends and doing lots of drugs.

00:11:59.908 --> 00:12:04.049
Being a being a degenerate making movies, exactly Yeah.

00:12:05.279 --> 00:12:18.288
Sometimes that's the kind of sometimes that's the kind of thing that you need to kind of double down and be like you know what man I'm going to show you, you know, like that this is, this is a good path for me, and you know that in your heart You must have gotten other support, though.

00:12:18.288 --> 00:12:26.809
Family must have been supportive, other, i mean, even though this guidance counselor was kind of a tool, it sounds like you at least had support in other areas.

00:12:28.216 --> 00:12:42.860
Yeah, yeah, My parents were incredibly supportive and, you know, both of them really, really impressed upon me the idea that I could do anything I wanted if I put my mind to it and put in the hard work, which was key.

00:12:42.860 --> 00:12:58.804
And, you know, I think at that age that's the part you need to be told not just you can have anything you want, but that if you, you know that you're going to have to put in all the work And they were good at impressing that upon me And, same with my aunts and uncles, were very supportive and always tried to.

00:12:58.804 --> 00:13:02.736
You know, they'd, you know, buy me art supplies That's what ever kid needs.

00:13:02.736 --> 00:13:15.384
And yeah, and, and my parents kind of made it clear that if I, if I showed the initiative, they'd help me sort of work that out.

00:13:15.384 --> 00:13:24.522
And so they, you know, I thought I would go to either NYU or USC, but I think my parents were right in saying they thought I wasn't ready for a, for a big city at that point.

00:13:24.562 --> 00:13:28.479
Coming from Butler, Pennsylvania, It would have been a big culture shock.

00:13:28.479 --> 00:13:30.706
And so they found Ithaca College in Ithaca, New York.

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And it's turns out they were at that point.

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I don't know if they still are, but they were a relatively high rated film school.

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My sister was going to Cornell and my mom just asked a tour guide at Cornell.

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What's that over on the other hill there?

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And.

00:13:46.937 --> 00:13:47.558
I said no, that's.

00:13:47.599 --> 00:13:48.260
Ithaca College.

00:13:48.260 --> 00:13:54.880
You know, and you know I wasn't even expecting to, you know, to have a lot of college options.

00:13:54.880 --> 00:13:57.386
And my mom asked well, you know what is?

00:13:57.386 --> 00:13:58.500
what is Ithaca College for?

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Why would someone come all the way to Ithaca, new York, and not go to Cornell?

00:14:01.336 --> 00:14:09.535
And she said well, you know, they have a good hotel management program and a good sports program, sports medicine And, and they also have a really good film program.

00:14:09.535 --> 00:14:15.240
And of course I lit up and we went over there and figured out what to do And I, you know, i applied there and I went there.

00:14:15.279 --> 00:14:34.287
It turned out they have a unique thing unlike USC and unlike NYU and a lot of other film schools instead of having to sort of fight your way to being one of the students that gets to write or direct, you get a camera put in your hand in the very first semester and you start making 16 millimeter films.

00:14:34.287 --> 00:14:46.477
Wow, they skip right past eight millimeter stuff And they, they put a bolex in your hand in the very first weeks of your time there, start teaching you the basics, start teaching your production.

00:14:46.477 --> 00:14:51.053
And I was making films in my first semester there.

00:14:51.053 --> 00:14:52.663
They weren't good, of course, but they're.

00:14:52.663 --> 00:14:54.033
You know, i've made them, and that's you know.

00:14:54.033 --> 00:14:57.124
You got to make a whole bunch of terrible films till you did, did, they did, they have sound.

00:14:57.294 --> 00:14:58.498
Yeah, we eventually get to make good ones.

00:14:58.979 --> 00:15:00.361
They had sound Yeah, these ones had sound.

00:15:00.503 --> 00:15:06.238
Yeah, as you said, though you know you have to break some eggs to make some omelets, right, i mean, this is.

00:15:06.238 --> 00:15:09.592
this is at the fundamental level where you're learning filmmaking.

00:15:09.592 --> 00:15:16.688
How instrumental was the educational part of it and the nuts and bolts of those fundamentals later in your career?

00:15:16.688 --> 00:15:17.830
Was it instrumental?

00:15:17.830 --> 00:15:19.451
Was it not what you expected?

00:15:19.451 --> 00:15:20.879
What was, what was that experience like?

00:15:21.715 --> 00:15:28.894
It was absolutely instrumental And to the point where you know it was a small school then.

00:15:28.894 --> 00:15:40.246
It's bigger now And maybe they were I'm just guessing maybe 20 film students in my class And one of them has been my editor on all of my features I've made so far.

00:15:40.246 --> 00:15:46.013
Wow, i made, i made two features, hoping to make more but, and you know she's worked.

00:15:46.013 --> 00:15:47.456
Her name's Sarah Corrigan.

00:15:47.456 --> 00:16:02.542
She was one of my fellow students from the very first semester And you know she's edited on six Woody Allen films and edited Daniel Radcliffe film a couple years ago, just edited the new film, summoning Sylvia.

00:16:02.542 --> 00:16:06.580
But so so even just for connections, it already was sort of magical.

00:16:06.620 --> 00:16:08.664
I'm still friends with a lot of people from that.

00:16:08.664 --> 00:16:25.754
You know one of the people from that class, it was Chris Regan, who is a producer and writer on Family Guy now You know another one was Pat Cady who shoots the TV show Bosch and shot a whole bunch of other movies you know for John, for John sales and stuff.

00:16:25.754 --> 00:16:37.282
So like a bunch of you know, and a guy one year ahead of me, john Buzz Moyer, he does Steadycam for Steven Spielberg now and for the Avengers film.

00:16:37.282 --> 00:16:41.980
So I mean that class, a bunch of us you know, stuck with it.

00:16:42.041 --> 00:16:45.202
Let's just say He has a real pedigree absolutely.

00:16:46.317 --> 00:16:51.386
Uh-huh, and, and you know, i feel like I'm forgetting somebody, that's good too.

00:16:52.778 --> 00:16:54.464
You've met a lot of people along the way.

00:16:55.076 --> 00:16:58.929
Yeah, and I got lucky and I uh, i always say the.

00:16:58.929 --> 00:17:03.602
You know, you never know where the weird connection that's going to wind up being important comes from.

00:17:03.602 --> 00:17:10.577
And my parents, dry cleaner, while I was in my freshman year of college said, oh yeah, i can, i can get you hooked up with a job and film.

00:17:10.577 --> 00:17:12.142
And I didn't take it seriously.

00:17:12.142 --> 00:17:45.190
But it turned out he knew someone at a company at the time that was called Hartwick-Prizborski in Pittsburgh And they made they were the biggest commercial production company in Pittsburgh And he got me an interview and I went down and I got an internship there And so in all of my breaks starting in freshman year I was going and getting professional experience on film sets of of you know pretty big budget TV commercials And, uh, and then coming back and learning film theory and screenwriting and editing and film production and all that at school.

00:17:45.269 --> 00:17:54.837
So I was simultaneously having kind of the academic route and the professional route And I got lucky, um, at somebody else's expense.

00:17:54.837 --> 00:18:06.903
I got lucky that on that commercial film crew, um, somebody, uh, i'm trying to think of a nice way to say it somebody didn't do well in the camera department and I got to replace them.

00:18:06.903 --> 00:18:16.278
So I moved up from a PA to a grip into being a camera assistant, pulling focus and loading the camera and and changing lenses pretty quickly for the TV commercials.

00:18:16.539 --> 00:18:23.443
Um, i got to learn, yeah, and I got to learn at the, at the feet of several really good, uh, commercial directors.

00:18:23.443 --> 00:18:27.670
Like you know, this guy, glenn Pryzborski, kind of taught me, sort of took me under his wing.

00:18:27.670 --> 00:18:32.163
He could see that I was a a very gung-ho kid as far as filmmaking.

00:18:32.163 --> 00:18:45.237
And then, you know, a lot of the stuff we were shooting was in the same building where George Romero was shooting a movie called Monkey Shines And I got to watch a lot of that happen and got to meet and work around George Romero and Tom Savini.

00:18:45.277 --> 00:19:01.618
And I went over and, uh, since I was fascinated with special effects too and I was a sculptor, my friend Glenn and I took our sculptures and interviewed with Greg Nicotero and Tom Savini sort of special effects legends and tried to get ourselves a job in the effects department.

00:19:01.618 --> 00:19:02.874
But we were a little too late.

00:19:02.874 --> 00:19:06.666
They said they already had all the sculptors they needed, but they, you know, they complimented her stuff.

00:19:06.666 --> 00:19:08.642
But I'm the reason I say that is that it was.

00:19:08.642 --> 00:19:15.281
It's funny how, like a connection as weird as my parents dry cleaner led to me.

00:19:15.281 --> 00:19:26.545
You know, if I, if the timing had been a little better, i was all the way in the door with you know, with you know George Romero and Tom Savini and one of the biggest, you know, effects houses.

00:19:27.538 --> 00:19:28.481
Wow, who's in the world?

00:19:28.481 --> 00:19:34.807
So you know, harry, as you're walking through all this stuff, you've made movies.

00:19:34.807 --> 00:19:37.881
You're, you know, a film major you're.

00:19:37.881 --> 00:19:41.617
You're, you're working on all these different shoots, all these different commercials.

