// This is a machine generated transcript. Please report any transcription errors to will-help@illinois.edu.

[00:00:00]
Brian Mackey: It's The 21st Show. I'm Brian Mackey. A couple weeks ago, we talked about the growing field of filmmaking here in Illinois. That was ahead of Ebertfest. Of course, there are many students in Illinois who aspire to be filmmakers themselves, but breaking into the field can be slow going. So, imagine being a college freshman, working on a documentary that ends up on a streaming platform. Not just a class project that ends up on YouTube, but an actual documentary for an actual commercial streaming platform.

All that happened to Sawyer Carver, who's now a sophomore at Augustana College in the Quad Cities. They became a videographer on a short form documentary about a cafe and bookstore in Moline called the Atlas Collective, and what that space means to people. The result of that project is now streaming on the Roku channel. Let's listen to a clip.

[00:00:55]
Kasha [Leenenna]: Hi, uh, my name is Kasha [Leenenna]. Um, I am a full-time social worker with an outlet as an artist. I sell stickers, art prints, and reusable sticker books here. Atlas means like the world to me, honestly, I've kind of joked recently that even though Atlas has only been around for a little over a year now, they have been like a really big part of my personal adult history.

[00:01:23]
Brian Mackey: All right, Sawyer Carver joins me now to talk about how the documentary happened and what they learned from the experience. Sawyer, welcome to The 21st Show.

Sawyer Carver: Hello.

Brian Mackey: Also with us is Estlin Feigley. Uh, he's an Augustana alum, and more to the point for our conversation, he's co-founder and owner of Fresh Films, which is a national organization focused on teaching filmmaking fundamentals to young people. Sawyer worked with them in Rock Island as part of this documentary. Estlin, welcome to the show.

[00:01:54]
Estlin Feigley: Hi, thanks for having me on. Appreciate it.

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Brian Mackey: If you have questions about Sawyer's experience or about filmmaking in the Quad Cities, you can join the conversation. In the next few minutes for uh just the end of the show, I should say, at 800-222-9455. 800-222-9455.

All right, Sawyer, uh, what made you want to go into filmmaking?

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Sawyer Carver: Um, so over my life, um, I've kind of just always had like a strong desire to do something creative in the future. Um, I was always really interested in creative writing and music and photography and film just kind of felt like all those things combined into one, and I also like how there's just like a lot of variety in the industry, there's so many different roles and types of projects, so I never really felt like a limiting like work, work field.

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Brian Mackey: Yeah. What were your expectations? What did you think, you know, going to college for this kind of thing would be like?

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Sawyer Carver: Um, I was definitely a little nervous. I was never really for sure like if it was going to stick. I mean, when I talked to like friends and family, they're like, oh, wow, that's a very hard career to get into. Good luck.

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Brian Mackey: Yes, I know the feeling. They're like, oh you're doing that? Oh great. A lot of jobs in that field, yeah. So, but you persisted, obviously.

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Sawyer Carver: I did, um, and it's been really rewarding, um, being able to work with Fresh Films. It's really felt like it's given me like platform and a voice that I didn't think I'd experience until a lot later in college or even in my life.

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Brian Mackey: Well, that's a perfect segue to uh Estlin Feigley with Fresh Films. So talk about what Fresh Films tries to do for young filmmakers, people like Sawyer.

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Estlin Feigley: Well, that's a great question. I mean, I think Fresh Films is basically, uh, basically Fresh Films is a film studio, production studio. So we make commercials, television, all sorts of different things, but along the way, when you come onto our sets, um, you'll see 15, uh, teenagers or young adults, um, actually apprenticing and working on the equipment and working with the equipment and being actively involved, um, in the production, you know, not just standing there watching, but actively on cameras, uh, on audio slates, calling all the different shots. So that's something we've been doing for more than 20 years.

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Brian Mackey: Sawyer, this short film, uh, you know, as any film is a process of collaboration. How did you and the others on your team decide last year that you're going to do a documentary on this small business in [Moline]?

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Sawyer Carver: Um, so with the project, um, it was actually the first idea that one of my groupmates had threw out, um, Renata Lara, and it kind of stuck with us just immediately because my group really resonated with their values of supporting and just making a really comfortable space for the LGBTQ plus community, but also just a lot of local writers and artists.

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Brian Mackey: So your role on this project, as I understand it was videographer or cinematographer, I don't know how you describe that, but talk about what goes into that work.

