Independent Filmmaking and Wine: Chris McGilvray on Craft, Passion, and Perseverance

1
00:00:00,240 --> 00:00:03,680
I personally really connect to slow

2
00:00:04,720 --> 00:00:08,480
long building things. That's what I love about wine. And ironically,

3
00:00:08,480 --> 00:00:11,840
there's a movement in cinema too, which is counter to

4
00:00:12,240 --> 00:00:15,680
the current trends in cinema. It's called slow cinema.

5
00:00:16,000 --> 00:00:19,200
It's literally like, do not cut

6
00:00:19,440 --> 00:00:23,080
unless you absolutely have to sit back and grab a

7
00:00:23,080 --> 00:00:26,200
glass. It's Wine Talks with Paul

8
00:00:26,200 --> 00:00:29,810
King. Hey, welcome to Wine

9
00:00:29,810 --> 00:00:33,170
Talks with Paul K. And we are in studio today in a beautiful Southern

10
00:00:33,170 --> 00:00:36,730
California day. I'd have a conversation with Chris McGilvray.

11
00:00:36,890 --> 00:00:40,530
Did I get that right? You sure did, because I kept

12
00:00:40,530 --> 00:00:43,370
spelling it wrong and I couldn't understand. He's the

13
00:00:43,450 --> 00:00:47,290
cinematographer by trade, but has a passion for

14
00:00:47,290 --> 00:00:49,650
wine as well. We're going to talk about that in a minute. But hey, have

15
00:00:49,650 --> 00:00:52,650
a listen and watch your show. We got a new show coming out, folks. It's

16
00:00:52,650 --> 00:00:56,330
called Song of America. Song of America is a new podcast that is

17
00:00:56,330 --> 00:00:59,850
based on immigration to the United States and successful stories of

18
00:01:00,170 --> 00:01:03,690
finance or political, academic and or social

19
00:01:03,690 --> 00:01:07,410
success. Really exciting stuff. Some incredible guests. Just

20
00:01:07,410 --> 00:01:11,250
to highlight one, no one in the history of America has had all

21
00:01:11,250 --> 00:01:15,050
three sons of J.C. agajani and the famed race

22
00:01:15,050 --> 00:01:18,770
promoter, as well as Evel Knievel agent, as well as winner of the

23
00:01:18,770 --> 00:01:22,280
Indianapolis four times. Ever had them all in the same room.

24
00:01:22,520 --> 00:01:26,080
And we did it. And you will be surprised and interested in the

25
00:01:26,080 --> 00:01:29,840
conversation, but not while we're here. You have a conversation with Chris. It was

26
00:01:29,840 --> 00:01:33,000
came to me through, I think the PR agent brought me in to

27
00:01:33,480 --> 00:01:36,919
you. Brought you to me. Is that accurate? Yeah,

28
00:01:37,240 --> 00:01:40,520
I mean, I have a, you know, a producing intern that

29
00:01:41,000 --> 00:01:43,720
I brought on board and we've been reaching out a little bit

30
00:01:44,680 --> 00:01:47,680
to be able to try and get more visibility for our films. So

31
00:01:48,000 --> 00:01:51,280
Lauren's been doing great. So in general,

32
00:01:51,760 --> 00:01:55,560
I can talk to you, Paul. Well, this is interesting because I, I,

33
00:01:55,560 --> 00:01:59,080
I'm. Well, you went to USC cinema school. Was it

34
00:01:59,080 --> 00:02:02,560
Spielberg center then when we talked about that? Yeah, it was,

35
00:02:04,000 --> 00:02:07,840
yeah. Because, you know, I was talking about Max Nikias

36
00:02:07,840 --> 00:02:11,280
here. He'd been on the previous different show and he had a lot to do

37
00:02:11,280 --> 00:02:15,000
with bringing Spielberg in the fold, but it was still a, it still had a

38
00:02:15,000 --> 00:02:18,720
rather prominent position in the world of cinema schools prior to that.

39
00:02:18,720 --> 00:02:22,400
Did not. It definitely did. I mean, it's, it's

40
00:02:22,400 --> 00:02:25,920
always been sort of seen as the, the gateway

41
00:02:25,920 --> 00:02:29,160
to Hollywood. Right. Like, if you're really trying to

42
00:02:29,480 --> 00:02:33,000
get into, you know, the, you know, very traditional

43
00:02:33,480 --> 00:02:37,320
Hollywood approach to filmmaking, USC is one of your best schools to be

44
00:02:37,320 --> 00:02:40,960
able to go to, which ironically, and I mean I'm sure we'll get into this

45
00:02:40,960 --> 00:02:44,690
and the podcast here. I couldn't have taken a more

46
00:02:45,010 --> 00:02:48,770
different pathway because, you know, I now

47
00:02:48,770 --> 00:02:51,850
live in Santa Cruz as a very, very independent

48
00:02:51,850 --> 00:02:55,610
filmmaker. But it is. It

49
00:02:55,610 --> 00:02:59,370
has been really fascinating to see how. How much the industry has changed

50
00:02:59,370 --> 00:03:02,610
over, you know, the almost 20 years that I've been doing this.

51
00:03:03,010 --> 00:03:06,570
I am a frustrated cinematographer. I. To the extent that I

52
00:03:06,570 --> 00:03:10,210
had been accepted to USC cinema school, I was already in the business school,

53
00:03:10,870 --> 00:03:13,430
and a lot of people said, why are you going to do that? Why would

54
00:03:13,430 --> 00:03:17,270
you switch hard enough to get into business school and cinema school? Again,

55
00:03:17,270 --> 00:03:20,550
wasn't Spielberg yet, and I had been accepted.

56
00:03:20,950 --> 00:03:24,670
I didn't take advantage of it partially because. Let me ask this question.

57
00:03:24,670 --> 00:03:28,230
You mentioned Hollywood. Does Hollywood really care at that

58
00:03:28,230 --> 00:03:31,870
point, your education in film or most of it,

59
00:03:31,870 --> 00:03:35,550
bootstrapped? It's such a great question, Paul. Cause

60
00:03:35,550 --> 00:03:39,390
it's something that I've had to think about a lot. And, you

61
00:03:39,390 --> 00:03:42,990
know, especially now as like, a father, and my kids are getting a little bit

62
00:03:42,990 --> 00:03:46,550
older and starting to think about what the significance of college is.

63
00:03:47,110 --> 00:03:50,470
And, you know, traditionally,

64
00:03:50,790 --> 00:03:54,550
it doesn't really matter whether or not you went to film

65
00:03:54,550 --> 00:03:58,230
school. It doesn't really get you in anywhere. What it gets you, I

66
00:03:58,230 --> 00:04:01,950
suppose, is the contacts and the connections that

67
00:04:01,950 --> 00:04:05,670
you make from, you know, doing that experience. You know, the

68
00:04:05,750 --> 00:04:09,430
hope is that, you know, over those, you know, four or

69
00:04:09,430 --> 00:04:12,350
five years, you're gonna, you know, meet some other

70
00:04:12,510 --> 00:04:16,110
filmmakers that are gonna go on to, you

71
00:04:16,110 --> 00:04:19,790
know, be successful, and then you sort of, you know, get into

72
00:04:20,430 --> 00:04:24,230
that. That cycle with them. So for me, that's one of the

73
00:04:24,230 --> 00:04:27,630
big things. It's of advantage. And it's actually

74
00:04:27,710 --> 00:04:31,350
really also interesting for me personally, because I actually

75
00:04:31,350 --> 00:04:34,830
did not finish USC

76
00:04:34,990 --> 00:04:37,710
film school. I actually ended up dropping out

77
00:04:39,310 --> 00:04:42,870
and, you know, traveling throughout Central America. And

78
00:04:42,870 --> 00:04:46,510
I actually finished up at UC Santa Cruz with a

79
00:04:46,510 --> 00:04:50,190
degree in linguistics of all things, largely so that I could go

80
00:04:50,190 --> 00:04:53,910
and, you know, study abroad, live in Barcelona for a

81
00:04:53,910 --> 00:04:57,470
year. Wow. So, yeah, I had a very, very different

82
00:04:57,950 --> 00:05:01,360
pathway. I, you know, did the. The traditional,

83
00:05:01,920 --> 00:05:05,760
you know, film school route with USC for

84
00:05:05,920 --> 00:05:09,280
a couple years. And I, you know, for me, it just. I

85
00:05:09,280 --> 00:05:13,120
realized that I personally needed to find a lot

86
00:05:13,120 --> 00:05:16,760
more stories that, you know, connected

87
00:05:16,760 --> 00:05:20,320
with me as an artist. And so I got really interested in travel.

88
00:05:20,960 --> 00:05:24,720
That's interesting because, you know, we were. We'll talk about this, too. Some

89
00:05:24,720 --> 00:05:27,950
wine shows I've been stewing on,

90
00:05:28,270 --> 00:05:31,990
and there's reasons for that. And the first thing I do is send my sort

91
00:05:31,990 --> 00:05:35,630
of deck to my friend who was a USC cinema

92
00:05:35,630 --> 00:05:39,470
student, but a lot produced Encino man and a

93
00:05:39,470 --> 00:05:42,590
couple other films. Les Mayfield and George Zaloom.

94
00:05:43,790 --> 00:05:47,590
Encino man was great when I was a kid. Those are two Croes's two

95
00:05:47,590 --> 00:05:51,230
fraternity brothers. Mine, sure. But you know,

96
00:05:51,650 --> 00:05:55,490
the industry has changed so radically and you know, it

97
00:05:55,490 --> 00:05:58,850
seems like indie filmmakers really could be on,

98
00:05:59,090 --> 00:06:02,450
on the leading edge of most of this stuff because it seems studios are no.

99
00:06:02,610 --> 00:06:06,250
Not willing to invest and put money up. And there's a whole different

100
00:06:06,250 --> 00:06:10,010
direction when it comes to production. I, I

101
00:06:10,010 --> 00:06:13,610
think there's a lot of truth in that. And I mean, I think that

102
00:06:13,610 --> 00:06:17,010
there's a, a sense that unless you have

103
00:06:17,710 --> 00:06:21,070
very established IP at this point that has,

104
00:06:21,710 --> 00:06:25,550
you know, quote unquote built in audience before you

105
00:06:25,550 --> 00:06:29,390
ever even start filming the, you know, filming your film or your show,

106
00:06:29,870 --> 00:06:33,630
it's really, really hard to be able to get people to go with original ideas.

107
00:06:34,510 --> 00:06:38,350
And again, you know, I'm sure we'll get into this more. But

108
00:06:38,670 --> 00:06:41,910
what I, you know, largely do to be able to make a living is I

109
00:06:41,910 --> 00:06:45,110
make branded films. And you know,

110
00:06:45,510 --> 00:06:49,310
that part has been really interesting to see take

111
00:06:49,310 --> 00:06:52,470
off over the course of my career. I mean, I

112
00:06:52,710 --> 00:06:56,470
originally, you know, from the Bay Area. And so I came back

113
00:06:56,870 --> 00:07:00,710
up here after, you know, having gone to,

114
00:07:00,950 --> 00:07:04,550
you know, USC and then Santa Cruz,

115
00:07:04,790 --> 00:07:08,470
UC Santa Cruz. And I traveled around and I ended up in San Francisco

116
00:07:09,110 --> 00:07:11,770
and I met a

117
00:07:12,650 --> 00:07:16,410
friend who was about 10 years older than me and he

118
00:07:16,730 --> 00:07:20,570
had studied film but had gone and gotten into the tech industry.