00:19:41.617 --> 00:19:43.702
You're, you're sculpting.

00:19:43.702 --> 00:19:45.205
Are you playing music?

00:19:45.205 --> 00:19:50.365
at this point also, like, where are you finding the time to do all of these different things at such a young?

00:19:50.605 --> 00:19:50.826
age.

00:19:50.826 --> 00:19:53.378
Yeah, at what point did you go to sleep?

00:19:53.378 --> 00:19:54.480
Did you go to sleep?

00:19:56.755 --> 00:19:58.740
I didn't sleep a lot at that point, i agree.

00:19:58.740 --> 00:20:02.407
But like, well, i, you know I I'd gotten.

00:20:02.407 --> 00:20:18.681
You know, like most of us, i assume I'd gotten fascinated with music in my teens and you know, like I always say it's funny, the same year I discovered Star Wars, when I was nine, kiss also kind of hit really big.

00:20:18.681 --> 00:20:30.845
And in my small town comic book loving horror film, loving science fiction film, loving world, you know that was exactly the right band at exactly the right time, and and and and.

00:20:30.845 --> 00:20:38.818
But they also led me to like I was a voracious reader of stuff about you know, the movies and the bands that I liked, and it's just funny, i still have a little.

00:20:38.818 --> 00:20:41.777
I think it was Rod Swenson that wrote this little book about Kiss.

00:20:41.777 --> 00:20:52.209
It was, you know, the kind of thing that only a nine year old would think was worth buying, but it had all this information about them, talking about their influences, and so it's like I got to find out who, what is this thing?

00:20:52.209 --> 00:20:53.715
led Zeppelin, what is this thing?

00:20:53.715 --> 00:20:54.919
the Beatles, what is this thing?

00:20:54.919 --> 00:20:55.661
the Rolling Stones.

00:20:55.661 --> 00:21:04.278
And I started exploring and buying records based on what Kiss, what the members of Kiss had talked about, you know, and it led me to.

00:21:04.278 --> 00:21:18.324
You know it led me to all of that stuff And I started, you know, i started badgering my parents and my grandmother for a guitar and I got one for a birthday or Hanako or something And and and then started to learn to play.

00:21:18.624 --> 00:21:26.765
And you know, i'm not really that I think that particularly musically talented, but I'm.

00:21:26.765 --> 00:21:32.388
I was determined, but it took me a long time to get to even like a passable level.

00:21:32.388 --> 00:21:39.385
So I didn't really start playing, you know, professionally or out in front of people till after college.

00:21:39.385 --> 00:21:45.718
But I was just learning and playing all the time and playing along with friends and sort of just screwing around with it.

00:21:45.718 --> 00:22:06.843
But then sometime after college I started trying to write songs and sing and I got started eventually playing with a girl that was a friend of mine that sang and I would accompany her and we started playing sort of hippy, grateful dead type festivals and and end somewhere.

00:22:06.843 --> 00:22:19.663
Much later that led to Jesse Mallon asking me if I he saw me play guitar in a club in New York and he asked me if I would be interested in Coming out on tour with him.

00:22:19.663 --> 00:22:22.332
As his guitar tech notice, he didn't invite me to come play guitar.

00:22:24.300 --> 00:22:29.928
Obviously, you probably weren't, you probably weren't, you know, you weren't a true shredder at that point, but you didn't know what you you didn't know.

00:22:29.928 --> 00:22:32.359
You didn't know what you were talking about in terms of guitars.

00:22:32.359 --> 00:22:35.480
Harry, let me, let me ask you this.

00:22:35.480 --> 00:22:38.288
I want to kind of, i want to drag you back into the film world for a second.

00:22:38.288 --> 00:22:41.066
And Look, you're a Pennsylvania guy.

00:22:41.066 --> 00:22:42.711
You had said you had worked in Pittsburgh.

00:22:43.114 --> 00:22:51.730
You met Tom Savini, you know Greg Nicotero and, obviously, you mentioned a moment ago the idea of having met George Romero.

00:22:51.730 --> 00:22:58.153
I mean, for God's sakes, he is the godfather of, of a genre of horror.

00:22:58.153 --> 00:23:06.661
And you're talking to, and you're talking to someone in me who is a Huge, who's a comic book nut, who's a sci-fi nut, who's a horror nut as well, and like you I will.

00:23:06.661 --> 00:23:19.140
You know, my mind was blown when the first time I saw Star Wars, but as a pencil, as a as a pencil Pennsylvania and Pittsburgh guy, you know, everything kind of, everything kind of comes to a head with, with Romero and that world.

00:23:19.140 --> 00:23:26.799
So you know, while you were there saying to yourself, i'm gonna make big movies, i'm gonna make, you know, the big type of spectacular, big splash movies.

00:23:26.799 --> 00:23:34.026
How much could the indie, did that indie influence, that underground influence of Romero, work into your filmmaking?

00:23:34.026 --> 00:23:34.910
Oh?

00:23:35.862 --> 00:23:39.340
It definitely did it's, you know, i mean, i think or did it is it or did it I?

00:23:39.361 --> 00:23:50.432
mean it could have just like been a slight influence at all, i mean, or that, just that notion of, just that notion of I want to say that small, you know, making things the most, not making the most of things on a small budget.

00:23:50.882 --> 00:23:51.906
Yeah, well, absolutely.

00:23:51.906 --> 00:24:16.125
It's funny that I mean I think his influence had already by that point, because I mean he'd made not living dead 1968 and I was Working there, probably starting in 1985, 86 and probably meeting him, and maybe 87 was on the set of monkey shines, his movie Nobody seems to remember that one, but That's where I met him.

00:24:16.125 --> 00:24:32.653
So his influence had already kind of permeated the industry as far as like helping to create, you know, along with people like John sales and John Waters and other people that Helped to sort of and John Cassavetes and all these people that kind of built this world of, you know, no frills independent filmmaking.

00:24:32.653 --> 00:24:36.609
You know it had already permeated the industry.

00:24:36.609 --> 00:25:08.446
But in Pittsburgh I felt like one of the ways that it helped was a lot of the crew members I was working on had gotten their start working on his films, particularly at that point, dawn of the dead, the one that it shot in 1978, he dissembled a crew in Pittsburgh of Pittsburgh people and that kind of helped In a way that night of living dead didn't really have a chance to because it, you know, it was almost too early and the equipment was too expensive, you know, for for a Industry to sort of start up in a far-flung place like Pittsburgh.

00:25:08.467 --> 00:25:17.010
I think dawn of the dead helped to spawn a Lot of other filmmakers like Tony buba and John Rice that were on his crew.

00:25:17.010 --> 00:25:21.809
Tony bubo is a Award-winning documentary and he was George Amara's soundman.

00:25:21.809 --> 00:25:25.106
John Rice was a director of a ton of commercials.

00:25:25.106 --> 00:25:27.492
He was his camera assistant, a lot of those.

00:25:27.492 --> 00:25:44.667
You know Ed literary, but you know all these people who were, you know, his very low budget crew continued on To sort of branch off into their own production companies and their own filmmaking and Those were the people that were teaching me when I was first starting.

00:25:44.728 --> 00:25:53.148
They had already sort of built their little Individual companies but they were also working on these big budget commercials that I was working on.

00:25:53.148 --> 00:25:55.476
Those people were kind enough to take me under their wing.

00:25:55.476 --> 00:26:28.753
And then when I started having ideas for projects of my own, you know, thankfully those people were willing to help me get things off the ground at the time and I had several abortive projects that that I tried to make in Pittsburgh and, you know, even if they didn't get completely off the ground, didn't go anywhere, i still had some of the best people going, you know, trying to help me get them somewhere, designing my sets and And helping me through revising scripts and stuff.

00:26:28.753 --> 00:26:30.539
So it really did do what you're saying.

00:26:30.539 --> 00:26:31.101
It was.

00:26:31.101 --> 00:26:40.448
You know, the Romero influence kind of rippled outward from him to so many other people in that town, and Can we?

00:26:40.608 --> 00:26:41.940
can we talk about the Pittsburgh stuff?

00:26:41.940 --> 00:26:47.833
I think it's such a critical time in your career and I really want to talk about how you get from point a to point b.

00:26:47.833 --> 00:26:50.910
So you mentioned you were, you were working in Pittsburgh.

00:26:50.910 --> 00:26:56.003
You're doing commercial work, you're, you're making connections Like crazy, right?

00:26:56.003 --> 00:26:59.613
That's such an instrumental part of like how you build yourself in this industry.

00:26:59.613 --> 00:27:08.279
You talked about being a camera assistant and I want you to just talk about how How that's so critical because you're literally at the foot of the director.

00:27:08.279 --> 00:27:09.743
You're learning everything.

00:27:09.743 --> 00:27:16.507
A director knows how to interact with talent, how to Think about the next scene that you're gonna do after you're done filming the scene.

00:27:16.507 --> 00:27:17.589
You're doing so right now.

00:27:17.589 --> 00:27:19.413
You're, you're a camera assistant.

00:27:19.413 --> 00:27:26.460
You're cutting your teeth literally at the feet of somebody who, later on, you aspire to be, i'm sure.

00:27:26.460 --> 00:27:31.491
So how does that happen and what does that lead to in terms of your career arc?

