We are back with another exciting Spidcast episode this month (listen in below and subscribe on iTunes) with a focus on collaborative filmmaking. For August’s show we feature a big Hollywood actor/filmmaker and a web series creator, director, and actor. These two individuals are doing interesting things within the new media space, and it was our pleasure to have James Morrison and Richard  Weigand on the show.

Our Guests

James Morrison is a filmmaker, playwright, poet, actor, singer/songwriter and yoga teacher, who was born in Utah and is a product of Alaska. James has been in some big Hollywood films and TV shows including, “24,” “Catch Me If You Can,” “Jar Head,” “The One,” and countless others.

Richard Weigand is a web series creator, writer, director, and actor. Richard’s show, Curve Your Vampirism, is about a day in the life of a vampire.

If you’re interested in sponsoring next month’s Spidcast show with a product or service you sell that’s filmmaking related, then please get in touch. If you have something to say with regards to what James or Richard talked about, then please post a comment below to continue the conversation. Thanks for listening, and be sure to share this show with anyone in your network who can get value from its content!

Full Show Transcript Below

INTRO

Michael: Hi. I’m Michael London and welcome to Spidcast, the future of collaborative video production brought to you by Spidvid.com. On this episode, we’re visiting with Richard Weigand, he’s an independent producer. He produces a very cool web show called “Curve your Vampirism”. We’ll hear more about that in a little bit. And he’s brought with him a very special guest. A very recognizable face if you watch episodic TV at all, especially the dramas all coming up just a moment on Spidcast.

So let’s jump right in. Richard, welcome to Spidcast.

Richard: Thank you very much. Thanks for having me, Michael.

Michael: So Richard, tell us a little bit about yourself, how you got into producing your own web series?

Richard: A couple of years ago, I started making small videos for the internet like my YouTube account and I’ve always wanted to do a kind of episodic, different kinds of things and wanted to branch my stories and create different kinds of characters and creating a web series allows me to put my ideas together and post it out there and get some feedback.

Michael: And how did you break in to the filmmaking world?

Richard: I’ve always kind of had this kind of creative mind of thinking—and I kind of perceive the whole world as one giant film; everything that I see and my mind creates the character and the dialogues and all that stuff comes by watching television and movies. I get an idea of how I piece (own songs) together and ever since I was real little, I’ve always wanted to do this and when I first got a camera, I was just able to film the different ideas that were in my head. That’s how it all came about.

Michael: After you get that idea and after you put it into motion, I’m going to guess the collaboration comes into play in a big way. Tell us about how collaboration has benefited your web series.

Richard: For this web series, in particular, I collaborated mostly with my sister, Rosella, just going back and forth (with any ideas we wake up with) for the show. We both are on the show. We’re both actors allowing her to take over some of the directing tasks of it. But outside of that, it was really an experience to get back in touch with friends through Facebook, to cast them in one of the parts in one of the episodes. The most interesting thing about this series is I got to collaborate with the UK composers. People all the way over there that are piecing our music together were really a true inspiration to beginning this series.

Michael: Collaboration is what’s it all about these days. What are some tips for some young filmmakers out there trying to get the most out of a limited or no budget situation?

Richard: Well, for one thing, having no budget has never stopped me from doing what I want to do and I’ve always felt the story as a character. And for something really important that I think that should be (dead) in what I film, you know, having no budget, having limited sets, using the same sets over and over again doesn’t take me out of my vision for what I’m doing. As long as I get it out there and I’m happy with the performances and the editing and everything, having no budgets or with limited budgets, doesn’t restrict me. I think I can actually hit that out with a little bit more creative ideas if I don’t have that much to play around with and that’s what really impresses me—not having big, a whole lot of financial support to pull off a big project or a small project. I think that people are really impressed with what I can do at the budget level that I’m at.

Michael: Excellent. Little or no budget, you get it done. But once you get it done, once you get that product finished and you get it on to the web, how do you get people there? How do you get noticed?

Richard: I used Facebook to get it out there with my friends and everything, but I can say that Twitter is the best way for this series to get out there because we started on Twitter, @curve_vampirism, to get our series out there. We started doing it before the show even started. We and my character Vladimir, he tweets to people and people tweet back to him and they’re kind of getting inside the world of “Curve your Vampirism”. And it’s getting people excited about it and it was really cool (when) somebody follows it and wants not only to follow the Twitter but follow the show and want more out of it and want to see more. That was really cool. But Twitter has been overall the best way for our show to be seen.