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Sawyer Carver: Um, so for this project, um, mostly what I did is, uh we got there to um their cafe and we mainly just shot a lot of B-roll. Um, a lot of, um, what I shot was made into it and then um after getting all the B-roll, we went ahead and did the interview and um I manned one of the cameras, uh, also with my partner, uh, [Min]. So, um,

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Brian Mackey: Estlin, you, uh, this is, this is part of a, a series of short films on Roku, all under this umbrella title of Changemakers. Talk about what the series is aiming for.

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Estlin Feigley: Yeah, basically, we work with Roku for about 4 years. Um, and so we're, it's all part of the Fresh Films program. So we have a year-long program that we run, um, and the filmmakers, we have 35 sites all over the country. Um, Los Angeles, Atlanta, obviously here in the Quad Cities, Chicago, Boston, and so they do 4 projects. So the first projects a music video, second project, um, was a documentary. Next project we work with uh America's Got Talent, American Idol to create kind of a talent show in their style, and then finally a short film.

So the documentary we had done with Roku. And, um, this literally came up 4 years ago, so the best of the best, um, get a chance to, they're, they're put in front of the Roku folks and then they pick the Roku, uh, folks picked, um, Sawyer's documentary. Um, and so, yeah, it airs on Roku and it's been a, a series that we've done for 4 years with the Roku channel, which is pretty cool. So, yeah.

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Brian Mackey: Nice. All right, let me remind listeners, this is The 21st Show. We're talking about college filmmaking, in particular, with an Augustana student who helped make a short film, a documentary about a cafe and bookshop in the Quad Cities. Their name is Sawyer Carver. Documentary was selected to stream on Roku as part of a Changemakers series. I should also say we'll have a link to this on our website, twentyfirstshow.org. It's a pretty quick watch, about 5 minutes long. Again, you can find that at twentyfirstshow.org.

Sawyer's now a sophomore. They're talking with us today about their experience making this film. And we're also hearing from Estlin Feigley, who runs Fresh Films. Sawyer helped produce this film during their time as an intern with Fresh Films. You can join us 800-222-9455.

So, Sawyer, you finished making this documentary in the spring of last year. Um, you don't know yet what's gonna come of it. You do end up getting to work as a production assistant for a full length film shot in Rock Island over the following summer. What was that like?

[00:07:59]
Sawyer Carver: Um, it was an amazing opportunity. It was just like another experience that I didn't feel like I was going to get until after I graduated college, um, and it was amazing because I was being able to work alongside the industry professionals and as a production assistant, there was times where I wasn't really doing anything, so I'll just kind of be able to act as a fly on the wall and watch these people work and learn in real time, which was something that I hadn't really got to experience yet at college.

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Brian Mackey: What exactly does a production assistant do? I think that's one of those terms we hear a lot, but you, you know, the imagination runs wild. So what was your day to day work like?

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Sawyer Carver: Um, so my day to day work, uh, a lot of what I would do is kind of just assisting, uh, every different part of everyone on set, uh, with the costumes department or the camera department, and additionally, I would do things such as getting breakfast and lunch, um, and just kind of being a general helper. Uh, there's no really like, [set] thing that you will be doing day to day. It, it, it changes um each day and that's honestly kind of what I really like about it is how uh diverse it is and what a variety uh that you get to do.

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Brian Mackey: Can you tell us anything about the film or is it like top secret or... Um, I put you

[00:09:28]
Sawyer Carver: on the... I don't, I don't know. Um, I think Estlin would have the answer to that question.

[00:09:37]
Estlin Feigley: I'm having fun listening to you, Sawyer. Yeah, Sawyer knows a lot of what was going on in the film. Basically it's about a little boy who, uh, the film we shot was in the Quad Cities. Um, we had about 150, uh, filmmakers or teens, teens and young adults from all over the country that came into the QC, shot the film.

Um, we are currently in the middle of kind of putting it out to festivals, we've got some distribution on it, so it's kind of fun, more yet to come on that. But the film basically is about a little boy who decides to steal the, um, the sacred groundhog, I think Punxsutawney Phil or something like that, to, in order to save his parents' marriage. So the parents are going to tell him that, um, they are going to go to the, the parents go to the cabin, they want to go to the cabin, that's something the family does. Um, and so they decide that they want to get a divorce, and he overhears it. But if the road stays snowy and cold, then they won't go to the cabin, and then parents won't get divorced, which is a terrible idea. However, that's kind of the fun of the play.