00:27:31.952 --> 00:28:09.172
Well, the the the crucial next step is that, having learned a lot about sort of the mechanics of directing at the feet of some commercial directors, i I reached the point where I was a good enough camera assistant that a lot of Major features started coming into Pittsburgh because it was a non-union town and they could save money shooting in Pittsburgh by by hiring non-union crew and I was non-union and I So I got to then be a camera assistant at the foot of you know, directors like John Landis.

00:28:09.172 --> 00:28:15.720
Bill Duke is an action Actor, but he he directed a film I was working on there Tim Robbins.

00:28:16.442 --> 00:28:18.109
So how does that happen, bob Roberts?

00:28:18.109 --> 00:28:21.703
How do you write, bob Roberts, what a great film I mean you're talking about.

00:28:21.703 --> 00:28:23.891
You're throwing around these names like they're nothing.

00:28:23.891 --> 00:28:25.262
I mean, these are major films.

00:28:25.262 --> 00:28:26.885
Is it a connection?

00:28:26.885 --> 00:28:27.287
Is it a?

00:28:27.287 --> 00:28:28.470
is it a relationship?

00:28:28.470 --> 00:28:29.913
Is the someone call you?

00:28:29.913 --> 00:28:31.821
do you Know someone?

00:28:31.821 --> 00:28:32.663
who knows someone?

00:28:32.663 --> 00:28:33.124
what is?

00:28:33.124 --> 00:28:34.105
how does that work?

00:28:34.487 --> 00:28:35.308
Mostly the latter.

00:28:35.308 --> 00:28:47.083
Mostly what happens is people from one shoot that you're on, even if it's a commercial, start to get the call from another shoot that's crewing up and and Like it could be anyone.

00:28:47.083 --> 00:29:02.047
It could be just either a director of photography or, if I was on a shoot as a second assistant camera, the first assistant camera might be getting the call to go work on, say, innocent blood, and he That's the John Landis film I worked on.

00:29:02.047 --> 00:29:16.648
He would just they often like to bring people in that they know that they can trust it to not embarrass them or do You know or at least hopefully to do a proficient enough job that the job will get done and you know?

00:29:16.648 --> 00:29:35.041
so I started to get a little bit of a reputation as a reliable camera assistant and Very often then Successfully making it through one entire feature without getting fired Exactly.

00:29:35.041 --> 00:29:35.544
Yeah, it's.

00:29:35.544 --> 00:30:24.576
It's surprising how many people don't prove that, and It's it's easy to wash out, and very quickly on features because they're they either so much money at stake that They're they're kind of ruthless, mostly about just cutting people loose if they're not up to the task, and it It's definitely a young man's game And I was young at the time and being a crew member on features is, you know, minimum of 12 hours a day, usually six days a week, and very often, as the week wears on, it turns into 14 hours, 15 hours, 16 hours a day, and you know it's whatever the, you know, whatever the weather conditions are, hot or cold, you're often subject to that, and so I was pretty Hardy at that point you're young being able to you know yeah, less grown up

00:30:25.097 --> 00:30:43.325
and I was extremely I was extremely gung ho to do whatever it took at the time and, and I think I it was probably an asset that I was also, you know, friendly and had a good attitude and and you know like I was.

00:30:43.946 --> 00:31:01.683
You know, john Landis was kind of known as a Screamer and an angry onset, but he took a liking to me and he, he liked, he, he, he had fun talking to me and then I feel like, even if I had been not the most technically proficient AC, he liked having me around.

00:31:01.683 --> 00:31:21.446
So I got to stay on that movie and You know, i think people, it's the kind of thing it's like summer camp where it's like, well, you want to be around the people, you enjoy being around you kind of stuck with them for under you know tightly, you know constrained conditions for a long time and You know you, you want to be with the people.

00:31:21.446 --> 00:31:29.065
You can handle that, you can stand for that length of time and so so that's really That was sort of the leg up into.

00:31:29.065 --> 00:31:41.012
It was just, you know, kind of getting Getting along with people and getting, you know, getting through Brutal days and being willing to then show up again the next morning for the next 12 to 16 hour day.

00:31:41.760 --> 00:31:52.131
So you know, with that, yeah, how long were you, you know, in the Pittsburgh scene And when did you decide that you wanted to move on to something else?

00:31:52.131 --> 00:31:53.473
What was that transition like?

00:31:54.281 --> 00:31:56.382
Yeah, i, if I remember.

00:31:56.382 --> 00:31:59.511
I think I did about 13 years in Pittsburgh.

00:31:59.511 --> 00:32:01.824
I'm 55 now.

00:32:01.824 --> 00:32:19.570
I think I did 13 years in Pittsburgh working on commercials, feature films, music videos and industrial like corporate video, and that was kind of what made me leave, was It turns out, there's kind of like a little devil's bargain that happens.

00:32:19.731 --> 00:32:34.035
You, if you get to be known for being proficient, features are hard work, corporate and industrial work is easier, the hours are better and the pay is way better.

00:32:34.035 --> 00:32:38.875
Because they know it, they have to pay you more to get you to do this incredibly less glamorous work.

00:32:38.875 --> 00:32:49.054
And I started doing I got hired a lot by this company And it was kind of, you know, it was lucrative.

00:32:49.054 --> 00:32:55.455
But I started realizing that like I'd made the Devil's Bargain and I was spending.

00:32:55.455 --> 00:33:05.816
You know, i was spending years of my life at that point making stuff that you have to order people to watch, you know, in a conference room.

00:33:05.816 --> 00:33:14.634
And we're filming in a conference room stuff that somebody else will be ordered to watch in a conference room or forced to watch as part of their job.

00:33:14.634 --> 00:33:21.431
And you know, i always thought, like, well, films you go pay to watch commercials they kind of have to trick you into watching.

00:33:23.184 --> 00:33:27.055
In a corporate video you have to be ordered or paid to watch.

00:33:27.055 --> 00:33:37.287
And I was, yeah, and I found myself thinking like I want to get back to what I love, which is the art side of filmmaking, and I was.

00:33:37.287 --> 00:33:43.294
I felt like I wasn't going to be doing that in Pittsburgh, and so I just started thinking about how?

00:33:43.294 --> 00:33:47.509
you know where's the home of sort of independent labor, of love, filmmaking?

00:33:47.509 --> 00:33:53.217
And I decided to move to New York City, partly for that and partly for music too.

00:33:53.217 --> 00:33:56.895
I was playing music a lot with the woman that I was playing music with.

00:33:56.895 --> 00:34:04.492
Her name is Michelle Vargo and she, you know, we were playing a lot and I thought it was the perfect kind of way to come to New York.

00:34:04.492 --> 00:34:15.137
I could make some money doing music, i could make some money doing film And, you know, i moved here in 1999.

00:34:15.605 --> 00:34:17.429
What was that first labor of love film that you worked?

00:34:17.528 --> 00:34:18.451
on.

00:34:18.451 --> 00:34:31.974
It's funny I don't know if it ever came out, but I came here with a promise from a guy that was doing videos from for Saturday Night Live.

00:34:31.974 --> 00:34:38.800
I met him when I was here visiting, trying to figure out where to live, And he told me I will hire you immediately upon arrival.

00:34:38.800 --> 00:34:39.864
You've got so much experience.

00:34:39.864 --> 00:34:43.193
And so I came here overconfident, thinking I've already got a job.

00:34:43.193 --> 00:34:45.690
and I got here and I never heard of that guy again.

00:34:45.925 --> 00:35:14.476
So I started really having to kind of desperately figure out like, oh wow, you know, i'm like I was used to being sort of the young gung-ho kid in Pittsburgh and I got here and I thought I'm a little older now and a lot of the New York film industry is people fresh out of NYU And oftentimes, you know, they have parents who are kind of willing to foot the bill for the first few years of that by making it so they can work either cheap or free.

00:35:14.605 --> 00:35:47.356
And so I'm competing with people that don't a lot of the time, didn't need to pay the rent, and they're younger, they're more gung-ho, they're heartier than I am at that point, and so I started going to the mayor's office of film and television and just, you know they keep at the time they kept a physical list of all the productions that were crewing up and I just started, you know, doing the phone legwork, calling production offices, going in, with resumes going in, and then I got hired on a film called Moment in Time.

00:35:47.356 --> 00:35:49.530
I don't know, i don't think it ever came out.

00:35:49.530 --> 00:36:12.657
The director was a guy named Robert Orlando and the director of photography was a guy named Jan Wiesenberg, who I worked with many times after that And he hired me and then two days later he called to tell me he had to cut me loose because they had hired a kid fresh out of NYU who owned his own 16 millimeter camera system.

00:36:13.166 --> 00:36:17.978
And so they were going to save money by hiring an AC who was going to rent them the camera.

00:36:17.978 --> 00:36:19.992
And I was like, wow, i don't know how to compete with that.

00:36:19.992 --> 00:36:26.657
And he said, unless you want, you could stay on as the second assistant camera.

00:36:26.657 --> 00:36:27.438
And I needed the work.

00:36:27.438 --> 00:36:44.313
And I said yes, and it's funny that that kid who took my job, william Miller, became one of my lifelong friends since then And he moved up and became a DP And I started working with him and I worked on probably a dozen movies with him.

00:36:44.313 --> 00:36:54.018
Turned out that the guy who at first I was maybe frustrated at is an amazing filmmaker himself.

00:36:54.018 --> 00:37:01.764
He was younger than me and he was fresh out of NYU But I wound up pulling focus for him for a bunch of movies and then hired him to.