It’s also a really inspirational thing to get kind of a feedback instantly of they love Vlad or they love what he does and they want to see more. It inspires me to want to create more. It inspires me to want to take the whole world to a no (silly) level and then they’re part of it too…

Michael: Well, talking about characters. It’s a character that we know from a TV show we love. You brought a very special guest with you today. Why don’t you go ahead and introduce him?

Richard: Yes, I’d like to introduce you all to actor, filmmaker, musician, James Paige Morrison. Hi, James.

James: Hi, Richard. How are you, man?

Richard: Not too bad at all.

James: Good.

Richard: Not too bad. I’m excited that you decided to do this, which is really cool. Since this is an audio podcast and (put you) a face to the name, James Paige Morrison. Where we’re you seen lately?

James: Let’s see. I spent four years as Bill Buchanan on “24” on Fox. And on the big screen, let’s see, you would have seen me as the person who inspired Leonardo DiCaprio to become a pilot in “Catch Me If You Can”. I’m the captain who went to the hotel and he said I want to be that guy. Lots and lots of episodic television, well, for series, the “Space: Above and Beyond”. I was Col. McQueen on Fox for the sci-fi fan.

Richard: I’ll just leave you right into it because the reason why I chose to talk to you is because you’re not only an actor and a filmmaker and a musician, but you’ve also used parts of the social media like Facebook and Twitter to kind of get your ideas and your projects out there, so I’m wondering how has Twitter changed your life?

James: Well, I wouldn’t say that it has changed my life as much as it’s just given it another way to interact. I was listening to you talking about this. It reminds me of back when we used first started doing theater when I was a young actor in a smaller theater in LA and in the few places that I did in New York 30 years ago.

Any series really back before the internet, you would try to drum up word of mouth and that’s basically what we’re doing with Twitter. It’s just a word of mouth audience until it starts to catch on and if it doesn’t, it’s because we didn’t have the elements that were necessary for it to catch on. But you use any means possible to promote yourself as an artist and I think it’s just a great way to reach out and expand your audience.

Richard: There’s also a really cool thing to be able to talk to the fans and have them instantly give you feedback on if I saw you on a show the night before, they could tweet that to you and you say thank you or whatever. I think it’s a really big deal when they get response like that. It is inspirational to hear from them. You see the performance that you get to respond to your favorite actor or…

James: Yes, I think it means a lot to them. But it will also means a lot to the artist especially those of us who are sort of crossover artists who are multi-disciplinary, I guess. It also goes with who make music or who writes or direct as well as act. There’s constantly a way to keep people informed about if we can afford the 10 or $20,000 a month PR firm to do it for us. It’s also, like you say, a way to maintain contact with the very people we want to reach.

Richard: Do you ever get tired of hearing the same messages over and over again?

James: No, because it’s the feedback that you don’t get from working on television and film that you do get when you’re on stage. The applause never sounded the same and never feels the same when it’s that live feeling of the laugh that comes back to you from the dark. It’s never the same. It could be, I guess, you could say that it’s the same every night, but it’s not because it’s in the moment.

If you hear two people say the same thing, they’re really saying it from a very personal place, I think that’ the—I don’t know what’s the best example I can give about it—no, I don’t tire about it at all in answer to your question.

Richard: How long have you been tweeting?

James: Let’s see, I discovered Twitter when I was in Canada. It’ll be two years ago just last April, so just a little over two years. I was up there doing a benefit for the Canadian Cancer Society and I’d heard that Mary Lynn Rajskub, who played Chloe on “24”, was on it and Jon Cassar as well.

I just went on to check it out because I’ve heard of it because I guess it must’ve been five years now Twitter’s been around?

Richard: Okay.

James: I just checked it out and what do you, wow, this is interesting. How did I not know this is here? I like to converse especially about current events and social issues and as you know from following me and from the things that I talk about on Twitter—

Richard: The documentary that you tweet about—

James: The documentary but also just what’s going on in the world. It affects us as human beings and if you’re connected as a human being and an artist, I think it’s should have an impact on what you create as an artist. Now, of course, it’s where I get all my news. I trust these sources on Twitter more than I trust certainly the mainstream media.

Richard: That’s the way that everybody’s look at the world. You’ve collaborated with filmmakers in both the television and the film world. I’m very interested in knowing that what would you say to those out there who use the Internet as their television and film world?

