EPISODE THREE: CREATIVES IN CINEMA
By Carter M. Phillips

Official Transcript:

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Welcome back, everyone. From Mustang Post News, West Fargo, this is Sheyenne Perspectives. I’m Hailey Boehme.

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You know, sometimes things just don’t turn out the way you expected. Snow days. Illnesses. Absences. And general bad luck. But! We’re back on track with our latest podcast.

In our last episode of Sheyenne Perspectives, Logan Jacobs reflected on success in the music industry.

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This week Carter Phillips continues our series through the lens of creativity and why people are driven to use it both the stage and behind the camera. Here’s Carter.

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CARTER M. PHILLIPS

What will last after we are gone? Art and brick might be the only things in this world that outlive us. And can the inhuman read without a Rosetta stone, or admire music without understanding the words? They can see images, and people, alive, in movement.

Cinema is immortal, and perhaps that is why it fascinates me. It creates the illusion of time incomplete, and frozen.

No other form of art can better show what it is like to be human, to show you a soul in a human face and to show a heart in a hand.

Maybe that is why, regardless of failing, I keep making movies. Regardless of the stress, pain, and disappointment, I never plan on stopping.

To surrender to conventional and hardships would be to let my friends down, who help me make my movies.

                        These are the words of my friends, who made movies.

GAVIN VILLAREAL (Gav-in Vil-are-Eel)

I was there and Aiden was there and Tuker was there, we were all getting ready to film and all that stuff and we had to do this scene where we had to poor blood on Carters face, but like the blood was, what was it? Like cool aid mix-

AIDEN VILLAREAL

It was crystal light Gavin

GAVIN VILLAREAL

-or some stuff like that, but it stained my shirt permanently but whatever.

AIDEN VILLAREAL

Crystal light. Oh, it was Crystal light Gavin.

GAVIN VILLAREAL

Crystal Light, I can’t even remember.

CARTER PHILLIPS

Yeah, it was crystal light. It was the Fruit punch flavor.

GAVIN VILLARAEL

Yeah, so we had to do that. And we had to poor it on your face. And yeah, it ended up getting in your eye. It was- HA HA

GAVIN VILLAREAL

Hello, my name is Gavin Villareal and I’m a junior in high school and I go to Wahpeton High School in Wahpeton North Dakota.

GAVIN VILLAREAL

[They] Came from the Attic, that was an amazing film, I loved to work on. That was amazing, that was fun. I mean of course I didn’t get as much to work on with that, but you know, still fun to make, nevertheless. Um and then, ah Sometime after Midnight.

CARTER PHILLIPS

As started the conversation our topic, swayed into the trials and errors of filmmaking. He just, quite simply started talking about his experiences on a set and things he’s seen me go through and things he’s seen some of his other cast and crew members go through.

GAVIN VILLAREAL

I mean I’m not really a director myself, but I do new- I do know thing or two about it, so you know, I know the trouble it is to like, you know, shoot and film and ‘do it again, do it again’ you know. That’s a big trouble when it comes to creating.

CARTER PHILLIPS

Gavin started talking about what makes a person creative whether its through being influenced on something or perhaps a spark that ignites in your mind and I began questioning him on if it was better or worse to be influenced by something or if it was better or worse to come up with it on your own.

GAVIN VILLAREAL

I think what makes a person creative is when are um- they have a unique idea that isn’t too similar to others. Like I know how people get they’re creativity. Sometimes they get it from other people, but you know, I feel like being really, like really creative would be having your own main idea when it comes down to like, I guess you could say movies and shows and stuff like that you know.

GAVIN VILLAREAL

I feel like some people when they make like, I guess you could say, short stories or things like that, I feel like there’s people who make it just so they can get popular or people that actually put time and effort into it and therefore [are] making, you know, creative stories.

CARTER PHILLIPS

He started talking about the advantages that occur when you’re working with friends instead of colleagues apposed to friends, or rather when your colleagues are your friends; and the atmosphere that brings apposed to an entirely professional one.

GAVIN VILLAREAL

Even when you’re shooting and like, uh, just hanging out, your still like having a good time. Your still like hanging out but like, doing something and usually when you’re doing that something your more serious but like we also have a good time we also laugh, you know, all that fun stuff.

GAVIN VILLAREAL

For us, it makes it better cause we know each other, and you know, it’s easier to act for like different things and stuff like that. We know each other’s like, I guess, set of emotions and all that so, uh I guess, it’s easier for us to have a role that you know [that we would] best [be] played in.

GAVIN VILLAREAL

An average scene? Well, when we’re not messing around uh, probably get like an average scene done in like a half hour if we’re lucky enough.

CARTER PHIILLIPS

Those roles need a beginning, an inception. And that’s where the role of the creative begins. The beginning of creation. That initial idea that leads to shared art.

As my microphone waited for me to speak, I looked down at my hands and saw they’re cracked and weary skin with strayed strands of winkles unfit for a boy of 17, and at the mirror saw my eyes somber and meaningless, declaring emptiness with they’re soundless piercing look, staring at me. What do they long for? What does anybody long for?

I can’t go on living without goals and motivation, without feeling like I’m doing something worthwhile. WE can’t live like this. As humans we desire art. To experience it? To make it? Are they not one in the same?

A person closes their eyes and dreams and is that not art of its own. Maybe the best movie is the one happening outside your window, with gains and losses and good and bad.  Art is a mere reflection, refracting images into a vague contraption of mirrors inside our minds. Where do these ideas come from? Where do we come from? How does art confront this?

If it got an audience in the first place, who loved it and cherished it, is that not good enough? For a person to give something to the world instead of take something, to make a film belong to humanity itself, to be construed, loved, hated, believed in, subjectifies and objectified. They are like people, alive and received, but more so they are like my memories and remain linked with the eras in which I made them, a trophy for my work.

This podcast was recorded and edited by Logan Jacobs and hosted by Hailey Boehme. Sheyenne Perspectives theme music was composed and performed by Kolby Thompson under the direction of Mark Berntson. Special thanks goes out to Anthony Peterson. 

HAILEY BOEME
In our next release of Sheyenne Perspectives, Jaxson Miller be taking a look at wins and losses and the highs and lows of those moments especially when those wins and losses are unexpected.

See you soon, everyone.

This has been a production of Mustang Post News.