119
00:07:20,570 --> 00:07:24,210
And he was looking to pivot in his career. And so he had a

120
00:07:24,210 --> 00:07:27,810
couple of tech clients that were looking to do

121
00:07:27,810 --> 00:07:31,210
these sort of cinematic style documentary pieces

122
00:07:32,890 --> 00:07:36,650
to be able to, you know, we did some hiring videos, we did some

123
00:07:36,650 --> 00:07:40,340
promotional videos. And I, you know, really knew the

124
00:07:40,340 --> 00:07:43,820
filmmaking side of it. I didn't know anything about the, the business

125
00:07:43,980 --> 00:07:47,260
side. And you know, all of a sudden

126
00:07:48,220 --> 00:07:51,980
that just sort of became my, my career.

127
00:07:53,740 --> 00:07:57,180
And over the course of, you know, 15,

128
00:07:57,740 --> 00:08:01,580
you know, 20 years, I've been able to sort of hone in

129
00:08:01,580 --> 00:08:05,380
the kind of stories that I like to tell. And I

130
00:08:05,380 --> 00:08:08,490
didn't even really realize that I wanted to be a document, you know,

131
00:08:08,490 --> 00:08:11,810
documentarian. I, you know, most of my love is

132
00:08:11,890 --> 00:08:15,570
narrative film, fictional film, but I just

133
00:08:15,570 --> 00:08:19,370
happened to, you know, have this opportunity. And then when

134
00:08:19,370 --> 00:08:23,210
I started to, you know, try and make cinematic moments out of

135
00:08:23,210 --> 00:08:26,930
real life, it got really, really interesting and I realized I was pretty

136
00:08:26,930 --> 00:08:30,690
good at it. And I also really enjoy interviewing

137
00:08:30,690 --> 00:08:33,730
people. I'm usually kind of in. In your seat and

138
00:08:34,449 --> 00:08:37,969
this position. I love telling people's stories and I love

139
00:08:38,209 --> 00:08:41,409
sort of helping them, you know, piece together their. Their narratives.

140
00:08:41,809 --> 00:08:45,329
It's. It's an interesting point because I think when it's all said and done in

141
00:08:45,329 --> 00:08:49,169
the wine trade is. Is in a bad place right

142
00:08:49,169 --> 00:08:51,889
now because of all the

143
00:08:52,209 --> 00:08:56,049
machiations of AI has nothing really to do with it. It's really more of

144
00:08:56,209 --> 00:08:59,009
the avenues for distribution, the avenues for

145
00:08:59,969 --> 00:09:03,170
meeting a client. And they're, you know, where they're at. Sure.

146
00:09:03,490 --> 00:09:07,250
Crafting a message that's different than the rest of the noise.

147
00:09:07,490 --> 00:09:10,730
You know, you walk, I'm sure in Santa Cruz is the same. You walk down

148
00:09:10,730 --> 00:09:14,490
the aisles of Ralph's Market and you just get barraged with, you know, shelf talkers

149
00:09:14,490 --> 00:09:18,290
and you have no idea, you know, what to choose from a wine standpoint.

150
00:09:18,530 --> 00:09:19,970
And I say that because

151
00:09:21,730 --> 00:09:25,250
storytelling is so much a part of what wine should be.

152
00:09:26,290 --> 00:09:30,090
And it's a product that you. That really should express something as

153
00:09:30,090 --> 00:09:33,800
you've learned. And we'll talk about Eden here in a second. Should express

154
00:09:34,040 --> 00:09:37,640
that time in that place. It's the only product like that.

155
00:09:37,640 --> 00:09:41,120
In other words, beer always tastes the same. Jack

156
00:09:41,120 --> 00:09:44,960
Daniels always tastes the same. That's their job. And wine is the one that

157
00:09:44,960 --> 00:09:48,639
doesn't go to the consumer first. Unless you're one of these big corporations and

158
00:09:48,639 --> 00:09:52,240
say, what do you want it to taste like? It really should be. This is

159
00:09:52,240 --> 00:09:55,400
what it's going to taste like because of that vintage and that time and place.

160
00:09:55,880 --> 00:09:57,880
And so I think that storytelling is critical.

161
00:09:59,710 --> 00:10:03,070
And so tell me about Eden a little bit. You have. You've done two films

162
00:10:03,070 --> 00:10:06,910
on wine. It looks like Terroir and Eden. Yeah,

163
00:10:06,910 --> 00:10:10,510
so. Yeah. So I mean, I have

164
00:10:10,510 --> 00:10:12,590
been, you know, working in the wine industry,

165
00:10:14,189 --> 00:10:17,070
you know, for about 10 or 11 years. So

166
00:10:17,790 --> 00:10:21,150
like I said, I got sort of started in San Francisco. I was doing a

167
00:10:21,150 --> 00:10:24,990
lot of stuff in the tech world. And for me, as an artist,

168
00:10:25,070 --> 00:10:28,590
I was always really interested in natural lighting

169
00:10:28,860 --> 00:10:32,370
and. And people working with their hands. And so I always

170
00:10:32,850 --> 00:10:35,810
gravitated more towards craft work

171
00:10:36,930 --> 00:10:40,770
and that kind of thing. And so I decided to

172
00:10:40,770 --> 00:10:44,490
move back down to Santa Cruz to be closer

173
00:10:44,490 --> 00:10:48,290
to my parents as we, you know, my son was born.

174
00:10:48,930 --> 00:10:52,450
And when I got back to Santa Cruz, I actually met

175
00:10:53,730 --> 00:10:57,010
the head of the Santa Cruz Mountain Wine Growers association,

176
00:10:57,990 --> 00:11:01,670
which is obviously the trade organization for the Santa Cruz Mountains. Ava.

177
00:11:01,910 --> 00:11:05,350
And I didn't know very much about wine. I had known a lot

178
00:11:05,430 --> 00:11:09,230
about agriculture. My father always

179
00:11:09,230 --> 00:11:12,830
took us to farmers markets and we really cared about fresh produce,

180
00:11:12,830 --> 00:11:15,590
but wasn't really

181
00:11:16,150 --> 00:11:19,030
intellectually engaged in wine. And so

182
00:11:19,910 --> 00:11:23,720
I got a project, and this is in 2015, where, where I spent

183
00:11:23,720 --> 00:11:27,360
a whole year tracking the 2015 vintage with four

184
00:11:27,360 --> 00:11:30,840
separate wineries to be able to make a promotional film

185
00:11:31,160 --> 00:11:34,840
for the Santa Cruz Mountain Wine Growers Association. And the wineries

186
00:11:34,840 --> 00:11:38,040
are Ridge Vineyards, Mount Eden,

187
00:11:38,760 --> 00:11:42,600
Thomas Fogarty and Storrs. And I fell

188
00:11:42,600 --> 00:11:46,400
in love with wine. And one of the reasons I fell in

189
00:11:46,400 --> 00:11:50,170
love with it was it was the people that sort

190
00:11:50,170 --> 00:11:53,290
of, you know, got to give me insight into

191
00:11:54,170 --> 00:11:58,010
why it's worth thinking about and talking about. We spent most of our time

192
00:11:58,330 --> 00:12:02,050
actually walking through the vineyards, which still to this day

193
00:12:02,050 --> 00:12:05,210
is my favorite part of, you know,

194
00:12:05,530 --> 00:12:09,330
wine. I would so much rather come out and see

195
00:12:09,330 --> 00:12:13,170
your vineyards and walk through your physical

196
00:12:13,170 --> 00:12:16,890
terroir to be able to get a sense of the

197
00:12:16,890 --> 00:12:20,690
place. And then at the end, we get to sit down and actually

198
00:12:20,690 --> 00:12:24,410
drink the wines that are from this specific plot of land.

199
00:12:24,650 --> 00:12:28,250
And a lot of the time you can taste certain elements that come

200
00:12:28,250 --> 00:12:32,090
from that. And so I got

201
00:12:32,090 --> 00:12:35,690
really, really interested in doing that. And then I

202
00:12:35,690 --> 00:12:39,090
started this relationship, you know, with the

203
00:12:39,090 --> 00:12:42,690
Pattersons, so Jeffrey and Ellie Patterson, who own Mount

204
00:12:42,690 --> 00:12:46,340
Eden. And, you know, there was something about

205
00:12:46,660 --> 00:12:50,420
Mount Eden for anybody who has been there or, you know, for those that have

206
00:12:50,420 --> 00:12:54,100
never been there, it's somewhat trapped in time, which is really cool.

207
00:12:54,100 --> 00:12:57,940
It's like you literally, it, you know, sits up above

208
00:12:57,940 --> 00:13:01,460
Silicon Valley. It's like probably about a 15 minute

209
00:13:01,460 --> 00:13:05,180
drive from like the Apple and the Google campus. So, you know,

210
00:13:05,180 --> 00:13:08,900
directly beneath it is like the heart of the tech industry,

211
00:13:09,620 --> 00:13:13,460
but it's, you know, another 1500ft directly above that

212
00:13:13,460 --> 00:13:17,240
up in the mountains. And so it's super, super rural and like

213
00:13:17,240 --> 00:13:21,040
agrarian up there. And you got to drive up this, you know,

214
00:13:21,680 --> 00:13:25,280
windy dirt road to be able to get there. You know,

215
00:13:25,840 --> 00:13:29,560
they, when I actually started filming there, they didn't

216
00:13:29,560 --> 00:13:33,240
even have a tasting room, wasn't actually available to the public,

217
00:13:33,240 --> 00:13:36,960
which to me that instantly I was like, what California

218
00:13:36,960 --> 00:13:39,120
winery doesn't have a tasting room, Paul?

219
00:13:43,260 --> 00:13:46,620
It is, it's, it's really rare. And it's, you know, because,

220
00:13:47,980 --> 00:13:50,140
you know, it's a very long story, but the,

221
00:13:52,060 --> 00:13:55,500
because it's this, this kind of approach, this kind of

222
00:13:55,500 --> 00:13:58,700
storytelling when you're talking about, you know, no tasting room now that

223
00:13:59,340 --> 00:14:02,700
the industry is in such a bad place, that taste room traffic is off

224
00:14:03,020 --> 00:14:06,460
like 30 or 40% already in, in

225
00:14:06,460 --> 00:14:10,260
Napa Valley. And here you're, you're highlighting a

226
00:14:10,260 --> 00:14:14,100
very small winery In a very small place and listening to the

227
00:14:14,100 --> 00:14:17,500
trailer and the screener, watching the screener. You know,

228
00:14:17,740 --> 00:14:21,540
these people had pure passion, which is the. Which is

229
00:14:21,540 --> 00:14:25,299
the only unifying human trait that

230
00:14:25,299 --> 00:14:29,100
I have found traveling the world, talking to these people the same way you

231
00:14:29,100 --> 00:14:32,860
have that drives them. Because it can't be for

232
00:14:32,860 --> 00:14:36,460
this voluminous amount of cash you get, because it doesn't exist.