00:37:01.764 --> 00:37:04.934
When I started moving to directing, i hired him to be my DP.

00:37:06.228 --> 00:37:07.393
Did you fire him two days later?

00:37:07.393 --> 00:37:08.889
I deserved it.

00:37:12.289 --> 00:37:13.112
That would have been cool.

00:37:16.105 --> 00:37:18.365
I want you to be my DP, Will You're?

00:37:18.385 --> 00:37:18.606
fired.

00:37:18.606 --> 00:37:38.472
But it's like there's the scene in Charlie Wilson's war where Philip Seymour Hoffman tells the story of the Zen master where whenever something bad happens, he says we'll see, and then, when something good happens, he says we'll see, because you just don't know.

00:37:38.472 --> 00:38:04.157
And so what I thought was a terribly unfortunate thing of losing the first assistant job actually several of the people on that very first feature I worked on are people I worked with many dozens of times since and wound up being the connections that led to Carmine Femiglietti, who wrote and starred in the movie Pounds, which is one of the greatest things I've ever worked on in my life.

00:38:04.157 --> 00:38:15.672
It worked, it was at Sundance, and that guy who wrote and starred in that wound up producing both of my features and is one of my best friends in the world to this day.

00:38:15.672 --> 00:38:20.653
And I wouldn't have met him if not for Bill Miller, the guy who had stolen my job.

00:38:20.653 --> 00:38:21.355
Yeah, Yeah.

00:38:23.364 --> 00:38:36.086
So it wound up being an opportunity that came out of that what seemed like a crisis at the time And again it really is kind of like a who you know, but also how well you interact with the people that you know.

00:38:36.086 --> 00:38:44.398
The fact that I didn't come into that feature with a bad attitude because of the situation.

00:38:44.398 --> 00:38:51.632
I worked just as hard as Bill Miller's second AC, even though I had graduated from being a second AC years before that.

00:38:51.632 --> 00:39:01.315
It was the last time I ever worked as a second AC, but it was the right thing to do And I made amazing connections from that and still am working with those people.

00:39:01.625 --> 00:39:11.197
So a very quick question before I hand it to Tushar How long was it in between coming in from Pittsburgh and establishing that network?

00:39:11.197 --> 00:39:12.128
How long did that take?

00:39:12.804 --> 00:39:17.016
At the time it seemed like it took forever, because it was terrifying, because I had rent to pay.

00:39:17.016 --> 00:39:28.440
I believe I was already working on my second feature with that group of people by just before 9-11.

00:39:28.440 --> 00:39:31.224
So that means it would have only been like a year and a half from when I moved to town.

00:39:31.244 --> 00:39:33.411
So it took about a year and a half to set up that network.

00:39:33.893 --> 00:39:40.793
Yeah, and then you know I've made a lot of you know, made a lot more connections since then and made a lot of people since then.

00:39:40.793 --> 00:39:52.771
But it took that long just to feel like I got my sort of foot in the door and had this sort of a safe group of people that started hiring me on a bunch of other things, dependably, did commercials with those same people.

00:39:52.771 --> 00:40:01.657
Did you know maybe a couple dozen features just from the connections from that initial group?

00:40:02.079 --> 00:40:02.318
All right.

00:40:02.318 --> 00:40:06.153
So first of all I want to go back to you talking about Charlie Wilson's war.

00:40:06.153 --> 00:40:08.532
If you guys haven't seen that, you got to see this movie.

00:40:08.532 --> 00:40:09.594
It's one of my favorites.

00:40:09.594 --> 00:40:10.728
It's in my collection.

00:40:10.728 --> 00:40:12.289
It's one of my absolute favorite movies.

00:40:12.289 --> 00:40:16.215
It's one of those roles that Tom Hanks like never gets any real credit for.

00:40:16.215 --> 00:40:19.670
He's really good in that movie And same with Philip Seymour Hoffman.

00:40:19.670 --> 00:40:22.170
Yeah, oh, i mean, julia Roberts is great in that movie too.

00:40:22.170 --> 00:40:22.911
My God, i love that movie.

00:40:24.485 --> 00:40:25.992
But then you know the speech I'm talking about.

00:40:25.992 --> 00:40:30.717
Right, I know exactly the speech you're talking about because I love that film.

00:40:30.824 --> 00:40:32.873
I'm telling you, i love that film, yeah.

00:40:32.873 --> 00:40:34.670
I didn't do justice to the speech.

00:40:36.148 --> 00:40:40.653
He didn't do justice to the speech, and that movie is unfairly underrated.

00:40:40.653 --> 00:40:42.652
It's grossly underrated.

00:40:42.652 --> 00:40:45.512
It's a really good film, absolutely Okay.

00:40:45.512 --> 00:40:49.632
So obviously you've had this opportunity now to build out this network.

00:40:49.632 --> 00:41:03.329
I kind of wanted to talk a moment ago about this notion of like in Pittsburgh you turned yourself into a big fish and a little pond, and then, coming into New York, i would have thought that that feeling would have kind of ebbed a bit, but I was surprised for you to say that.

00:41:03.329 --> 00:41:11.657
You know what, when you came here, you kind of became the little fish and the big pond, even though you had all this experience but still were able to break through.

00:41:11.657 --> 00:41:13.110
I mean, that's just so surprising to me.

00:41:13.530 --> 00:41:21.186
Yeah, i'm skipping a lot of like hilarious, almost slapstick level failures in that first year and a half of trying to.

00:41:21.668 --> 00:41:31.315
you know I would get a job, and in film and find out you know, like the terrible reason why I had to let, why that job fell apart, that kind of stuff.

00:41:31.315 --> 00:41:35.887
But yeah, i was just very determined And it was.

00:41:35.887 --> 00:41:44.998
You know, i guess I the same way that when I got to Ithaca College I thought I knew enough to be I'm not a star film student.

00:41:44.998 --> 00:41:45.786
I thought I would be.

00:41:45.786 --> 00:41:50.175
I thought I was coming into college with with Craig.

00:41:50.175 --> 00:42:03.391
I think I thought I knew everything And I found out everyone else there knew as much or more, and I felt like you know, maybe a little bit of misplaced confidence helps, but maybe mixed with a little bit of humility.

00:42:03.391 --> 00:42:06.875
So you're at least ready to have your ass handed to you when you find out that you're.

00:42:06.875 --> 00:42:12.715
You know that you're not the king of the world.

00:42:12.715 --> 00:42:39.655
But I, just when I got to New York and I figured out that it wasn't going to be as easy as I'd hoped I, you know, i just sort of had no choice but to sort of buckle down and take whatever was offered And I just was determined not to like take anything that would take my eye off the goal of being involved with low budget labors of love.

00:42:39.655 --> 00:42:43.253
I was not going to take any corporate film work.

00:42:43.253 --> 00:42:56.280
I was not going to take any, you know, like shooting depositions for court or anything that was going to sort of force me to to maintain a job that I wasn't looking for.

00:42:56.280 --> 00:43:05.016
You know, it's very easy to find a gilded cage that you know it pays well and you just stay in that spot because you can't afford to lose that paycheck.

00:43:05.105 --> 00:43:13.255
I was determined, and I think it was the right move, to get involved with people that were making movies that were full of their own heart and soul.

00:43:13.255 --> 00:43:18.516
And the movie Pounds was really where I knew, like they said, that first movie Moment in Time.

00:43:18.516 --> 00:43:23.534
The guy meant well and he, he, it was a labor of love but it wasn't a good film.

00:43:23.534 --> 00:43:30.076
And then I got involved with several other films with, with, always with great people.

00:43:30.076 --> 00:43:36.711
But then that movie Pounds is a beautiful, beautiful film that you should check out if you could find a way to see it.

00:43:36.711 --> 00:43:53.315
It's about my friend wrote himself a part where he he was around 400 pounds and he wrote himself a movie about a guy that loses 200 pounds and changes his life And we shot it over two years and he lost the most weight that any actor's ever lost on screen.

00:43:53.315 --> 00:43:56.210
Wow, and it's a.

00:43:56.210 --> 00:44:00.612
It's a narrative, it's not a documentary, it's a you know.

00:44:00.612 --> 00:44:18.556
You know he got himself, you know not to be a spoiler, but he got himself down over 200 pounds from his original weight And it's a powerful movie with an incredible cast And, like I said, it made it to Sundance and it won the New York Avignon Film Festival and all this stuff.

00:44:18.864 --> 00:44:37.550
And then they made another film together, called a Mexicano, which also was great, played a Tribeca, and I started having the nerve to show these people my scripts And a lot of the time, people that are making their own films aren't interested in anyone else's ideas but their own.

00:44:37.550 --> 00:44:44.168
But these were very kind people who took me seriously enough to read what I was bringing to the table.

00:44:44.168 --> 00:44:53.349
And then now I'm lucky enough that all these years later, like I said, you know I've helped them on their projects and they help and produce.

00:44:53.349 --> 00:45:04.152
You know, on my projects And you know from good advice from my dad when I was young, that find a like minded group of people who all have the same thing.

00:45:04.152 --> 00:45:17.068
You know, you know the same sort of goals and I work on each other's projects and support each other's dreams And I got lucky and got involved with that And so that's.

00:45:17.068 --> 00:45:19.693
That's the short version of how it all comes together.

00:45:19.994 --> 00:45:20.175
All right.