James: Well, I’m still beginning to understand all that. I’m sort of old-school. I still watch TV. I still go out to movie theaters and not quite as much now that I have a child but I like to go to live theater. I think we have to find balance. I think that’s what I would say is just like I read today on Twitter, as a matter of fact—I think it was the President who said this, “Don’t get all your information from one source and question the sources that you have.” If you’re getting all your information, if you’re using only one medium as a sort of a pitching post, untie and get out there and ride around a little bit. That’s the advice I would give.

Richard: It was Twitter how I found out that not only do you act and you have the documentary you’ve been producing, but you also are a songwriter and musician. For those out there who don’t know that you are a musician, what kind of music do you like to perform?

James: I guess it’s a folk rock. I was influenced by the 60’s bands like The Birds and Dylan, of course, and all the different groups that came out of Buffalo Springfield and those guys, that sort of sound that’s sort of cosmic-country-Gram Parsons-things. I was influenced by the Grateful Dead and those guys. And groups like Canned Heat, who’d come out of the Woodstock era. In fact, Larry Taylor, the bassist for Canned Heat, played on my album, “Son to the Boy”, which has been out for a little while and we’re just starting to tour to play live, to promote it. That was kind of cool to play with Larry. It’s that sort of thing.

Richard: Why did you choose the internet (to put your music in)?

James: Well, mostly because it’s just so immediate and the people are so connected to the digital download and also because I was self-produced, I’m not affiliated with a label. It seems the most cost-effective way is to just make it available before I can mass produce CDs, the physical CD and also it’s a little greener, I just didn’t want to put all that plastic out there.

Richard: Your album that’s been in fact available in digital form as of this past December, how long were you working on it?

James: That story actually is kind of interesting. That week that we started and recorded the first two tracks, my son was diagnosed with a brain tumor, so that was put on hold for seven months and it took about a year-and-a-half actually all told to finish it up.

Richard: You’re talking before about who inspired you as a musician, who are some of your influences as an actor?

James: I was really influenced by films in the early 70’s like “Clockwork Orange” and the Scorsese movies of the mid 70’s when I was in New York and I saw “Taxi Driver”. At that point, I just said this is what I want to do.

Richard: You who played Bill Buchanan on “24”, working the set of a show like that or any big motion picture, how has that helped your own personal project?

James: By the time I got to “24” in the season 4 or halfway through season 4, they were just about where they had developed this finely tuned precision machine—and I say machine but a human machine—so that they knew exactly how to shoot it, how to do what they did so well and it was precision. It was a well-oiled and worked together really well and most of that, I think, as I looked at it now had to do with the way Jon Cassar worked and he brought a lot of his artistry to the creation of that.

I think now, in answer to your question, coming away from that, I just realized how efficiently and how it collaboratively it benefits everyone if you learn how to work together, if you involve everyone. If you don’t, decide who am I to this person now as Jack O’Brien, a stage director, says in our documentary “Showing Up.”

I think there’s too much about if we’re all just worker among workers and we’re equals in this collaborative process, without the power trips and without the secrets and whatever it is that flows downhill as they say. Then the collaborative effort becomes as you on “24”. It was tight. It was really tight and they told the story really efficiently. They shot it that way too.

Richard: I think “24” is one of the best shows on television and good to see over the years (they’re able to) come in all of the people that pieced that show together. It’s really remarkable how every year they have new people come in and I found it interesting with all the new people coming in. That was a really interesting experience to (put) all these kinds of people have come in all the time.

James: The other thing I noticed was when I left the show and I think probably everybody who was there for while have the same issue in their own way, I would go somewhere else and they’d be working in whatever way they work, which is going to be different, and my first inclination would be to say, you know, in “24”, we—I have to stop myself because of course you can’t. You’re a guest and you can’t really tell them how best to work. You want to because they’re working inefficiently and you sort of feel a little bit superior, but then you have to, like you say, make it how it works best for you and you have to take whatever you have personal control over and apply the things that you learned without imposing that on somebody else. I think that’s where we get into trouble. We all bring those things where you got to “do it my way, my way or the highway”.

It takes time to develop that kind of ensemble feeling, so when you experience it, you want it to be an A in everything, but it can’t be. It’s a very rare thing. It’s like finding that one true love in your life.

Richard: That’s the best thing about following you in Twitter and why everybody should follow at @JamesPMorrison on Twitter is I instantly get the impression of how well you work with the after and behind the scenes. You probably work just as much with the cast as well as the behind the scenes people and if I get to know them, I will too because I see it in your tweet. You always tweeted to some directors and good people who are out there that you no longer probably worked with but you still, thanks to Twitter, get to interact with them.