233
00:14:37,080 --> 00:14:40,760
And it's. It's strictly the passion of what you're talking about, which

234
00:14:40,760 --> 00:14:44,040
is walking the vineyard and expressing that vineyard.

235
00:14:44,360 --> 00:14:47,240
What. So how did it go from this?

236
00:14:48,680 --> 00:14:52,040
You started. You were just. Sound like you were just going to work. You were.

237
00:14:52,040 --> 00:14:55,480
You had five winers or four winers of Santa Cruz Mountains. You're going to produce

238
00:14:55,800 --> 00:14:59,560
some footage for them and possibly some promotional material. And so that.

239
00:14:59,800 --> 00:15:02,840
That's where the. That's where you got the bug, or you had it kind of

240
00:15:02,840 --> 00:15:06,310
going into it. So that's definitely where I got the

241
00:15:06,310 --> 00:15:09,550
bug. And because of the way that

242
00:15:09,950 --> 00:15:13,750
that project was largely set up, a lot of it was filming

243
00:15:13,750 --> 00:15:17,390
the labor that goes into producing these,

244
00:15:17,550 --> 00:15:21,230
you know, mountain wines. And when I started

245
00:15:21,230 --> 00:15:24,790
talking to people that, you know, maybe don't know that much about

246
00:15:24,790 --> 00:15:28,270
wine, it was fascinating for them to hear

247
00:15:28,590 --> 00:15:32,030
how much work actually goes into being able to produce one of these

248
00:15:32,030 --> 00:15:35,780
wines. So I, you know, I waited a couple years,

249
00:15:35,860 --> 00:15:39,340
and I actually approached Jeffrey and

250
00:15:39,340 --> 00:15:43,180
Ellie in 2017 to be

251
00:15:43,180 --> 00:15:46,940
able to start working on this film that

252
00:15:46,940 --> 00:15:50,580
eventually became Eden. I had no

253
00:15:50,580 --> 00:15:53,700
idea when I went into it that it was going to take us seven years

254
00:15:54,100 --> 00:15:57,820
of filming to be able to make this thing. But there's

255
00:15:57,820 --> 00:16:01,140
a lot of things that evolved over the course of the film.

256
00:16:02,490 --> 00:16:06,250
And that's one of those things that's really interesting when you're actually making a documentary

257
00:16:06,250 --> 00:16:09,970
film about living people and their actual physical lives

258
00:16:09,970 --> 00:16:13,610
that are ongoing, you don't really know where it's going. A lot of the time

259
00:16:13,770 --> 00:16:17,530
you have to, you know, document, and you have to

260
00:16:17,530 --> 00:16:20,810
be available. And the storyline is always constantly

261
00:16:21,210 --> 00:16:25,050
shifting. And so our initial intention was to

262
00:16:25,050 --> 00:16:27,940
really spend a year documenting,

263
00:16:29,140 --> 00:16:32,540
you know, the incredibly, you know, the incredible

264
00:16:32,540 --> 00:16:36,140
labor that goes into making these wines so that you

265
00:16:36,140 --> 00:16:39,700
can understand, you know, why these wines

266
00:16:40,100 --> 00:16:42,820
are so beautiful and why they're so valuable

267
00:16:43,620 --> 00:16:46,740
and have a great appreciation for it. When you say valuable.

268
00:16:47,220 --> 00:16:50,660
Let me stop for a second. When you say valuable. Let's define

269
00:16:50,900 --> 00:16:54,600
a minute, valuable, you don't mean valuable in monetary

270
00:16:54,600 --> 00:16:57,840
value. I mean, that's actually a really

271
00:16:57,840 --> 00:17:01,000
interesting question because, you know,

272
00:17:01,720 --> 00:17:05,320
I think as of right now, you get the current vintage of

273
00:17:05,640 --> 00:17:08,840
Mount Eden Cabernet for probably, I don't know,

274
00:17:08,840 --> 00:17:12,200
120 bucks, which, you know, compared to Napa

275
00:17:12,200 --> 00:17:16,000
prices is, you know, very, very low. But that's

276
00:17:16,000 --> 00:17:19,440
also not a cheap bottle of wine. I think it's a very

277
00:17:19,440 --> 00:17:22,740
fairly priced bottle of wine. And one of the things

278
00:17:23,540 --> 00:17:27,340
about Mount Eden that people that are fans of Mount Eden are always

279
00:17:27,340 --> 00:17:30,780
pointing to is its ageability. It is an

280
00:17:30,780 --> 00:17:34,020
estate that is known for all three of their

281
00:17:34,020 --> 00:17:37,820
varietals that they highlight. Their Pinot Noir,

282
00:17:37,820 --> 00:17:41,380
their Chardonnay and their Cabernet are all extremely ageable.

283
00:17:42,020 --> 00:17:45,140
A good vintage will last potentially 50 years,

284
00:17:47,110 --> 00:17:50,790
which, you know, as you know, is pretty unique, especially in California.

285
00:17:51,190 --> 00:17:54,230
I was, I was hoping I was going to take you down this other road.

286
00:17:55,270 --> 00:17:58,990
Yeah, there's road of a human value. Right.

287
00:17:58,990 --> 00:18:02,630
I mean, all our amount that's going to change

288
00:18:02,710 --> 00:18:06,230
and the margins suck and, you know, all that goes with it,

289
00:18:06,790 --> 00:18:10,070
you know, and we could talk about some of the contemporary issues at restaurants now,

290
00:18:10,070 --> 00:18:13,390
what they're doing with pricing and allowing more people to bring wines,

291
00:18:13,390 --> 00:18:16,710
etc. But when you said valuable,

292
00:18:16,950 --> 00:18:20,790
it took me to. In the human context,

293
00:18:21,430 --> 00:18:25,070
sure. Because I do believe that and you've now that

294
00:18:25,070 --> 00:18:28,710
you've experienced the vineyard in the process, that it's a connection,

295
00:18:29,030 --> 00:18:32,830
it's a human connection to the soil and to the earth and

296
00:18:32,830 --> 00:18:36,670
it's to the soul really. It's like it's unexplainable. I've yet to

297
00:18:36,670 --> 00:18:40,240
have a pragmatic definition of what that means, but

298
00:18:40,400 --> 00:18:43,920
certainly an honest, true bottle of wine like these

299
00:18:45,040 --> 00:18:47,600
has a connection, some kind of valuable connection.

300
00:18:49,440 --> 00:18:53,200
And it's. I, I doubt. Yeah, you can feel that every

301
00:18:53,200 --> 00:18:56,880
single one of their bottles of wine, you know, everything from

302
00:18:56,880 --> 00:19:00,360
Mount Eden is a state grown and it's, you know,

303
00:19:00,360 --> 00:19:03,920
solely from one, you know, plot of

304
00:19:03,920 --> 00:19:07,350
earth. And there is this beautiful

305
00:19:07,350 --> 00:19:11,070
connection between the passion that, you know,

306
00:19:11,070 --> 00:19:14,430
the Pattersons and their very small farming team

307
00:19:14,990 --> 00:19:18,430
have for creating this

308
00:19:18,510 --> 00:19:22,190
wine that comes across and you get, you know, a serious

309
00:19:22,190 --> 00:19:26,030
vintage variation. Every single vintage is very different

310
00:19:26,270 --> 00:19:29,790
and it is an expression of that, that actual

311
00:19:29,870 --> 00:19:32,490
year and, you know,

312
00:19:33,770 --> 00:19:37,410
that there is something where you can't necessarily put a price

313
00:19:37,410 --> 00:19:40,810
tag on that. These are all,

314
00:19:41,050 --> 00:19:44,490
you know, I constantly would go back and forth, especially with Jeffrey,

315
00:19:44,730 --> 00:19:48,450
talking about is, you know, winemaking an art or

316
00:19:48,450 --> 00:19:52,010
a craft? And that's always an interesting

317
00:19:52,010 --> 00:19:55,850
question because to me, I consider, you know,

318
00:19:55,850 --> 00:19:59,090
myself an artist. So I think it's an artist. But

319
00:19:59,250 --> 00:20:03,090
Hughes, much more of the belief that it's a craft

320
00:20:03,090 --> 00:20:06,850
is in there. It's very Very specific skills that you learn and

321
00:20:06,850 --> 00:20:10,450
that you work within. And he's constantly working to be able

322
00:20:10,450 --> 00:20:14,290
to create, to utilize those skills, to

323
00:20:14,690 --> 00:20:17,650
have the best expression of this particular

324
00:20:17,970 --> 00:20:21,570
vintage from the lens of this particular

325
00:20:21,650 --> 00:20:25,370
plot of earth. You know what? I challenge a lot of winemakers that come

326
00:20:25,370 --> 00:20:28,660
through here, French or otherwise, and they almost

327
00:20:28,820 --> 00:20:31,860
entirely all agree. In fact, they all have agreed, which is

328
00:20:34,340 --> 00:20:37,460
if a wine is honest, like I used that word earlier,

329
00:20:38,020 --> 00:20:40,980
and does the winemaker's

330
00:20:41,380 --> 00:20:44,660
intention of representing the terroir of that year,

331
00:20:45,460 --> 00:20:48,900
whatever they're handed, however, the spring was, however, bud break was all the things that

332
00:20:48,900 --> 00:20:52,300
go into farming grapes, that there's no bad

333
00:20:52,300 --> 00:20:56,140
vintages because its job is to represent the vintage.

334
00:20:56,300 --> 00:20:59,820
And if it does that, it can't be bad. There might be one. There's variations.

335
00:20:59,820 --> 00:21:03,180
They taste different, they age differently depending on the vintage.

336
00:21:03,420 --> 00:21:06,780
But if it's properly made an honest representation,

337
00:21:07,580 --> 00:21:10,860
it can't be bad. And I just had the Chateau Yquem on the show, you

338
00:21:10,860 --> 00:21:14,380
know, the famous Sauterne in France, and, you know, they

339
00:21:14,460 --> 00:21:18,300
with them because the grapes have to rot. Yeah, you have

340
00:21:18,300 --> 00:21:21,870
to get the royal right. They haven't made wine 10 years out of their history

341
00:21:21,950 --> 00:21:25,310
because the rot didn't come or it was the wrong kind of rot. That's a

342
00:21:25,310 --> 00:21:28,990
little bit different. But in this case, there is no bad vintage.