00:45:20.175 --> 00:45:22.309
So let me ask you this Now I was actually going to.

00:45:22.309 --> 00:45:32.894
I actually was going to say, like you know, obviously, when you first started out, you had your thoughts of going to NYU or USC film school And then, when you got to New York, you began losing gigs to NYU kids.

00:45:32.894 --> 00:45:46.219
I'm surprised you didn't go to NYU and burn it down to be honest with you, but but but but seriously though, as as your career progressed as your career has progressed.

00:45:47.164 --> 00:45:53.048
Have you found and you're obviously a director, you have a great, you obviously have a great eye behind the camera.

00:45:53.048 --> 00:45:59.036
Have you found that you prefer being behind the camera or or as a writer, as a script writer?

00:46:00.628 --> 00:46:02.074
I really, i really like both.

00:46:02.074 --> 00:46:03.992
I always wanted to write and direct.

00:46:03.992 --> 00:46:16.235
I always felt like there's a way in which you you know that to me that was always the dream, and I think I it's funny I misunderstood.

00:46:16.235 --> 00:46:27.275
I thought, you know, i think when I was young I was such a huge Kubrick fanatic and I didn't realize till later he actually wrote very few of his own stories And yes very rarely was the screenwriter on his own films.

00:46:27.405 --> 00:46:33.791
He would hire good writers and pick a novel or a short story that he liked and have someone flesh that out into a script for him.

00:46:33.885 --> 00:46:42.990
He definitely oversaw all of that, of course, but I think I was into this sort of a tour theory idea And I so.

00:46:42.990 --> 00:47:03.153
For me, it was always about trying to figure out a way to write my own scripts and direct them myself, because I feel like then you know that the director really gets the script, you know, and and you know, if you're sitting there directing actors and they ask you know why does the character say this And you have to go, i'm not sure, like that's, that's a bad look, i think, on set.

00:47:03.153 --> 00:47:21.925
So I always felt like at least I knew that if I told an actor what a moment meant and a script or what their character would be thinking, at least knowing that I wrote it, they would believe me, even if I was bullshitting, which I really am not no-transcript.

00:47:21.925 --> 00:47:24.125
So it was always about being able to do both.

00:47:24.125 --> 00:47:29.422
I almost see the two as inextricably linked, even though most people don't do both.

00:47:29.835 --> 00:47:31.943
And I know your music is a big part of your life too.

00:47:31.943 --> 00:47:38.262
I wanna talk about the balance, though, because you're talking about your writing, you're talking about filmmaking.

00:47:38.262 --> 00:47:40.021
I mean those are huge endeavors.

00:47:40.021 --> 00:47:42.463
The music stuff I know we're gonna talk about in a moment.

00:47:42.463 --> 00:47:43.498
It's huge endeavors.

00:47:43.498 --> 00:47:49.476
Do you have time that you set aside when you're trying to balance your creative outlet with?

00:47:49.476 --> 00:48:04.184
I'm gonna write from such and such to such and such, or from Monday through Wednesday right, or from nine to two, and then I'm gonna work on putting together my crew for my next film and then I'm gonna go play that gig tonight.

00:48:04.184 --> 00:48:08.742
Like, do you have time that you set aside for balancing all of your creative?

00:48:08.802 --> 00:48:09.103
outlets.

00:48:09.215 --> 00:48:19.840
Because we're talking about so many things here and most people have one of these, if that right, and you're balancing all of them We joked about you don't have time to sleep, but how do you find the?

00:48:19.880 --> 00:48:23.344
balance, i hate to admit, but I think it's much more chaotic.

00:48:23.434 --> 00:48:23.936
I think it's.

00:48:24.217 --> 00:48:48.804
it might sound pretentious, but Roger Waters, i referred to the feeling of being pregnant with an idea, where it's like you've got the thing that you've gotta get out, and I think that just I'm not comparing myself to him, of course, but I'm saying I think that his phrasing of that is sort of how I organize my approach to it, just like I've, you know, i have to see through the idea.

00:48:48.954 --> 00:48:52.505
that's kind of burning and churning to get out, you know.

00:48:52.505 --> 00:49:16.706
And so if I'm, if I have an idea for a script or for a song or for any, you know, for anything like that, i think I just kind of follow the I hesitate to say muse, but I follow the whatever the inclination is And but and then sort of the schedule sets itself.

00:49:16.706 --> 00:49:19.202
It's like if I'm working on a script I wind up.

00:49:19.202 --> 00:49:37.619
my tendency was to just stay up all night And I feel like the world shuts down and you stop getting phone calls and texts and there's nothing particularly pressing from anywhere else between about one in the morning and seven or eight in the morning, and so almost everything I've ever written I write in those hours.

00:49:39.137 --> 00:49:40.202
And I have no idea.

00:49:40.202 --> 00:49:43.742
Yeah, I'm out cold.

00:49:44.175 --> 00:49:46.760
It's nice, right then right, that's a good sweet spot When you get tired.

00:49:46.802 --> 00:49:55.083
I think you get a little bit almost like a drug in your brain chemistry that when you reach that point there's a little bit of madness at like.

00:49:55.083 --> 00:49:57.215
You know six or seven in the morning when you're done.

00:49:59.001 --> 00:49:59.481
No, i get you.

00:49:59.481 --> 00:50:00.505
get that loopy feel too.

00:50:00.505 --> 00:50:01.277
No, i get you.

00:50:01.795 --> 00:50:06.222
Yeah, yeah And sometimes that's a good time to kind of tie ideas together.

00:50:06.315 --> 00:50:10.021
That's sometimes where like where the connections get drawn suddenly.

00:50:10.021 --> 00:50:14.302
So I always felt like those are the hours you know.

00:50:14.302 --> 00:50:16.775
Then you, you know, do the rest of the things you need the.

00:50:16.775 --> 00:50:17.378
You know the.

00:50:17.378 --> 00:50:24.625
You know the errands and things like that and the rest of the day And to me those are prime hours for that.

00:50:24.625 --> 00:50:29.382
And then you know, during the day hours are when you can do things like the.

00:50:29.382 --> 00:50:31.920
You know production paperwork or the.

00:50:31.920 --> 00:50:37.139
You know the guitar teching or whatever, and you know it helps that.

00:50:37.139 --> 00:50:39.679
You know, even working as a guitar tech.

00:50:39.679 --> 00:50:47.778
For you know, for any of the people that I've worked with those, unless you're on tour, you're going to be home.

00:50:47.778 --> 00:50:52.121
You know, maybe around one or two, and then you can start Sleep all day.

00:50:52.161 --> 00:50:53.860
Sunday I just sit down and start writing.

00:50:53.900 --> 00:50:58.597
then Yeah, exactly Yeah, i've heard this whole story.

00:50:58.699 --> 00:50:59.782
I guess to hear it.

00:50:59.782 --> 00:51:00.322
I mean it either.

00:51:00.322 --> 00:51:01.615
There's no sleep There's.

00:51:01.615 --> 00:51:03.461
there was no sleep in any of the schedule.

00:51:03.663 --> 00:51:06.282
by the way, i've had some older than I need more sleep.

00:51:06.282 --> 00:51:08.661
Now I've, you know, had some health issues.

00:51:08.661 --> 00:51:14.601
I need more sleep just to heal, but maybe that's because of all the lack of sleep for the years before that.

00:51:15.155 --> 00:51:19.081
So, harry, I'm trying to figure out how to ask this next question.

00:51:19.081 --> 00:51:22.445
So you have so many different interests.

00:51:22.445 --> 00:51:27.585
As we've been talking about, You've been pursuing your film career.

00:51:27.585 --> 00:51:46.804
You, you know, have dabbled in music when you were younger And you know, part of your story and part of your journey is the fact that you have worked with GuitarTech for supported some some really famous and really well-known and highly respected musicians.

00:51:46.804 --> 00:51:51.657
You know, how did you establish that network, Like like?

00:51:51.657 --> 00:51:56.922
where did that path come from, And can you kind of take us through what that journey has been for you?

00:51:57.295 --> 00:52:01.079
I guess the easy way to answer that question is are you the modern day forest gum?

00:52:01.099 --> 00:52:06.184
Yeah, I've said that about myself too.

00:52:06.184 --> 00:52:07.005
I really have.

00:52:07.416 --> 00:52:08.922
I you know that was yelling.

00:52:10.478 --> 00:52:11.802
You know, if you saw that film.

00:52:11.802 --> 00:52:15.481
yeah, yeah, definitely there's a bit of that.

00:52:15.481 --> 00:52:30.565
I feel like I've had a funny way of sort of winding up connected with the people that I used to dream about working with, and I've done so usually without seeking it out.

00:52:30.565 --> 00:52:42.706
Like you know, the way I wound up connected to the musicians that you're asking about all starts with a friend of mine from college, who they call Brother Mike Cohen.

00:52:42.726 --> 00:52:43.228
Who I know.

00:52:43.369 --> 00:52:47.043
Was DJing at a bar Break out yep, yeah, i know, i know you know him.

00:52:47.043 --> 00:52:49.262
Yeah, he's a hilarious and very talented guy.

00:52:49.262 --> 00:52:55.583
himself has some short films, animated of recordings he made of his parents surreptitiously when he was a kid.

00:52:56.094 --> 00:53:02.454
It's really brilliant stuff that he made with a cartoonist, an animator, who also went to the good college.