So basically these 2 10-year-olds end up stealing the the local groundhog and he's a kind of a jerk. Um, yeah, so we had the puppeteers on set, the groundhog's a puppet, um, the puppeteer was a really, really talented guy, Bradley Freeman Junior, he does a bunch of stuff for the Muppets. Um, he is, I think, playing a couple of main characters for the Muppets right now, but he really, really talented guy working with him, he played Gary. So a lot of fun. Um,

[00:11:16]
Brian Mackey: I think I saw Mark Evan Jackson, who will, who will be familiar to Brooklyn [Nine-Nine] fans as the husband of the police captain on that program. Yeah,

[00:11:24]
Estlin Feigley: That's right. That's right. He also plays God and, um, you know, I think Ted Danson's show there. Um, but yeah, it was a lot of fun and he was here. He was here in Rock Island. Mark Evan Jackson was here. Um, shooting that he came in, uh, I don't know, I think Sawyer, you got a chance to kind of work with Mark Evan Jackson a little bit. I don't know if you were mostly on set stuff, so.

[00:11:45]
Sawyer Carver: Um, I did. I actually got to have lunch with him during that day, which was, uh, really amazing.

[00:11:51]
Brian Mackey: Very nice. So, uh, Estlin, we're, we're coming to the end of our time. How common is it for a film like this to come to the Quad Cities?

[00:11:58]
Estlin Feigley: Um, to be honest with you, we're hoping to make that a lot more common. We're trying to, uh, build a studio here in, uh, Rock Island, which is really exciting. Um, we ended up getting a grant from, um, the state of Illinois to try to build a studio. So I'm trying to make this a little more often, but not very often. Um, a lot of great history here, you know, the Blues Brothers are from Rock Island. Um, so everybody kind of knows that in this area, but, um, as far as movies go, there are quite a few filmmakers that are from here, however, a lot of them leave, so we're trying to get them back.

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Brian Mackey: Yeah, well, on that note, Sawyer, where, where do you, uh, hope your career goes after, after college?

[00:12:39]
Sawyer Carver: Um, so for me, I actually want to um stay in Illinois to continue my career. In the past I've been thinking to go off to California, but honestly right now I'm seeing a lot more opportunities popping up here, um, and not just in places like Chicago, but, um, opportunities uh like Fresh Films or also um the event [Alternating Currents] um and also just recently the Quad City Film Office is setting up in downtown Rock Island and like Fresh Films, they're hoping to make um moviemaking a lot more common around here and... You know, being from the Quad Cities, uh, it just I don't know, it makes me think that I might not have to travel out super far. Um, I mean, maybe I'll go to Chicago but I'm also only a sophomore so it's kind of hard to say right now.

[00:13:28]
Brian Mackey: Nice. All right, well, uh, Sawyer Carver, uh, was a videographer on a [doc] short documentary called, uh, or I should say it's part of a Changemakers series, and it is streaming on Roku. We'll again, have a link to that on our website, which is uh twentyfirstshow.org. We've also been speaking with Estlin Feigley, who runs Fresh Films, um, which is a production company that, uh, worked on this and has worked on other productions as we just heard. Estlin and Sawyer, thanks so much for sharing some of your, uh, life with us today here on The 21st Show.

[00:14:05]
Estlin Feigley: Sure. Thank you so much for having us. I really appreciate it.

[00:14:21]
Brian Mackey: All right, that is it for us today. Coming up tomorrow on the program, we're gonna have an update on efforts in the Illinois General Assembly to placate the Chicago Bears. Uh, maybe it was a little biased how I said that, but to appeal to the Chicago Bears to keep their team in Illinois, perhaps in Arlington Heights, moving out of Soldier Field to the suburbs. We'll talk about that as well as other things happening in the Illinois General Assembly as lawmakers uh, enter the final month of their legislative session this year.

Plus, we're gonna speak with an author, Lucy Long, founder and director of the Center for Food and Culture. Her latest book examines apples in the Midwestern imagination. It's called Sweet, Tart and Golden. That's all coming up tomorrow here on The 21st Show, which is produced by Christine Hatfield and Jose Zepeda. Our digital producer is Kulsoom Khan. Technical direction and engineering from Jason Croft and Steve Morck. Reginald Hardwick's, our news director. The 21st Show is a production of Illinois Public Media. I'm Brian Mackey. Thanks for listening. We'll talk with you again tomorrow.