343
00:21:28,990 --> 00:21:32,790
So what. What happened to Eden? What did. What did you do

344
00:21:32,790 --> 00:21:36,270
with it? How old is the movie, by the way? So the

345
00:21:36,270 --> 00:21:38,670
movie came out in

346
00:21:38,990 --> 00:21:42,790
2024. You know, we

347
00:21:42,790 --> 00:21:46,390
basically did our festival run and we got picked up for

348
00:21:46,390 --> 00:21:49,950
distribution at the end of 2024. So

349
00:21:49,950 --> 00:21:53,770
it' anybody to be able to rent wherever you

350
00:21:54,490 --> 00:21:58,170
choose to rent and stream your

351
00:21:58,170 --> 00:22:01,730
videos at home. Let's talk about that process for a second, then we'll get into

352
00:22:01,730 --> 00:22:04,890
the movie a little deeper. But the process of an independent

353
00:22:05,290 --> 00:22:09,130
filmmaker like you, we've got to get it funded. We

354
00:22:09,130 --> 00:22:12,570
have then come up with a production crew, and once you fund it, you've got

355
00:22:12,570 --> 00:22:15,450
to start shooting because people don't want to wait for their money to get back.

356
00:22:15,930 --> 00:22:19,730
And it's business at this point. How do you balance

357
00:22:19,730 --> 00:22:23,090
that business aspect of.

358
00:22:23,250 --> 00:22:26,810
With the creative side of this? You're an artist, there's no question about that.

359
00:22:26,810 --> 00:22:30,450
Sure. How do you balance that in your mind or what do you do to

360
00:22:30,690 --> 00:22:34,490
maintain the creative. I don't want to rush through this.

361
00:22:34,490 --> 00:22:37,970
I don't want to get this done because they're breathing on my back.

362
00:22:38,450 --> 00:22:41,970
But I want to make sure I put my best foot forward. Is it constant

363
00:22:41,970 --> 00:22:44,530
nagging no, it's

364
00:22:46,530 --> 00:22:50,010
a really good question, Paul, because it's something that you

365
00:22:50,010 --> 00:22:52,670
struggle with at all times, because

366
00:22:53,470 --> 00:22:57,310
it's, you know, one thing I that makes me think of is

367
00:22:58,270 --> 00:23:01,950
all of the best art that you tend to come across

368
00:23:01,950 --> 00:23:05,710
in the world comes from constraint. You know, so

369
00:23:05,710 --> 00:23:09,230
often we will see a personal passion project

370
00:23:10,110 --> 00:23:13,550
that, you know, maybe the artist was actually very, very successful,

371
00:23:13,790 --> 00:23:17,630
they made a ton of money and they were able to then fund their personal

372
00:23:17,630 --> 00:23:21,430
passion project, which was their dream thing. And, you know,

373
00:23:21,750 --> 00:23:25,550
nobody had a say as to, you know, what was

374
00:23:25,550 --> 00:23:28,750
going to happen with that thing other than the actual artist who had dreamt of

375
00:23:28,750 --> 00:23:32,510
this forever. And so often those films aren't anywhere near as

376
00:23:32,510 --> 00:23:36,190
good as a lot of the other ones that they were, you

377
00:23:36,190 --> 00:23:39,870
know, under the. Under the gun from the. The studio and their

378
00:23:39,870 --> 00:23:43,350
investors and everything. Old time. Because

379
00:23:44,230 --> 00:23:47,910
constraint is actually really, really valuable

380
00:23:48,230 --> 00:23:51,550
as an artist. I mean, as a. As an artist and a dreamer, you would

381
00:23:51,550 --> 00:23:55,270
just go on forever. There were periods of time where I could have kept going

382
00:23:55,830 --> 00:23:59,510
forever with filming this film because like we talked about,

383
00:23:59,830 --> 00:24:03,430
this is, you know, living, breathing people and real

384
00:24:03,430 --> 00:24:07,150
stories. And, you know, one of the key storylines

385
00:24:07,150 --> 00:24:10,830
that happens throughout the film is that the next generation gets

386
00:24:10,830 --> 00:24:14,630
involved. And so now all of a sudden you have, you know, their kids who

387
00:24:14,630 --> 00:24:18,310
are, you know, in their 20s and 30s, you can imagine, you

388
00:24:18,310 --> 00:24:22,110
know, obviously their lives are ongoing, so you could just keep

389
00:24:22,110 --> 00:24:25,030
going forever. So, you know,

390
00:24:25,910 --> 00:24:29,469
one of the hardest things in making a film like

391
00:24:29,469 --> 00:24:33,190
this, when you have this, you know, living, breathing thing

392
00:24:33,350 --> 00:24:36,670
that is moving through time and you don't know what the end point is. You

393
00:24:36,670 --> 00:24:40,160
don't know where the ending is going to be. And it's very, very

394
00:24:40,160 --> 00:24:43,560
challenging to be able to find a natural

395
00:24:44,040 --> 00:24:47,800
ending to a story that is continuing

396
00:24:47,880 --> 00:24:51,600
in real time. I think a lot of great documentaries

397
00:24:51,600 --> 00:24:55,360
actually struggle with that. They just sort of have to come

398
00:24:55,360 --> 00:24:57,960
up with an arbitrary out point and like, oh,

399
00:24:58,760 --> 00:25:02,480
sorry, that's it. And then they throw just a couple title cards

400
00:25:02,480 --> 00:25:06,010
up at the end. And this is what happened after the point that we

401
00:25:06,010 --> 00:25:09,690
chose to quit filming. Right? Yeah. And so that

402
00:25:09,690 --> 00:25:13,410
was really, really. That's interesting. Important for us to think

403
00:25:13,410 --> 00:25:16,770
about what the structure of,

404
00:25:17,250 --> 00:25:21,090
you know, the story was. And so we had to find a key inflection

405
00:25:21,170 --> 00:25:24,690
point. And I got really lucky that the film went on.

406
00:25:25,490 --> 00:25:29,250
I spent seven years working on this thing. And so

407
00:25:29,250 --> 00:25:32,490
it naturally presented itself.

408
00:25:33,850 --> 00:25:37,210
And for those that haven't seen it, it's better to not

409
00:25:37,210 --> 00:25:40,810
spoil it because it's of course not. There's a very

410
00:25:40,810 --> 00:25:44,250
Surprising twist. Well, you won't spoil it and

411
00:25:44,650 --> 00:25:48,330
we'll carry on. You know, it's funny you said that. You ever watched

412
00:25:48,330 --> 00:25:51,930
the John Wayne D Day movie? It has no end.

413
00:25:52,570 --> 00:25:56,410
It's more documentary. I haven't seen that one. I love John Wayne. You know,

414
00:25:56,410 --> 00:25:59,250
you just. It's just. It's just over. And you kind of go, well, more of

415
00:25:59,250 --> 00:26:02,790
a documentary. Even though it was shot, you know, cinema. Cinematograph. Cinematic, sure.

416
00:26:03,030 --> 00:26:06,830
But, you know, interesting that way. Sure.

417
00:26:06,830 --> 00:26:10,550
So now tell me about Terroir. Is that a separate film altogether or

418
00:26:10,550 --> 00:26:14,310
just sort of a. Yes. So Terroir was something I did before. So I

419
00:26:14,550 --> 00:26:18,390
have, you know, on the promotional side of things,

420
00:26:18,630 --> 00:26:22,150
I've been doing a lot of work for Ridge Vineyards. And

421
00:26:22,470 --> 00:26:26,190
that was a piece that was actually one of the first pieces that

422
00:26:26,190 --> 00:26:29,690
we did with Ridge

423
00:26:29,690 --> 00:26:33,490
Vineyards that, you know, we all

424
00:26:33,490 --> 00:26:36,890
felt was so strong because it was really all,

425
00:26:37,210 --> 00:26:41,010
you know, anybody that doesn't know anything about Ridge Vineyards, the,

426
00:26:41,010 --> 00:26:44,690
you know, first name pops into anybody's head is Paul Draper. Paul

427
00:26:44,690 --> 00:26:48,330
Draper was the, you know, winemaker Ridge for,

428
00:26:48,410 --> 00:26:52,170
I don't know, 40 some odd years or something, you

429
00:26:52,170 --> 00:26:55,840
know, was chairman of the board after that and just recently

430
00:26:55,920 --> 00:26:59,600
stepped down from the chairman of the board as he's now in his

431
00:26:59,600 --> 00:27:03,360
late 80s. And Paul was one of the people

432
00:27:03,360 --> 00:27:06,080
that was really instrumental in

433
00:27:07,440 --> 00:27:11,200
what they call pre industrial winemaking, which is now.

434
00:27:11,200 --> 00:27:14,880
It was just sort of an early version of a variation on natural

435
00:27:14,880 --> 00:27:18,680
winemaking. It's not as extreme as natural winemaking. They

436
00:27:18,680 --> 00:27:22,510
still use sulfur and that kind of thing. But, you

437
00:27:22,510 --> 00:27:26,110
know, their practice, Paul wanted to,

438
00:27:26,270 --> 00:27:29,750
you know, try and replicate the

439
00:27:29,750 --> 00:27:33,230
practices of, you know, Bordeaux

440
00:27:33,390 --> 00:27:37,070
in, like, the 1880s, which are some of his favorite

441
00:27:37,070 --> 00:27:40,590
wines that he ever had. And he thinks that's about where,

442
00:27:40,670 --> 00:27:44,390
you know, wine production peaked in terms of the

443
00:27:44,390 --> 00:27:47,760
quality of what you can actually do. That fruit, right? Yeah.

444
00:27:48,320 --> 00:27:52,080
And so we made a piece, we made a film all about that,

445
00:27:52,880 --> 00:27:56,720
and that ended up becoming Terroir. And it was a short film.

446
00:27:56,960 --> 00:28:00,240
We got to play it, you know, a couple different film festivals.

447
00:28:01,040 --> 00:28:04,320
And it was fun to be able to

448
00:28:05,360 --> 00:28:09,040
get to see audience reactions to it because

449
00:28:09,440 --> 00:28:12,960
most of my work ends up online and

450
00:28:13,120 --> 00:28:16,600
people watch it, you know, on their phone, they watch it, you know, on their

451
00:28:16,600 --> 00:28:20,290
laptop. All of which is wonderful. I'm

452
00:28:20,290 --> 00:28:23,730
happy anybody watches my work anywhere, Paul. But

453
00:28:24,050 --> 00:28:27,890
getting to see it in a theater and

454
00:28:27,890 --> 00:28:31,690
especially the way that we tend to approach filmmaking,

455
00:28:31,690 --> 00:28:35,330
like my. My team and I are heavily informed

456
00:28:35,650 --> 00:28:38,850
by narrative films. So we really, really consider things like

457
00:28:39,090 --> 00:28:42,850
cinematography, editing, sound Design all of

458
00:28:42,850 --> 00:28:46,330
the different sound elements that are created. All the music is

459
00:28:46,330 --> 00:28:49,550
composed specifically for the film.