00:53:02.454 --> 00:53:03.880
So again, the connections have stayed.

00:53:03.880 --> 00:53:08.865
But he was DJing at a bar owned by a musician named Jesse Malin.

00:53:08.865 --> 00:53:21.742
And Jesse Malin was the musician who saw me playing guitar in a bar and asked if I would tech for him on a gig That turned into shortly after that.

00:53:21.742 --> 00:53:33.815
By coincidence, very shortly after I started working as his guitar tech for because there was a gap in film work I was like, yeah, i guess I'll do that, that's something I could do.

00:53:33.815 --> 00:53:41.635
And you know, there was like it looked like there was going to be a month or so before there was going to be another feature to work on And I thought, well, that would be interesting.

00:53:41.635 --> 00:53:42.659
It's something I've never done.

00:53:42.659 --> 00:53:49.125
Then, right after that, jesse Malin got a call from Bruce Springsteen asking him to do a show with him.

00:53:49.125 --> 00:53:53.264
That led to meeting Bruce and meeting Bruce's crew.

00:53:55.121 --> 00:53:57.802
And you've got a tech for Bruce, right, yeah, multiple times.

00:53:58.364 --> 00:53:59.010
Yeah, i have.

00:53:59.010 --> 00:54:10.449
I have, Yeah, and and even filmed behind the scenes documentary of Jesse doing a doing a duet with Bruce called Broken Radio.

00:54:10.449 --> 00:54:11.960
That was on Jesse's album.

00:54:11.960 --> 00:54:13.836
I was.

00:54:13.836 --> 00:54:23.315
I got to film behind the scenes of them recording the song in the first place at Bruce's house and then go back while Danny Clinch was directing the music video for that song.

00:54:23.315 --> 00:54:28.280
I got to direct the behind the scenes footage for a documentary on that.

00:54:29.056 --> 00:54:41.106
And that day Bruce's guitar tech had a family thing he had to do at the last minute And he asked me if I would take over as Bruce's guitar tech.

00:54:41.106 --> 00:54:44.581
Alongside shooting the video, i had to get Bruce's guitars ready.

00:54:44.581 --> 00:54:52.902
You know Bruce's regular guitar tech knew he'd seen me tech for Jesse before, so he asked me if I would step in and do that.

00:54:52.902 --> 00:55:23.079
And that gave him confidence that in the very rare instances where he needed to replace himself for recording sessions or for even one weird night where the Bruce on Broadway show nearly got snowed out by that massive ice storm a few years ago that shut down the city of New York, bruce's guitar tech was stuck in the tunnel And I got the call at the last second to run down to Bruce on Broadway and set up and get ready to tech for Bruce on Broadway.

00:55:24.182 --> 00:55:25.226
That's just not right.

00:55:25.226 --> 00:55:26.239
It's just not right.

00:55:26.239 --> 00:55:28.161
What a network you have.

00:55:28.295 --> 00:55:29.655
Yeah, yeah, yeah, well.

00:55:29.655 --> 00:55:40.461
And then Jesse works with a lot of great people, so I've got the tech for Ian Hunter, lucinda Williams, jacob Dillon, come on, come on, who else?

00:55:40.461 --> 00:55:44.536
Willie, nile The Strokes, who else?

00:55:45.981 --> 00:55:59.545
It's tough to think of Ryan Adams to me once I teched Yeah, yeah, i teched for Ryan Adams And then that led to getting to tech for Bob Weir's group Rat Dog and with Phil Lesh and recording studio stuff.

00:56:00.557 --> 00:56:20.483
And then that led to this is how bizarre and forest gump like it's all been, where I was on a tour with Jesse opening for Ryan Adams And he would have Phil Lesh come out for a little mini set with Ryan Adams at the end of each night And then on the last night Phil was unable to be there for the encore of the Ryan Adams show.

00:56:21.016 --> 00:56:39.105
So they just crazily decided well, let's just book a late night after hours gig And Ryan tried to get Jesse and Jacob Dylan, who were there that night, to join him for a big super group that night with Phil Lesh at a place called 12 galaxies in San Francisco.

00:56:39.105 --> 00:56:47.503
It started like two in the morning and I got there thinking I was taking the gig and when I got there Jesse and Jacob both bowed out, didn't want to play.

00:56:47.503 --> 00:56:57.778
So I got there and Ryan Adams said you're playing tonight and he handed me a guitar And he just said you know, just follow me, get on stage and follow me.

00:56:57.778 --> 00:57:03.577
You can watch it on YouTube and I was you right at him, so feel less terrible, but Me right at him, phil and Chad.

00:57:05.552 --> 00:57:09.300
Was Obama in the audience because it would make sense you've been Obama movie.

00:57:09.300 --> 00:57:11.123
The next part, it was Obama in the audience.

00:57:11.972 --> 00:57:13.757
No, no, but it was I always.

00:57:13.757 --> 00:57:20.521
I was there and then my my second grade teacher and Mikhail Gorbachev were watching.

00:57:20.521 --> 00:57:25.898
But no, i No, but I was there and my at the time ex girlfriend was there.

00:57:25.898 --> 00:57:37.235
Jacob Dylan and Jesse Malin were watching from the balcony above the stage while I'm standing on stage with Phil Lesh go turning to me every so often and going E minor.

00:57:38.373 --> 00:57:39.016
Oh, that's great.

00:57:39.016 --> 00:57:40.958
I didn't know how to play those songs.

00:57:41.150 --> 00:57:43.639
You know, i didn't know how to play those songs.

00:57:44.253 --> 00:57:44.695
Oh, ryan.

00:57:45.572 --> 00:57:54.677
Just all he said was he, before he went out there on stage, i said I don't show me a cellist And I said I don't know how to play any of those songs.

00:57:54.737 --> 00:58:13.253
And in unison, phil Lesh and Ryan Adams said Perfect, and, and then, and then, and then right, and then And look me straight in the eye with great seriousness said just Play your heart out, play what you feel.

00:58:13.253 --> 00:58:15.440
And tucking your Oh, that's great.

00:58:15.440 --> 00:58:19.601
And when you look at the, when you look at the still pictures of it, you see that like I'm.

00:58:19.601 --> 00:58:24.922
Or if you look at the video, you see that I'm playing the best I can, which is not amazing.

00:58:25.291 --> 00:58:28.931
I'm probably, i'm easily the worst guy that's probably shared the stage with either of those two.

00:58:28.931 --> 00:58:33.094
You know hall of fame level players, but my shirt is properly.

00:58:33.094 --> 00:58:33.755
Well, that's nice.

00:58:34.137 --> 00:58:34.478
There you go.

00:58:34.478 --> 00:58:37.679
At least you look nice, at least you look nice.

00:58:38.331 --> 00:58:39.695
Yeah, yeah, i was able to do that.

00:58:39.695 --> 00:59:00.695
Yeah, i've gotten to work with Bob Weir and you know, nora Jones and James E Ha and trying to think who Mike Campbell and Perry Farrell and you know and beyond guitar tech, right, yeah, and like a stage manager too, right.

00:59:01.438 --> 00:59:01.478
Mm.

00:59:01.478 --> 00:59:02.711
Hmm, yeah, i got to.

00:59:02.711 --> 00:59:05.061
I was stage manager for all the.

00:59:05.061 --> 00:59:19.123
They started this thing called the best fests, which is the Dylan Fest, petty Fest, the Stones Fest, where they would have just an all star cast of musicians get up and do a couple of you know a couple of songs by those artists.

00:59:19.123 --> 00:59:20.291
So I got to.

00:59:20.291 --> 00:59:21.034
That was I got to.

00:59:21.436 --> 00:59:49.003
I was stage manager, but also sometimes doubling a stage manager and guitar tech, so I was tuning guitars for people as strange as, like you know, a boss skags and John Mackenrod oh geez, you know and come on stage managing for, like Jason Sudeikis and will will Forte and Kristen Wigg all those people you know, regina Specter, and it just it became like a you know Donald Fagan.

00:59:49.003 --> 00:59:55.226
I mean, he didn't really he's a keyboard player, so he didn't really need much besides telling him when to go on and stuff.

00:59:55.226 --> 01:00:00.748
But you know, yeah, so I got to work with a pretty crazy cast of characters and that's all.

01:00:00.748 --> 01:00:02.032
In a way, it's again it's.

01:00:02.032 --> 01:00:04.463
It comes back to the sort of networking thing of that.

01:00:04.463 --> 01:00:13.978
All of that starts with the connections through Jesse Malin, who's one of my best friends in the world and one of the kindest people, kind hearted, most kind hearted people you'll ever know.

01:00:13.978 --> 01:00:19.610
And he just opened for listen to Williams at City Winery last night.

01:00:19.610 --> 01:00:21.496
I've got to work with her a bunch of times through him.

01:00:21.949 --> 01:00:24.335
When was the last time you spoke to anybody over at Ithaca?

01:00:24.335 --> 01:00:32.822
I mean like, like in the administration, because you are by far and away the single greatest piece of advertising for that school.

01:00:33.849 --> 01:00:34.913
I have never heard.

01:00:35.333 --> 01:00:40.634
I have never been more jazzed up to hear about Ithaca in my life than I am right now.

01:00:41.730 --> 01:00:42.992
No, it's, it's it.

01:00:42.992 --> 01:00:43.713
Well.