James: That goes back to when I was to when I was about 21 years old. I was in the circus. I was a circus clown and when I first got to the winter quarters in Hugo, Oklahoma, the performer sat on one side of the mess hall, the cafeteria and the workers, the hands, sat on the other side and they never interacted. So I got my plate, went over and sat with the hands just to say hello. I mean, these are the guys that in some cases your life depends on them for rigging. They’re the workers.

I was immediately reprimanded and ostracized and taken to task for mixing with the working staff. I just thought, man, first of all, what this built this country? This is the people that built this country. They build the shows that we watch and if you bring that work ethic to—it’s the work ethic I learned from my dad. He worked in a construction business. If you bring that work ethic to what you do, then we’re all in this together. You can’t fail.

Richard: And that’s the impression people get when they log in you have over 5,000 people that basically listen to what you’re saying and they have the option to get your idea down there further. That’s why I find it truly inspirational not only reading your tweets but getting to know you kind of in a different light aside from on watching you on television. Getting into how you think inspires and I think it inspires a lot of people. My last kind of question is what advice would you give to aspiring actors and aspiring filmmakers out there?

James: When I was a young actor, I wanted to join Actors’ Equity, the union for stage actors. I went to the artistic director of an Alaskan organization and he sounds like 23 years old or something and I said, “I’d like to do this. Can you help me do this?” He said, “You really can’t think of anything else you’d rather do?” It was that school of hard knocks sort of thing. I said, “No, I can’t. I’m pretty sure I want to do this for a living.” And he said, “Okay, welcome to the ranks of the unemployable.”

It didn’t register then but what he was doing was showing me that there are going to be lots of people in the path in my journey through my life as an artist or as a man that are going to try to minimize my goal. If not giving me a hand up and certainly not a hand down, but there’s a way to encourage people that if someone says if this is what you love and this is what makes you feel good, then you have to do it because you’ll be unhappy if you don’t. It’s that simple really.

If what you’re doing make you happy, whether it’s accepted, how it’s received, all that stuff doesn’t matter. If you place qualifiers, good or bad before or after what you do, you’re going to minimize your effort, your contribution, your journey toward what you want to achieve and your pleasure in the moment. Be very sure and first of all, that’s what you want to do like the guy said to me. Can you think of anything else? But also just then just go, I’m not going to let anybody deter me from this. I’m not going to let them devalue me for whatever their personal agenda is. They’re unhappy in their own lives. They’re critics and that’s their job—to devalue, to feel like they can give something of value based on their word or their appraisal of it. Like Steven Spailis says in showing up, you have to take that into the room with you, that sense of value of your own personal value. That’s, I think, the most important thing I can say is get ready to stand up for yourself and what you’re putting out there. Just teach people how to treat you.

Richard: That is very inspirational. I’m always surprised by what you’re saying. I can’t thank you enough for—

James: Thanks. I appreciate that. It was a pleasure talking to you. I’m glad this worked out.

Michael: If I can jump in, James and Richard. What is next for James Morrison?

James: I just put together the first performance with almost all of the band that I’m putting together at the Hotel Café in Hollywood. We’ll be the musical guest with (some spoken word) artists. For a monthly thing, they do this. That’s sort of the world tour kickoff in Hollywood. Then we’ll have a CD released probably sometime in August or September with the full band and this is to promote the album, “Son to the Boy”, which is available on iTunes and CD Baby and Amazon and all of the other places digitally.

Michael: Excellent. If we’d like more information on what you’re up to, where do we get in touch?

James: If you’d like to find out more about this, I’m pretty good about keeping the website up-to-date. It’s JPMorrison.com then you can find out more about where we’re playing and what will be happening with “Showing Up”, the documentary. My wife and I just co-directed and co-produced up to the actors audition. We had a conversation with about 60 of our best working actors about what it means to them and ultimately ends up being more about just showing up for what you want to be and do in your life and we’re very happy with it.

Michael: Richard, thank you so much for brining James as your guest today.

Richard: You’re very welcome.

Michael: And when folks want to see your stuff, where do we see that?

Richard: Well, the web series that I currently produced, “Curve Your Vampirism”, you can watch at www.curveyourvampirism.blip.tv.

Michael: Richard, thanks for being with us today.

Richard: Thank you.

Michael: That’s it. Thanks for listening to the Spidcast Show. We appreciate your time and attention. You can now join the conversation at Spidcast.com or on our Spidcast Blog. And you can join our collaborative filmmaking community at Spidvid.com. Tune in next month for another entertaining and informative episode of Spidcast.