460
00:28:50,030 --> 00:28:53,470
And then you get to piece all of those things together

461
00:28:53,950 --> 00:28:57,150
to be able to make a really cool experiential

462
00:28:57,870 --> 00:29:01,710
film. You should feel like you're actually in

463
00:29:01,710 --> 00:29:05,550
the vineyard when it's harvest day. And so we

464
00:29:05,550 --> 00:29:09,310
really have the tractors right around

465
00:29:09,630 --> 00:29:13,430
behind you and then you have multiple rows of

466
00:29:13,430 --> 00:29:16,990
people picking. You have, you know, the conversations and the

467
00:29:16,990 --> 00:29:20,670
chatter and the energy and it was

468
00:29:20,670 --> 00:29:24,030
really fun to get to do that with terroir

469
00:29:24,430 --> 00:29:28,110
and that kind of told us that we were on the right

470
00:29:28,110 --> 00:29:31,470
path and we should, you know, continue

471
00:29:32,270 --> 00:29:35,870
this concept on a much larger scale. With the

472
00:29:35,870 --> 00:29:39,590
Mount Eden film that became Eaten, you touched on a

473
00:29:39,590 --> 00:29:43,370
lot. And I'm going to try and net some of this out because sure, again

474
00:29:43,370 --> 00:29:47,050
there's some controversial parts of what is going on in both, both

475
00:29:47,050 --> 00:29:50,810
industries. I mean you're, you're two industries that

476
00:29:50,810 --> 00:29:54,010
are butts kicked right now. And so I don't know

477
00:29:54,410 --> 00:29:57,930
pretty much. But the other experiential. I've been telling

478
00:29:58,570 --> 00:30:02,330
winemakers all over the world this. You know, when my father's in

479
00:30:02,330 --> 00:30:05,890
this business, actually you can't see it on the picture of my

480
00:30:05,890 --> 00:30:08,970
dad. They had a wine shop in the 70s, in the 80s,

481
00:30:12,010 --> 00:30:15,650
that, that's what they did. You know, my dad had a, this patch

482
00:30:15,650 --> 00:30:19,370
is from Les Ami Devant, which was a. A group of enthusiasts across

483
00:30:19,370 --> 00:30:23,010
the country. There were 150 chapters in the country that, that got together

484
00:30:23,010 --> 00:30:26,570
and tasted wine. And Robert Mondavi would come down from Napa and

485
00:30:26,570 --> 00:30:30,410
Lawrence Bowser, the famed critic would come and speak and that would, that

486
00:30:30,410 --> 00:30:34,020
was the experiential part of wine. And I think,

487
00:30:34,260 --> 00:30:37,540
and I won't get all the boring details about marketing what I had to go

488
00:30:37,540 --> 00:30:41,260
through when I was selling wine. But you know, all the metrics in

489
00:30:41,260 --> 00:30:44,900
the world and all the AI and all the, all the

490
00:30:44,900 --> 00:30:48,740
data driven models can't replace the experience

491
00:30:48,980 --> 00:30:52,820
that people feel. And I was in the club business so

492
00:30:52,900 --> 00:30:56,340
if somebody went to Mount Eden and they went to the tasting room, they signed

493
00:30:56,340 --> 00:31:00,020
up for the club, you know, the experience will take them every,

494
00:31:00,180 --> 00:31:03,660
they will go to that day, every time they get a bottle of Mount

495
00:31:03,660 --> 00:31:07,300
Eden wine in the mail, they will go to the day that they were there

496
00:31:07,300 --> 00:31:10,860
and had the conversation maybe with the filmmaker and maybe with the winemaker, maybe with

497
00:31:10,860 --> 00:31:14,660
the, the son, who knows who they spoke with, but they'll remember that. And that's

498
00:31:14,660 --> 00:31:17,860
the experiential part of this. And I think it's critical

499
00:31:18,340 --> 00:31:21,860
to the Wine to get back on his feet. And maybe

500
00:31:22,100 --> 00:31:25,870
films like this, you know, one minute at a time, is

501
00:31:25,870 --> 00:31:29,470
how we get the community, the wine community back on his feet.

502
00:31:30,990 --> 00:31:34,630
The pressures are Gen Z, are there, Are there pressures? I guess there would

503
00:31:34,630 --> 00:31:38,430
be in this film business because of verticals and everybody's

504
00:31:38,430 --> 00:31:42,070
a producer now and they got a iPhone. You know, some, some

505
00:31:42,070 --> 00:31:45,710
kids are pretty good at it. You know, it's funny, I, you

506
00:31:45,710 --> 00:31:49,070
know, I. My business, it's all independent

507
00:31:49,070 --> 00:31:52,790
contractors that I work with because they're all crew people, right. And, you

508
00:31:52,790 --> 00:31:56,360
know, a lot of these relationships I've had for, you know, since the

509
00:31:56,360 --> 00:32:00,120
beginning. And I've worked with the same sound designer who does all my

510
00:32:00,120 --> 00:32:03,880
post audio really, since, you know, my second film

511
00:32:03,880 --> 00:32:07,080
that I ever worked on. But a lot of them are starting to do

512
00:32:07,080 --> 00:32:10,600
verticals just because that's the work that is, that is coming

513
00:32:10,600 --> 00:32:13,760
in. And it's weird, you know, when you're an audio guy, all of a sudden

514
00:32:13,760 --> 00:32:16,960
you have to completely change your, you know, approach

515
00:32:17,440 --> 00:32:21,200
because when it's vertical, all of a sudden that microphone is

516
00:32:21,200 --> 00:32:24,440
very, very visible in all different places. Usually the

517
00:32:24,440 --> 00:32:28,130
microphone is like sitting right above my head. It'd be

518
00:32:28,290 --> 00:32:32,090
right there. All of a sudden, in a vertical, it can't sit there. So you

519
00:32:32,090 --> 00:32:35,650
got to figure it out. There is a lot of pressure.

520
00:32:36,530 --> 00:32:39,730
And one of the things that's really

521
00:32:39,730 --> 00:32:43,450
challenging is that it's. It used to

522
00:32:43,450 --> 00:32:46,850
be that you could make an independently

523
00:32:46,930 --> 00:32:50,450
produced film and if it was

524
00:32:50,690 --> 00:32:54,260
a good film and you were relatively

525
00:32:54,260 --> 00:32:57,820
guaranteed to be able to get into, you know, a couple of top

526
00:32:57,820 --> 00:33:01,540
tier film festivals, let's just use Sundance because it's an

527
00:33:01,540 --> 00:33:05,260
example that everybody knows what Sundance really is, is a

528
00:33:05,260 --> 00:33:08,820
film market. That's the marketplace where you are, you know,

529
00:33:08,820 --> 00:33:11,820
bringing your film to hopefully attract

530
00:33:11,820 --> 00:33:15,660
distributor distributors and, you know, they will

531
00:33:15,660 --> 00:33:19,260
then purchase your film and distribute it all over,

532
00:33:19,260 --> 00:33:22,910
you know, the country, the world, all of it. So much

533
00:33:22,990 --> 00:33:26,750
of that model has broken down. You

534
00:33:26,750 --> 00:33:30,510
know, for one thing, there's just so many films being made

535
00:33:31,070 --> 00:33:34,390
that it's very, very challenging to be able to get into top tier

536
00:33:34,390 --> 00:33:38,230
festivals. You know, on the second front, a lot of the top

537
00:33:38,230 --> 00:33:41,630
tier festivals are already choosing

538
00:33:41,790 --> 00:33:45,630
films that have distribution and are, you know, being

539
00:33:45,710 --> 00:33:48,820
utilized as, you know, sort of

540
00:33:49,860 --> 00:33:53,500
marketing events for, you know, Netflix or

541
00:33:53,500 --> 00:33:56,980
whatever will bring their film that they have already,

542
00:33:57,540 --> 00:34:01,260
you know, bought. And they're using this as like,

543
00:34:01,260 --> 00:34:04,820
you know, the, the PR move of the, the big press.

544
00:34:05,940 --> 00:34:09,500
It's so much harder to be able to sell

545
00:34:09,500 --> 00:34:12,740
your film because there's so much

546
00:34:13,140 --> 00:34:13,540
Content.

547
00:34:16,840 --> 00:34:20,600
It's actually a lot of the same problems that the wine has. There's so many

548
00:34:20,920 --> 00:34:24,280
people that everybody likes their own individual

549
00:34:24,680 --> 00:34:27,960
film. It's so hard to be able to get your Star wars

550
00:34:27,960 --> 00:34:31,600
anymore because it's really hard

551
00:34:31,600 --> 00:34:35,120
to have the big enough bucket that everybody will

552
00:34:35,120 --> 00:34:38,960
fall into it. And so everybody sort of ends up poaching from

553
00:34:38,960 --> 00:34:42,810
each other. And, you know, five people will see my film,

554
00:34:42,810 --> 00:34:46,490
five people will see another wine film, another five people will see

555
00:34:46,490 --> 00:34:50,250
a agricultural film, and they're all sort of poaching from

556
00:34:50,250 --> 00:34:53,930
each other's core audience. And so figuring out

557
00:34:53,930 --> 00:34:56,330
a way to get

558
00:34:57,770 --> 00:35:01,290
to a level where all three of those films

559
00:35:01,610 --> 00:35:05,330
can actually share audiences will be

560
00:35:05,330 --> 00:35:08,880
a really interesting thing if we can figure out a model that

561
00:35:08,880 --> 00:35:12,560
works that way. It's funny you said, though. You did. It's just you nailed. You

562
00:35:12,560 --> 00:35:16,360
nailed the problem. And I understood certainly

563
00:35:16,360 --> 00:35:20,200
those festivals as to what they were from a marketing standpoint. But I just

564
00:35:20,200 --> 00:35:23,440
got back from Paris. We were at Wine Paris. 6,000

565
00:35:23,680 --> 00:35:27,280
vendors, okay? And it hit me walking down the aisle that there's 6,000

566
00:35:27,280 --> 00:35:31,120
people here with maybe 100,000 wines all buying

567
00:35:31,120 --> 00:35:34,640
for the same thing. It's the same product. I mean, one comes from Pimonte and

568
00:35:34,640 --> 00:35:38,430
one comes from Napa. It doesn't matter where they end up. Selling them

569
00:35:38,430 --> 00:35:42,190
is the same spot, just like you would selling a movie. You

570
00:35:42,190 --> 00:35:45,870
either stream it or you're in the theaters or you're being distributed, you

571
00:35:45,870 --> 00:35:49,470
know, regular, traditional channels. And so the. The headwinds are

572
00:35:49,470 --> 00:35:53,150
exactly the same. So then I wonder, flying back from

573
00:35:53,150 --> 00:35:56,750
Paris, I'm scrolling through American Airlines or whatever, Air

574
00:35:56,750 --> 00:36:00,590
France, I think it was their options to watch. And I go,

575
00:36:00,590 --> 00:36:04,300
oh, here's a nice little film on wine. I should watch this. You know,

576
00:36:04,300 --> 00:36:08,100
I've been. This is what I like to do. I was so embarrassed.

577
00:36:08,100 --> 00:36:11,820
I thought maybe the stewardess saw me watching this horrible,

578
00:36:14,380 --> 00:36:18,060
beautiful lighting stage. Cinematography was great.