01:00:43.713 --> 01:01:18.764
I they were kind enough to bring me and my editor, who also at the college graduate, sarah Corrigan, up there I think it was 2019, if I'm not mistaken to talk to the film students and screen staring at the sun, which was my first feature, and tell them about and show some sort of half finished scenes from here, after which I was still in the process of editing at that point and you know the Patty Zimmerman, who's a great professor there, still was teaching there, and so she sought to.

01:01:18.764 --> 01:01:27.289
She brought me there, we gave talks to students, we, you know, did round table with students trying to give career advice.

01:01:27.289 --> 01:01:44.769
And again, my, my story is such a ludicrously circuitous route to doing what I'm doing that all I could say was well, i don't suggest anyone attempt the, you know, to learn from the path of what got me to directing, but what I would say is at least not without a net forgot.

01:01:46.394 --> 01:02:00.043
Well, but I'm a good lesson in like, don't discount any possibilities and just sort of don't don't overlook any opportunities and certainly don't don't think that something as crazy as your parents dry cleaner couldn't be the opportunity you're looking for.

01:02:00.043 --> 01:02:06.476
So I, at least in that way I was a good you know, a good example.

01:02:06.476 --> 01:02:16.023
I definitely always came at everything as at least the, with the hope that it, you know, was potentially a route somewhere.

01:02:16.023 --> 01:02:24.612
And I think it's the thing of having an indomitable spirit where you, you always believe that you could do the thing that you want to do.

01:02:24.612 --> 01:02:31.742
And you know, like I always say, people you've never be there is never a shortage of people to tell you that your dream is impossible.

01:02:31.742 --> 01:02:36.789
And your job is to not listen to them if you really want to do it and just keep keep plugging away at it.

01:02:36.789 --> 01:02:54.380
And if, if you don't, if you, if you could do anything else, you probably should in a way, but like, if you, you know, if you've got that feeling of like, no, this is the only thing I want to do with my life, then then that that feeling will probably help get you there.

01:02:54.800 --> 01:03:02.936
And I feel like it's been true for a lot of my friends, a lot of my friends that are making films, did not even did not go to school for it.

01:03:02.936 --> 01:03:14.309
You know, i have friends that are that are directing films or writing films, that that didn't go to college at all, that you know it's.

01:03:14.309 --> 01:03:15.815
There is no one way there.

01:03:15.815 --> 01:03:19.713
All there is is just, you know, keeping your eye on the ball and keeping working towards it.

01:03:19.713 --> 01:03:40.996
And knowing that you're going to have to write a bunch of terrible scripts before you write a even a halfway good one, knowing that you're going to have to maybe make some terrible films or videos or something, you know that that you know very few people start out making Citizen Kane, you know under no condition for you to take a nap and barely eat apparently and no sleep.

01:03:41.757 --> 01:03:43.061
So, harry, i know what your job title is.

01:03:43.061 --> 01:03:44.913
I figured it out.

01:03:44.972 --> 01:03:47.867
I know what your job title is your job title is simply creative.

01:03:47.867 --> 01:03:51.824
That's it, you are a creative no, it's like it's not even.

01:03:51.824 --> 01:03:55.277
It's not even to be being funny in this case, like this is your job.

01:03:55.277 --> 01:03:58.610
Your job is to be as creative as possible, and you've done it.

01:03:58.610 --> 01:03:59.411
You've really done that.

01:03:59.431 --> 01:04:10.056
You've achieved that well I you know, i think you know this like the thing where Ryan Adams said you want to get on stage, i could have said no, but I, like I always feel like I would have.

01:04:10.056 --> 01:04:15.664
I would have regretted for the rest of my life that I said no and didn't have the nerve to get out there and do it.

01:04:15.664 --> 01:04:26.398
And the same with you know, i got lucky and I I wanted to have Angelo Bada Lamenti, something like Angelo Bada Lamenti, the guy that wrote all the music for all of the Twin Peaks and David Lynch stuff.

01:04:26.398 --> 01:04:31.833
I wanted to have something like that for the music for my film and I thought why don't I just reach out and ask him?

01:04:31.833 --> 01:04:36.413
and I asked him and he said yes, and so I went over and I got him to do music for my film.

01:04:36.413 --> 01:04:38.498
And then he said do you write lyrics?

01:04:38.498 --> 01:04:43.923
and I said yeah, and I could have, you know, said no, no, no, i'm not, you want to get a better lyricist.

01:04:44.003 --> 01:04:52.210
But then I, you know, i had the nerve and the gall and the misguided self-belief maybe to to say yes and I wrote the lyrics.

01:04:52.210 --> 01:05:00.679
And then I asked Debbie Harry if she would sing it, and she because I had worked with her through Jesse Mellon as well, and his network keeps getting bigger it's.

01:05:00.679 --> 01:05:09.639
But I'm saying that it's the the nerve to kind of ask for things and and reach out to people and dare and dare to say yes when they ask you to do stuff.

01:05:09.639 --> 01:05:18.793
You know, and like a crew member that I worked with a long time ago said and I thought this was a great thing he said he just so.

01:05:18.793 --> 01:05:22.342
I didn't say I was good, i just said I was available.

01:05:22.342 --> 01:05:27.356
And so when you, when you say like that I would call that my job title is available.

01:05:28.538 --> 01:05:28.838
I love.

01:05:28.838 --> 01:05:40.900
I love the life lessons, professional lessons, i mean, the nuggets that you're dropping honestly could be used for any profession and just, i don't know if anyone's keeping track at home, but the dream jobs he's already had.

01:05:40.900 --> 01:05:48.873
Gentlemen, right where director, filmmaker, writer, stage manager, guitar tech you know they just guitars.

01:05:48.873 --> 01:05:50.097
They keep falling out of you.

01:05:50.097 --> 01:05:54.213
I want to bring it back to your movies, because I watch both of your features.

01:05:54.213 --> 01:06:08.983
They're amazing, they're there and what I, what I find fascinating about them in their totality is how different they are from each other, and I wonder if you can talk about how you feel about each of them.

01:06:08.983 --> 01:06:13.443
I know your films are your babies, so you have two babies there and I'm sure you have many more on the way.

01:06:13.443 --> 01:06:18.510
So what is your writing process and what were your, what was your thought process when you were putting these together?

01:06:20.135 --> 01:06:23.364
I feel bad that it almost always would start with the words.

01:06:23.364 --> 01:06:29.664
It's a long story, but I try not to do that here after and staring at the sun.

01:06:29.724 --> 01:06:32.996
For those of you at home, by the way, i'd be remiss to not mention thank you thank you.

01:06:33.036 --> 01:06:36.429
Well, those came together in a very funny way.

01:06:36.429 --> 01:06:42.101
I was planning to make here after first and we had it all set up.

01:06:42.101 --> 01:07:29.483
We were ready to shoot it with a completely different cast and in 2012 and our our lead actress had a scheduling difficulty and that shut the whole thing down and I was gonna wait a year, and while waiting a year, i couldn't work on the script that everybody had already approved, and so I wrote staring at the sun during that year, and then other problems came up and we couldn't make here after that, one year later, and so my thought was well, staring at the sun's a more simple film, more straightforward, no special effects, let's just.

01:07:29.483 --> 01:07:33.496
You know I'm I don't want to wait another year for here after.

01:07:33.496 --> 01:07:53.432
So we went ahead and what was meant to be my second film wound up becoming my first film, and that took longer and was more expensive and much more complicated than I thought, and so, like, all of my attention got turned over to staring at the sun for a number of years.

01:07:53.512 --> 01:07:54.978
It took a long time in the editing.

01:07:54.978 --> 01:08:39.890
It took a long time, you know we, you know it's shot in all over the five boroughs of New York and in Phoenix and Tucson, arizona, and it was just a very complicated thing and I it made me realize I'd probably bit enough more than I could have chewed if I had gone ahead and made the sort of effects heavy here after first and then, everything I learned from that I, i had, you know, written in the while waiting for the time to be right to finally shoot here after I wrote several more scripts, but then I kept coming around to like I really liked the idea of here after I thought it was unique and I thought it was so different from what I had just done with staring at the Sun.

01:08:39.890 --> 01:08:51.979
I'd staring at the Sun had played in like I think I won, i think it won 41 awards in 25 festivals, and I don't say that to brag, although I guess by definition.

01:08:52.641 --> 01:08:57.457
But all right so what I'm saying is I felt like I had made it like it was.

01:08:57.677 --> 01:09:03.176
It's sort of a coming of age drama with some pretty specific elements.

01:09:03.257 --> 01:09:20.092
It's about two Hasidic teenage girls who run away and try to find a life of freedom somewhere in America that they just imagine must be out there, and so then you know, hereafter is so different, and then it's a film about love in the afterlife.

01:09:21.717 --> 01:09:49.354
It's about, you know, a guy dies and finds out that in order to cross over to the other side, you have to have you have to have a soul that you're paired with, you have to have real love, and he's just been dumped, so he's the furthest from that that he's ever been, and so it's sort of it was meant to be a satire on how shitty the world makes you feel when you're single and lonely sometimes, and but it it kind of turned into a film about what would real love be like.

01:09:49.354 --> 01:09:55.739
If you had to actually find meaningful love, like you know how would.

01:09:55.739 --> 01:10:00.275
How would you even know what you were looking for and how would you find a way to make yourself worthy of that?

01:10:00.275 --> 01:10:08.671
and I was trying to wrestle with big questions, but again, like you said, very, very different from staring at the sun and great movies.