579
00:36:18,060 --> 00:36:21,860
It was two master of wines trying to be funny and talk about Gruner

580
00:36:21,860 --> 00:36:25,700
Veltliner. And I was embarrassed. I thought, how in

581
00:36:25,700 --> 00:36:29,100
the hell did this get onto this plane where potentially

582
00:36:29,770 --> 00:36:33,490
thousands of people can watch it? And I thought, wow, we can

583
00:36:33,490 --> 00:36:37,210
do better than this. And there's a couple of places. Klaus de Jong does

584
00:36:37,210 --> 00:36:40,650
master wine stuff, you know, Psalm tv. Jason

585
00:36:40,650 --> 00:36:44,330
Wise. You're gonna do more of this, you think? But, you know, based on,

586
00:36:44,970 --> 00:36:47,930
I don't know, the drops of God. Incredibly successful,

587
00:36:49,770 --> 00:36:53,050
right? I think, you know, for me, it's a really

588
00:36:53,050 --> 00:36:56,790
interesting thing, Paul, because it's like the wine

589
00:36:56,870 --> 00:36:59,030
industry is so

590
00:37:00,070 --> 00:37:03,270
challenging to pivot, as I'm sure you know. Right.

591
00:37:03,830 --> 00:37:07,550
It's so. It. It moves. It's such a boat

592
00:37:07,550 --> 00:37:11,110
that is moving in a singular direction.

593
00:37:12,630 --> 00:37:16,310
And it is interesting because, I mean, you know, I'm a Santa Cruz Mountains guy.

594
00:37:16,310 --> 00:37:20,150
Yeah. You know, that's what keeps me excited. Santa Cruz Mountains,

595
00:37:20,310 --> 00:37:23,930
like, you know, seriously, I think Mount Eden makes

596
00:37:24,490 --> 00:37:28,170
roughly 10 to 15,000 cases a year, and

597
00:37:28,170 --> 00:37:31,810
they're one of the biggest producers. Yeah, that would be mountains. I

598
00:37:31,810 --> 00:37:35,570
mean. Yeah, like Ridge. And then you got them. And there's a couple

599
00:37:35,570 --> 00:37:39,250
other that are about the same level. A lot of the producers around here are

600
00:37:39,250 --> 00:37:42,170
in the, like, you know, 2000 case a year,

601
00:37:43,770 --> 00:37:47,050
and I don't either. But, you know, a lot of them do all

602
00:37:47,050 --> 00:37:50,700
D2C, man. It's literally. They don't even have distributors.

603
00:37:50,860 --> 00:37:54,380
They've got a tasting room and they've got a wine club, and,

604
00:37:54,780 --> 00:37:58,300
you know, they can go all. All D to C, and it's

605
00:37:58,540 --> 00:38:01,580
working for them. But I. I don't know. I don't know how you do that,

606
00:38:01,660 --> 00:38:04,860
but to me, that stuff is. I find that interesting.

607
00:38:06,380 --> 00:38:10,060
People can't go to Napa and do that today. Impossible. You can't. Probably not. You

608
00:38:10,060 --> 00:38:13,780
can't do it. It won't work. I. I bet you you can. You know, it's

609
00:38:13,780 --> 00:38:17,000
also. It's interesting being in a wine region

610
00:38:17,880 --> 00:38:21,400
that, you know, wine is not the primary

611
00:38:21,960 --> 00:38:25,600
commerce. You know, like, when you think of the Santa Cruz

612
00:38:25,600 --> 00:38:29,360
Mountains, I mean, first off, you say Santa Cruz Mountains, people think of Santa

613
00:38:29,360 --> 00:38:33,200
Cruz, the town which is actually where, you know, very

614
00:38:33,200 --> 00:38:36,680
little of the wine is actually produced. A lot of the best

615
00:38:36,680 --> 00:38:40,480
wine, much like Mount Eden, is produced on the eastern side of the

616
00:38:40,480 --> 00:38:44,040
Santa Cruz Mountains. It's up above Silicon Valley. It's right next to

617
00:38:44,040 --> 00:38:47,620
Cupertino and Saratoga, and you lost Gatos and San

618
00:38:47,620 --> 00:38:51,380
Jose and all that kind of stuff. And then, you know, it's

619
00:38:51,380 --> 00:38:54,100
so small in comparison

620
00:38:54,980 --> 00:38:58,620
to the cultural output that the

621
00:38:58,620 --> 00:39:02,459
tech industry has. And so. And I think

622
00:39:02,459 --> 00:39:05,860
that's kind of cool. So much of, you know, so many wine

623
00:39:05,860 --> 00:39:09,460
regions are so dominated by

624
00:39:09,780 --> 00:39:13,290
the wine side that, you know,

625
00:39:13,450 --> 00:39:15,610
it's kind of cool being the underdog.

626
00:39:17,050 --> 00:39:20,650
It's kind of a fun thing. And, you know, I feel the same way about

627
00:39:20,650 --> 00:39:24,490
being a filmmaker up here. Most, you know, filmmakers

628
00:39:24,730 --> 00:39:28,530
move down where you are. There in Southern California or New York is still

629
00:39:28,530 --> 00:39:32,090
a very, very strong place. And there's a lot of places that are popping up

630
00:39:32,090 --> 00:39:35,890
because there's, you know, wild tax incentives. Like, Atlanta

631
00:39:35,890 --> 00:39:39,740
is very popular. New Mexico, well, The way the

632
00:39:39,740 --> 00:39:43,540
studios are closing is fascinating. I

633
00:39:43,540 --> 00:39:46,460
want to be. I went to a real estate conference the other day. You know,

634
00:39:46,460 --> 00:39:50,180
they were talking about these massive studios

635
00:39:50,180 --> 00:39:53,820
closing doors. And one of them just. I think they got paid 1.5 billion

636
00:39:53,820 --> 00:39:57,100
for it. And they're trying. They're hoping to get 400 million for it. So that's

637
00:39:57,100 --> 00:40:00,420
like, you know, the stage. Sound stages are not

638
00:40:00,980 --> 00:40:04,780
happening. It's a tough one. Yeah, it's really tough.

639
00:40:04,780 --> 00:40:08,530
But I. There's a guy up there. Maybe

640
00:40:08,530 --> 00:40:12,210
that's. Maybe that's this the source of all these stories. Maybe this is where these

641
00:40:12,210 --> 00:40:16,010
stories should be coming from, these small places. You know, people have heard

642
00:40:16,010 --> 00:40:19,530
the. The Napa story before. They've heard the Bordeaux story. And sure,

643
00:40:19,530 --> 00:40:23,210
you're right. Like Mount Eden probably has. Well, they were

644
00:40:23,210 --> 00:40:27,050
15,000 cases or 10,000. They probably have to be into the distribution network

645
00:40:27,050 --> 00:40:30,850
to get rid of all that wine because they definitely do. And theirs

646
00:40:30,850 --> 00:40:34,660
is actually really interesting. So like I mentioned earlier, they didn't have

647
00:40:34,660 --> 00:40:38,100
a tasting rum when I first started. And it's because

648
00:40:39,060 --> 00:40:42,020
they, you know, actually had

649
00:40:42,820 --> 00:40:46,460
great distribution from when the Pattersons got there. The

650
00:40:46,460 --> 00:40:49,300
Pattersons got there in 1981

651
00:40:50,019 --> 00:40:53,780
and they already. The winery was established

652
00:40:53,860 --> 00:40:57,700
in 1944, so it was already

653
00:40:57,700 --> 00:41:01,140
distributed and a lot of the best restaurants and wine

654
00:41:01,140 --> 00:41:04,380
shops all throughout the country and in, you know,

655
00:41:04,780 --> 00:41:08,420
good number of international markets as well. And so

656
00:41:08,420 --> 00:41:12,020
they never felt the need to be able to do the direct to

657
00:41:12,020 --> 00:41:14,940
consumer side. Now that the kids are involved,

658
00:41:15,500 --> 00:41:19,300
they are, you know, slowly starting to pivot and

659
00:41:19,300 --> 00:41:23,140
do some of the D2C side. But they

660
00:41:23,140 --> 00:41:26,860
are more of that older model where it was

661
00:41:27,360 --> 00:41:31,040
all wholesale. Being able to, you know, get your

662
00:41:31,040 --> 00:41:34,840
allocation at all the best restaurants and wine shops

663
00:41:34,840 --> 00:41:38,440
throughout the the country. The DTC side of this is

664
00:41:38,440 --> 00:41:42,200
important. I have a niece that just started so interesting.

665
00:41:42,200 --> 00:41:45,760
She started a salad dressing line and she thought that she'd be, you know, influencer

666
00:41:45,760 --> 00:41:49,480
by trade, sort of. She thought she would jump into Instagram and Facebook and all

667
00:41:49,480 --> 00:41:52,640
that and she would, you know, make billions of dollars selling salad dressing and that.

668
00:41:52,880 --> 00:41:55,600
That quickly became a fallacy and that there it wasn't enough

669
00:41:56,590 --> 00:42:00,390
to sustain it. She had good traction. But you just. In

670
00:42:00,390 --> 00:42:03,990
itself, it'll help you build the brand, but in itself it's not going to create

671
00:42:03,990 --> 00:42:07,750
the sales volume, at least in this case, to support it. Now, I came from

672
00:42:07,750 --> 00:42:11,470
the DTC world. I was the oldest DTC company in America called the Original Wine

673
00:42:11,470 --> 00:42:14,230
of the Month Club. We sold a lot of money to a lot of people

674
00:42:14,230 --> 00:42:17,830
over the years and it changed radically and we became, we

675
00:42:17,830 --> 00:42:21,680
became prolific digital marketers. I mean, I'll just highlight. And I've

676
00:42:21,680 --> 00:42:25,360
told the story before. My last full year, which was 2022, I sent

677
00:42:25,360 --> 00:42:29,160
out 33 million emails. So we understood what

678
00:42:29,160 --> 00:42:32,960
to do to get dollar sales. But the DTC side has been

679
00:42:32,960 --> 00:42:36,560
influenced by a lot and not the least of which is metric

680
00:42:36,560 --> 00:42:40,120
selling on Facebook and Instagram and all that. And so their,

681
00:42:40,120 --> 00:42:43,920
their job, they have to be DTC because all the

682
00:42:43,920 --> 00:42:47,280
margins are there. You know, the side, the margins are

683
00:42:47,280 --> 00:42:50,950
clobbered. And I can't tell you. I've sold thousands and

684
00:42:50,950 --> 00:42:53,710
thousands of bottles of wine for people through the

685
00:42:53,870 --> 00:42:57,470
distressed network of wine connections I have

686
00:42:57,470 --> 00:43:01,230
where they're getting pennies on the dollar of what they wanted. But it,

687
00:43:01,310 --> 00:43:04,910
but they got to move the merchandise. Sure. A Bunch of Bordeaux.

688
00:43:04,910 --> 00:43:08,710
4000 cases of Bordeaux for a guy. Because they're

689
00:43:08,710 --> 00:43:12,190
sitting, you know, they're sitting there. What are they going to do with it?

690
00:43:12,830 --> 00:43:16,600
I sold 6,000 cases of.