01:10:08.872 --> 01:10:12.198
Award-winning Christina Ricci starred in.

01:10:12.198 --> 01:10:14.864
Star here is hereafter.

01:10:14.864 --> 01:10:18.632
I mean really really great big projects.

01:10:18.632 --> 01:10:22.159
No, harry, as you look forward, what's next?

01:10:22.159 --> 01:10:23.641
what do you have on the burner?

01:10:25.070 --> 01:10:31.507
well, i, it's funny, you know, life has a funny way of getting in the way of your plans.

01:10:31.507 --> 01:10:37.962
But I'm I've been trying to get a third film off the ground.

01:10:37.962 --> 01:10:45.792
I've had some, i've had some, you know, health issues that have slowed me down on that, and then there was this whole pandemic thing of course too.

01:10:45.792 --> 01:11:07.119
But the next, the film that I'm trying to get off the ground is, is a horror film and I wrote it a while back and you know been revising it periodically and it's, it's again extremely different from the other two films.

01:11:07.220 --> 01:11:46.293
I kind of always admired, like filmmakers like Kubrick again who made films in vastly different genres from each other, and I kind of like the idea of, you know, of doing that and keeping that kind of a path where you wouldn't necessarily think it was even the same filmmaker and even though you know, like me, my films are talky and their dialogue heavy, like a unique, you know, i mean, you certainly pull that off with your first two well, thank you, hang in, you know, but so the most likely the horror film would be next.

01:11:46.314 --> 01:11:53.601
We're working on trying to get that off the ground now and you know I tend to be relatively secretive okay, i'll ask nothing else.

01:11:53.622 --> 01:11:55.310
No more taking.

01:11:55.310 --> 01:12:02.823
You know, harry, this has been, you know, an incredible conversation, an incredible journey.

01:12:02.823 --> 01:12:12.680
I'm sure we missed about 9000 things along the way, but this would have been a seven hour interview I never got to talk to you.

01:12:13.101 --> 01:12:15.729
That's on the next podcast yes, harry, thank you.

01:12:15.789 --> 01:12:16.131
Thank you.

01:12:16.171 --> 01:12:24.039
Thank you so much for joining us today thank you, thank you very, very much, very sincerely, from the bottom of my heart, for asking me to do this, because I'm honored to do this.

01:12:24.039 --> 01:12:26.640
You guys are great and it's a great conversation.

01:12:26.640 --> 01:12:34.398
I love the idea of your podcast, of like trying to, you know, trace the journey of how people got to where they wanted to get to, and it's a beautiful idea.

01:12:35.506 --> 01:12:45.514
So that was the self-described, creative and, as we put it, world's most interesting man, harry Greenberger Tushar, what a fascinating guy.

01:12:45.926 --> 01:12:54.500
The one thing he proved that as long as you go out of your way to prove you are not a moron, you will be successful in life.

01:12:54.500 --> 01:12:55.387
That is it.

01:12:55.387 --> 01:13:01.036
Just make sure that you come off as not being a dummy and make sure that.

01:13:01.036 --> 01:13:07.765
look, i guess really it's make sure that you come off as likeable, people enjoy being around you and good things will happen.

01:13:07.765 --> 01:13:09.390
And really that's really been the case.

01:13:09.390 --> 01:13:14.891
right Every kind of every step along the way he proved himself A he was a voracious learner.

01:13:14.891 --> 01:13:21.618
B he the people who are around him not only took a liking to him, but wanted to go out of the way to help him.

01:13:21.618 --> 01:13:26.028
That was that's such a great story right there, something that you almost can't.

01:13:26.028 --> 01:13:29.657
you can't teach that, but it's something we all need to learn and understand.

01:13:30.627 --> 01:13:31.689
Yeah, i love his.

01:13:31.689 --> 01:13:34.215
you know, be someone people want to work with.

01:13:34.215 --> 01:13:39.076
You know what I mean, like people want to be with you while you're working because you're a good person.

01:13:39.076 --> 01:13:40.952
He so many lessons.

01:13:40.952 --> 01:13:42.891
I mean God, there's so much to take out of this.

01:13:42.891 --> 01:14:03.185
But I think early on when he's in Pittsburgh doing commercials, you know he talked a lot about being at the right hand of the director and kind of seeing what the director did moment to moment the big stuff, the little stuff, the decisions that are made, you know, interacting with actors and things of that nature, and the bigger picture project stuff that he had to really have a handle on.

01:14:03.185 --> 01:14:05.145
So there's so much to take away.

01:14:05.145 --> 01:14:07.500
I mean be available.

01:14:07.500 --> 01:14:11.497
No sleep, don't worry about not getting any sleep because you're not getting any, right.

01:14:11.497 --> 01:14:12.121
I love that.

01:14:12.121 --> 01:14:13.185
Say yes to everything.

01:14:13.185 --> 01:14:16.091
I mean there's just so much to take away.

01:14:16.091 --> 01:14:21.164
and and don't laugh off any opportunity because it might be the important one.

01:14:21.164 --> 01:14:23.164
I mean that just sticks with me, right?

01:14:23.164 --> 01:14:24.650
Learn so much.

01:14:25.926 --> 01:14:33.759
It reminds me a lot of a book by Pat Riley, the winner within, where he says in the book, don't demean your time in the trenches.

01:14:33.759 --> 01:14:41.055
And that's really like the story of Harry Greenberger, who never demeaned his time in the trenches and maybe in some ways still believes.

01:14:41.055 --> 01:14:47.969
He kind of is still in the trenches making you know, doing the hard work And you can see it right, this man has done everything.

01:14:47.969 --> 01:14:52.637
And then some look, our intro could have been a half an hour longer with the amount of stuff this guy has done.

01:14:54.007 --> 01:14:58.810
It's kind of amazing And but still he's so humble, he's such a great guy to talk to.

01:14:58.810 --> 01:15:07.154
Honestly, i wish, i kind of wish this conversation didn't end And I'm really, really happy that we had a chance to speak to Harry Greenberger.

01:15:08.216 --> 01:15:19.185
Yeah, and you know you brought up a really interesting point there, which is about sticking true to who you are and knowing what your mission is and kind of what your objective is at least having that as a North Star.

01:15:19.185 --> 01:15:40.161
There are all kinds of other things that can happen as you're pursuing your North Star, which is all about being available and taking different opportunities that come along the way, but ultimately, harry wasn't willing to compromise in terms of his creative vision when it came to his movies and the things that he was putting together, which means a lot.

01:15:40.161 --> 01:15:40.407
I mean.

01:15:40.407 --> 01:15:51.113
That was a huge takeaway for me And beyond that, there's a characteristic that a lot of the people we've spoken to have, and that's authenticity.

01:15:51.324 --> 01:15:57.938
You know, when you're walking into a bar, you're sitting down and you're having a conversation with somebody, which is a lot of what this show is about.

01:15:57.938 --> 01:16:24.185
People can tell if you're real or not or you're blowing smoke, whatever it may be, and I don't recall the exact connection of Harry to Jesse Mallon, but I do believe that part of that history and part of that dynamic was getting to know each other in real life in a bar and really making a genuine or building a genuine relationship, which opened so many doors on the other side of that.

01:16:24.185 --> 01:16:28.036
So authenticity is just so critically important.

01:16:28.185 --> 01:16:35.759
I love that you touched on authenticity, because it is what you think about when you think about Harry Greenberger and talk to him and have this conversation.

01:16:35.759 --> 01:16:38.613
Right, how authentic he is, what a genuine artist he is.

01:16:38.613 --> 01:16:43.695
He said it with his films you're the only one that knows the film that you want to make.

01:16:43.695 --> 01:16:45.288
I mean, how authentic is that?

01:16:45.288 --> 01:16:50.672
And some humbleness too, right, you know 20-year-olds need to give him advice, right?

01:16:50.672 --> 01:16:52.952
You're asking a mentor for advice.

01:16:52.952 --> 01:16:59.311
He's like I need to learn from 20-year-olds, learn from everybody, learn from somebody that people want to work with.

01:16:59.311 --> 01:17:06.717
And, man, it's amazing what you can accomplish when you have your heart set out to it, and you're a good person.

01:17:08.288 --> 01:17:12.185
I can't wait till we get a chance to speak to him again and I can tell comic books with him.

01:17:14.460 --> 01:17:15.886
Yeah, we're not done, harry.

01:17:15.886 --> 01:17:18.774
we may be reaching back out sometime soon.

01:17:18.774 --> 01:17:23.896
So with that, harry, thank you so much for joining this episode of No Wrong Choices.

01:17:23.896 --> 01:17:25.550
We also thank you for joining us.

01:17:25.550 --> 01:17:31.737
If you enjoyed the show, please tell your friends, click, follow on your podcasting platform and give us a five-star rating.

01:17:31.737 --> 01:17:43.016
Also, if this episode or others inspired you to think of someone interesting in your life who could be a great guest on the show, please send us a note via the contact form on NoWrongChoicescom.

01:17:43.016 --> 01:17:45.932
On behalf of Tushar Saxena and Larry Shea.

01:17:45.932 --> 01:17:46.895
I'm Larry Samuels.

01:17:46.895 --> 01:17:51.615
Thank you again for joining us and remember there are no wrong choices on the road to success.

01:17:51.615 --> 01:17:54.289
We learn from every experience.