691
00:43:17,560 --> 00:43:21,120
Put out by a winery in Tuscany that brought it to

692
00:43:21,120 --> 00:43:24,880
America. Couldn't sell. They got a dollar a bottle, but

693
00:43:24,880 --> 00:43:28,640
they got a dollar a bottle, you know. Yeah, actually they got two

694
00:43:28,640 --> 00:43:31,080
bucks. I said, if you don't take it now, you're going to get a dollar.

695
00:43:31,080 --> 00:43:34,840
Anyway, the point is, the point is those are the

696
00:43:34,840 --> 00:43:38,360
shifting challenges of the wine trade. I don't like the film trade

697
00:43:38,680 --> 00:43:42,430
that have. There's a solution somewhere, there's an answer. And it may have to

698
00:43:42,430 --> 00:43:45,870
bottom out a little bit before that happens. But all of this

699
00:43:45,870 --> 00:43:48,550
tech is gonna, is gonna

700
00:43:49,430 --> 00:43:53,230
create a whole new baseline for people to do business. And

701
00:43:53,230 --> 00:43:56,710
I think if there's a young person at the helm that has a

702
00:43:56,710 --> 00:44:00,390
keener understanding than the traditional, and then you have to

703
00:44:00,390 --> 00:44:03,270
decide on the wine side. I don't wanna get away from my,

704
00:44:03,990 --> 00:44:07,470
from my core value of what I'm putting out there. Like, was there ever a

705
00:44:07,470 --> 00:44:10,850
discussion with the Mount Eden people are even Ridge about

706
00:44:11,330 --> 00:44:14,530
a can or a pouch or,

707
00:44:15,490 --> 00:44:19,170
you know, a bag in the box? Would those ever. Yeah, yeah, sure.

708
00:44:21,650 --> 00:44:25,410
You know. No, I mean, they're, they're both very, I

709
00:44:25,410 --> 00:44:28,770
mean, those two companies are pretty traditional with their

710
00:44:28,770 --> 00:44:31,730
cork and their, their, you know, their bottle.

711
00:44:32,930 --> 00:44:36,570
You know, things are changing and they are, you know, they're very

712
00:44:36,570 --> 00:44:39,770
connected to like Tablas Creek. Right. You say, you know,

713
00:44:40,330 --> 00:44:44,130
wine in a bag. And there is a

714
00:44:44,130 --> 00:44:47,930
movement towards that. And I think, to me,

715
00:44:48,490 --> 00:44:52,250
I think you already said what one of the big

716
00:44:52,250 --> 00:44:55,450
solutions that is going to be able to help both

717
00:44:55,690 --> 00:44:59,250
cinema and independent wineries and that's

718
00:44:59,250 --> 00:45:02,650
experiences, right? Experiential

719
00:45:02,890 --> 00:45:06,640
is still incredibly valuable. And

720
00:45:06,640 --> 00:45:09,880
it's actually maybe even more valuable than it ever has been.

721
00:45:10,520 --> 00:45:14,280
Getting people together in the room for a one off

722
00:45:14,280 --> 00:45:17,880
experience. Like, it's funny, people have been talking about the death of

723
00:45:17,880 --> 00:45:21,600
theaters and the cinema for, you know, as long

724
00:45:21,600 --> 00:45:24,680
as I've ever been in the film industry. And

725
00:45:24,840 --> 00:45:27,960
ironically it's come back around

726
00:45:28,840 --> 00:45:32,300
in a lot of independent films

727
00:45:32,860 --> 00:45:36,700
because if you do it in the right way, where

728
00:45:37,100 --> 00:45:40,780
you actually do sort of like a. You almost treat it like a band,

729
00:45:41,020 --> 00:45:44,460
like you're going to basically go and do a bunch of gigs and you're going

730
00:45:44,460 --> 00:45:48,060
to tour throughout the country and you create a unique

731
00:45:48,060 --> 00:45:51,660
and singular experience for your audience,

732
00:45:51,980 --> 00:45:55,500
people will come like there's a film that, you know, became

733
00:45:55,820 --> 00:45:59,580
really, you know, sort of famous and popular. I think it was last year,

734
00:45:59,580 --> 00:46:03,380
maybe two years ago. It's called Thousands

735
00:46:03,380 --> 00:46:05,780
of Beavers or Hundreds of Beavers. Have you heard of this?

736
00:46:07,140 --> 00:46:10,500
So it's basically these two dudes

737
00:46:10,900 --> 00:46:14,700
in the Midwest, it's like Wisconsin or something, and

738
00:46:14,700 --> 00:46:18,420
they're really good with their computers and they were able to figure out how

739
00:46:18,420 --> 00:46:22,260
to do a mixed live action plus animation

740
00:46:22,580 --> 00:46:26,340
film with just the one actor. And then it's sort

741
00:46:26,340 --> 00:46:29,780
of like a Looney Tunes commercial or a Looney Tunes cartoon

742
00:46:29,940 --> 00:46:33,770
where it's like, it's, you know, this guy is a lumberjack

743
00:46:33,770 --> 00:46:37,330
at the turn of the century and you know, the

744
00:46:37,330 --> 00:46:40,970
beavers like destroy his house and then it's like

745
00:46:40,970 --> 00:46:44,770
him trying to kill the beavers and them having, you know, a

746
00:46:44,770 --> 00:46:48,570
series of scenarios and battles. This thing did like over

747
00:46:48,570 --> 00:46:52,330
a million dollars in roadshow,

748
00:46:52,810 --> 00:46:56,650
you know, pop up screenings, movies out the country

749
00:46:57,540 --> 00:47:00,980
and people love it. They sold out shows everywhere, Paul.

750
00:47:01,300 --> 00:47:04,580
People would show up like the actors would show up in the

751
00:47:04,660 --> 00:47:08,420
beaver costumes and everything. And it's sort of experiential

752
00:47:08,420 --> 00:47:12,220
and fun and it was really, really all over

753
00:47:12,220 --> 00:47:16,060
again. Yeah, exactly. It totally is. It's just

754
00:47:16,060 --> 00:47:19,460
going right back to the midnight movie, man. It totally is.

755
00:47:19,700 --> 00:47:23,500
That's why I think that. Because the theater just closed here in my

756
00:47:23,500 --> 00:47:27,020
town of Monrovia. Beautiful theater. And I think their innovation and the reason I brought

757
00:47:27,020 --> 00:47:30,140
the other stuff up about cans, I don't expect any ever

758
00:47:30,780 --> 00:47:34,260
a winery like Mount Eden or Ridge to go to cans or. Back in the

759
00:47:34,260 --> 00:47:38,020
box. Back in the box maybe if. Because you can

760
00:47:38,020 --> 00:47:41,180
get decent back in the box wines that are palatable. But it's just like the

761
00:47:41,180 --> 00:47:44,620
whole ritual seems. But the, the

762
00:47:44,620 --> 00:47:48,420
pundits or the, the. The gen zers and millennials

763
00:47:48,420 --> 00:47:52,100
will talk about innovation. They don't understand what innovation is. They understand

764
00:47:52,100 --> 00:47:55,700
the wine trade. So. But they take their premise, their outlook on life and they

765
00:47:55,700 --> 00:47:59,500
call it innovation. And, and you mount it is not going to

766
00:47:59,500 --> 00:48:02,460
be in a can. It's not going to be in the back of. It's not

767
00:48:02,460 --> 00:48:05,180
going to be in a pouch. I mean, who wants to drink wine from a

768
00:48:05,180 --> 00:48:08,660
pouch? How can that be the, how can that be experiential? Maybe that's the

769
00:48:08,660 --> 00:48:12,380
divergence. Maybe because I've noticed at my local markets the

770
00:48:12,380 --> 00:48:15,020
can section is getting smaller and smaller. And so

771
00:48:15,980 --> 00:48:19,760
that experience, to sit with a bottle of Mount Eden with

772
00:48:19,760 --> 00:48:23,560
your friends and tell some stories and reflect on a glass

773
00:48:23,560 --> 00:48:27,400
of wine once in a while, because I think that connection

774
00:48:27,400 --> 00:48:30,720
to the soil, to how the wine's made

775
00:48:31,040 --> 00:48:33,680
and what the winemaker's role is in that wine

776
00:48:34,640 --> 00:48:38,000
is what stimulates the intellect. And you already said it, it's

777
00:48:38,000 --> 00:48:41,720
intellectual. You said, one of the first things you said was it's an

778
00:48:41,720 --> 00:48:45,240
intellectual. What did you say? Yeah, the

779
00:48:45,240 --> 00:48:48,870
intellectual engagement. Yes, that's. I actually

780
00:48:48,950 --> 00:48:52,230
like, again, I was super lucky when I learned about

781
00:48:52,310 --> 00:48:55,830
wine. I got to learn about it and it really

782
00:48:55,830 --> 00:48:59,630
connected with me because I started to understand the

783
00:48:59,630 --> 00:49:03,190
time frame, which was super exciting because

784
00:49:03,510 --> 00:49:07,230
I was doing a lot of work in the tech industry, and in the tech

785
00:49:07,230 --> 00:49:11,070
industry in particular, everything is so immediate. If somebody sends you an

786
00:49:11,070 --> 00:49:14,750
email and you don't respond, within an hour, you are on the naughty

787
00:49:14,750 --> 00:49:18,470
list kind of thing. And I'd go and walk around the

788
00:49:18,470 --> 00:49:21,710
vineyards with, you know, Jeffrey Patterson,

789
00:49:22,110 --> 00:49:25,390
and he is literally looking at that vineyard and

790
00:49:25,630 --> 00:49:29,470
thinking about things in terms of decades. Because if he's going to

791
00:49:29,470 --> 00:49:32,910
replant a, you know, particular plot,

792
00:49:32,990 --> 00:49:36,430
right, like, you know, think about it, he's got to

793
00:49:36,670 --> 00:49:39,390
think about how to get the water to be able to do it. He's got

794
00:49:39,390 --> 00:49:42,790
to let it go fallow for a while. He's got to, you know, be able

795
00:49:42,790 --> 00:49:45,950
to plant the root stock and then he's got to wait a year to be

796
00:49:45,950 --> 00:49:49,370
able to graft it over. And then from there it's like seven years

797
00:49:49,610 --> 00:49:53,170
before it even produces its very first vintage of even

798
00:49:53,170 --> 00:49:56,730
halfway decent wine. It's like 25 years until

799
00:49:56,730 --> 00:50:00,450
the root structure goes down deep enough that it

800
00:50:00,450 --> 00:50:04,250
actually becomes a real terroir driven

801
00:50:05,530 --> 00:50:08,890
piece of fruit that then turns into the wine. And I was

802
00:50:09,050 --> 00:50:11,770
so excited to hear

803
00:50:12,730 --> 00:50:16,420
people talking about things in terms of,

804
00:50:16,810 --> 00:50:20,090
of, you know, decades because

805
00:50:21,050 --> 00:50:24,850
so much is so immediate. And I personally

806
00:50:24,850 --> 00:50:27,370
really connect to slow,

807
00:50:28,330 --> 00:50:32,090
long building things. That's what I Love about wine. And ironically,

808
00:50:32,090 --> 00:50:35,530
there's a movement in cinema too which is counter to

809
00:50:35,930 --> 00:50:39,370
the current trends in cinema. It's called slow cinema.

810
00:50:39,610 --> 00:50:42,970
It's literally like, do not cut

811
00:50:43,130 --> 00:50:46,850
unless you absolutely have to. We're talking six, seven

812
00:50:46,850 --> 00:50:48,650
minute shots. Yeah, man.

813
00:50:51,210 --> 00:50:55,050
Compared to the crazy like cutty stuff that is

814
00:50:55,050 --> 00:50:58,890
all influenced by, you know, things like YouTube, which is great. I don't

815
00:50:58,890 --> 00:51:02,730
have like, I love YouTube. I love young people that love YouTube. It's not

816
00:51:02,730 --> 00:51:06,570
what I learned, it's not my passion. But

817
00:51:06,890 --> 00:51:10,530
there is always a counter to the stuff that you

818
00:51:10,530 --> 00:51:14,250
actually see in the popular trends.

819
00:51:14,570 --> 00:51:17,850
And some of it is, is slowing things down and

820
00:51:18,810 --> 00:51:21,930
what comes around, goes around and it's just the way it works. It's just going

821
00:51:21,930 --> 00:51:24,530
to change. You know, you said something and I want to touch on that because

822
00:51:24,530 --> 00:51:28,170
you talked about intellectual engagement the other day.

823
00:51:28,330 --> 00:51:31,890
We have, you know, wine is a very important part of our lives. Obviously my

824
00:51:31,890 --> 00:51:35,230
wife and myself and our good friends, they all have sellers, you know, they're not,

825
00:51:35,780 --> 00:51:39,140
you know, there's no classified gross in there, but they, you know, they appreciate the

826
00:51:39,300 --> 00:51:43,100
glass of wine. And one wife called the other day, she says, I want you

827
00:51:43,100 --> 00:51:46,180
guys to come up. I'm going to open up a really good glass of wine.

828
00:51:46,420 --> 00:51:50,260
And she drinks wine every night virtually. And she drinks. She has some reasonably

829
00:51:50,260 --> 00:51:53,980
fine things like stuff from Paso and whatever. But I thought,

830
00:51:53,980 --> 00:51:56,580
what does that mean? Like, what's she saying?

831
00:51:57,620 --> 00:52:01,430
There's something about tonight that I'm going to open something really

832
00:52:01,430 --> 00:52:04,950
good and, and define really good. Well, to her, I, I'm.

833
00:52:04,950 --> 00:52:08,670
She's a educated enough drinker, at least in what she likes to know.

834
00:52:08,990 --> 00:52:12,590
That really just means a properly made wine that

835
00:52:12,590 --> 00:52:16,390
expresses something, not just Josh from

836
00:52:16,390 --> 00:52:20,150
the supermarket that's full of sugar. And so I thought that's an interesting

837
00:52:20,150 --> 00:52:23,830
concept and it's not new to anybody. Anybody that drinks wine or

838
00:52:23,830 --> 00:52:27,640
anybody that even novices would, would acknowledge a

839
00:52:27,640 --> 00:52:30,640
really good glass, they would just. It'll just hit them like, this is a really

840
00:52:30,640 --> 00:52:34,280
good glass of wine. And I thought that that's never going to change. I don't

841
00:52:34,280 --> 00:52:38,040
care, you know, in film if you're shooting longer shots now or not,

842
00:52:38,200 --> 00:52:41,400
if you're in wine, if you're putting it in the can or not, it'll never

843
00:52:41,400 --> 00:52:45,240
change the value of that really good glass of

844
00:52:45,240 --> 00:52:48,920
wine. And I think that's. That's where we hang our hat. That

845
00:52:48,920 --> 00:52:52,560
is that that'll settle and it'll always be that way. It's been around six, more

846
00:52:52,560 --> 00:52:56,100
than 6,000 years, as we know. And it's not going

847
00:52:56,100 --> 00:52:59,700
anywhere, but it certainly is going through some kind of, you know,

848
00:52:59,700 --> 00:53:03,460
stock market adjustment, so to speak. You know, trend, trend

849
00:53:03,460 --> 00:53:06,700
change. What's. What's next for you then? Do you think? Are you working on something

850
00:53:06,700 --> 00:53:10,100
now in the wine trade or. Yeah, so. So I have a whole nother film

851
00:53:10,100 --> 00:53:13,780
that, that I'm working on. And over the course of making

852
00:53:13,780 --> 00:53:17,180
this film, I got really, really interested in the

853
00:53:17,180 --> 00:53:20,940
agricultural workers because there's such a large part

854
00:53:21,020 --> 00:53:24,780
of. Of, you know, the actual wine that is produced, the ones that have

855
00:53:24,780 --> 00:53:28,420
their hands on touching it every single day. And so

856
00:53:29,300 --> 00:53:31,620
currently we're making a film about

857
00:53:33,220 --> 00:53:37,060
a couple of Mexican immigrant organic farmers

858
00:53:37,940 --> 00:53:41,140
down in Watsonville and the

859
00:53:41,300 --> 00:53:44,660
challenges with farm labor and

860
00:53:44,900 --> 00:53:48,670
being a immigrant in, you know, the

861
00:53:48,670 --> 00:53:51,830
United States in general at this point, but in

862
00:53:52,070 --> 00:53:55,670
California and being a farm owner

863
00:53:56,630 --> 00:54:00,230
that is also employing other, you

864
00:54:00,230 --> 00:54:03,910
know, immigrant laborers that were in the same position

865
00:54:03,910 --> 00:54:07,350
that you were in when you first got there. And the interesting

866
00:54:07,830 --> 00:54:11,310
ways that that enables the farm

867
00:54:11,310 --> 00:54:15,160
owners to actually work better and treat their

868
00:54:15,160 --> 00:54:19,000
employees better because they can relate to what that is actually

869
00:54:19,160 --> 00:54:22,840
like. Interesting. And they, you know.

870
00:54:23,240 --> 00:54:26,960
Yeah, you never know what you're going to stumble across doing something like.

871
00:54:26,960 --> 00:54:30,760
Sure, that's really interesting. Yeah. Well, we're actually

872
00:54:30,760 --> 00:54:33,040
out of time already, which is hard to believe. We had so much to talk

873
00:54:33,040 --> 00:54:36,840
about. Oh my God. Hope we can do it again. Sure. And

874
00:54:37,320 --> 00:54:40,750
dig a little deeper this time and going to watch the whole rest of the

875
00:54:40,750 --> 00:54:43,390
movie. I haven't seen the whole thing. I watched about 25 minutes of it so

876
00:54:43,390 --> 00:54:46,830
far in the trailer. But let's just, let's just

877
00:54:47,070 --> 00:54:50,910
end on this thought for a second because it is. Goes

878
00:54:50,910 --> 00:54:54,710
right to the heart of a movie like Eden. Some slow

879
00:54:54,710 --> 00:54:57,830
motion shots, you know, some good interview shots, good lighting, good

880
00:54:57,830 --> 00:55:01,310
cinematography, good production value

881
00:55:02,670 --> 00:55:06,300
and. But then there's these things like Drops of God, which

882
00:55:06,300 --> 00:55:09,780
really about wine, but there's sort of drama miniseries

883
00:55:10,580 --> 00:55:12,580
and I'm wondering where the direction of.

884
00:55:15,300 --> 00:55:19,140
The direction of storytelling for Wine's gonna go. Is it going

885
00:55:19,140 --> 00:55:22,860
to land on these wonderful production value shows or is

886
00:55:22,860 --> 00:55:26,620
it land on storytelling through as

887
00:55:26,620 --> 00:55:30,300
an ancillary part of. Of the. Of the

888
00:55:30,300 --> 00:55:34,120
show itself? Like. Like drops we've got to. Or are we. Are

889
00:55:34,120 --> 00:55:37,720
they. Are those two divergent paths that both exist all the time

890
00:55:37,880 --> 00:55:41,480
and depending what you're interested in viewing or watching or learning about is you're going

891
00:55:41,480 --> 00:55:45,280
to pick one or the other? For me, and

892
00:55:45,280 --> 00:55:48,440
this is just, you know, my personal thing, I.

893
00:55:49,320 --> 00:55:52,920
I hope that we always focus on

894
00:55:53,400 --> 00:55:57,160
why wine matters, why anybody should care in the first place.

895
00:55:57,160 --> 00:56:00,970
I think that a lot of emphasis

896
00:56:01,530 --> 00:56:05,050
and too much emphasis has been focused

897
00:56:05,210 --> 00:56:08,970
on tasting notes and being able to compare

898
00:56:09,370 --> 00:56:13,170
palettes and this and that and that. And that is not what

899
00:56:13,170 --> 00:56:16,930
wine is for me, anyway. That is not why I love

900
00:56:16,930 --> 00:56:20,290
wine. I actually am not that great at being able to

901
00:56:20,290 --> 00:56:24,130
describe a, you know, a wine and, you know, the

902
00:56:24,130 --> 00:56:27,940
experience of it in terms of my palate and my taste. What

903
00:56:27,940 --> 00:56:31,420
I get excited about in wine and what I think most people

904
00:56:31,500 --> 00:56:34,940
do is a real story about where this

905
00:56:35,340 --> 00:56:38,860
is coming from, why it matters. Like, why is this

906
00:56:39,100 --> 00:56:42,700
great varietal of historic significance or not

907
00:56:42,860 --> 00:56:46,660
historic significance here? Maybe it's, you know, you're having a California

908
00:56:46,660 --> 00:56:50,380
wine. Maybe you're having, like, dude, I had an Elicote the other

909
00:56:50,380 --> 00:56:53,580
day. It's from the Santa Cruz Mountains. And it was so cool

910
00:56:53,980 --> 00:56:57,600
because, like, that fascinating that it's like

911
00:56:57,600 --> 00:57:01,440
the secondary white Burgundy grape that

912
00:57:01,440 --> 00:57:05,040
now finally pops over to California. When California

913
00:57:05,040 --> 00:57:08,560
Chardonnay is known so well like that, I'm just. I'll always try

914
00:57:08,560 --> 00:57:12,400
somebody's Eligo tape. Right. That's fascinating. Really interesting. Yeah, it's

915
00:57:12,400 --> 00:57:15,080
good stuff. Well, it's been a pleasure, and I hope we can do it again

916
00:57:15,080 --> 00:57:18,920
soon. Maybe we get up that way. Hang on the line after I

917
00:57:19,000 --> 00:57:22,720
turn off the recorder here. But really fun stuff and a

918
00:57:22,720 --> 00:57:25,800
great intersection of conversation between

919
00:57:26,040 --> 00:57:29,600
filmmaking, artistry, and that of the same in the wine trade.

920
00:57:29,600 --> 00:57:33,400
So thanks for being on the show. Thank you so much, Paul. It was

921
00:57:33,400 --> 00:57:37,080
such a pleasure, and I really, really enjoyed it. Cheers.