Discussing Project N-Terro with Traycee King

Time to fire up the VCR. This one's my favorite. Welcome to Analog Jones in the Tipo film. I'm Steve and usually we're reviewing a VHS but not this time. We have got a filmmaker here with an Indie Go Go campaign for Project in tarot and I'm going to introduce her Tracy King but Tracy on our show you have to answer the question since we're VHS podcast. Have you ever watched a VHS? I have watched a VHS. Okay, so now we've clocked that you're the good age group. I am definitely in that age group. Yeah, that's that's a good start but now a tough question. Even tougher question. What is the last VHS that you watched? I believe it was Clive Barker's Nightbreed. Oh nice. I believe that's because my mom still has all of our VHS's from way back in the day and every time I go visit her I'll watch one of those like old movies that we had and Nightbreed was one of them. Yeah, so I imagine that's kind of like an inspiration just in your whole creative phase because that movie was such a a world building experience. Absolutely and I love world building. That's like the whole and it's not even something I realized I love doing until until I got older but I absolutely love watching how other people build their worlds and their characters and their own languages and their own lore and I love that about that movie so much and it's just I don't know if anybody's seen it and I don't really want to talk too much about it because I'm not one of those people that it's like oh it's been out long enough you should have seen it already but the makeup is incredible. Yeah and that mask. Yeah, the mask that he wears is the like the therapist that he just like turns. Oh, who is the filmmaker who's wearing the mask? Well, you said it. Oh, yeah, I was like, yeah, I can't remember his name. I never and it's like I didn't even recognize him because it's like you know I don't really I know a lot of like faces like actors like I don't really get to memorize directors like a lot of other people like other filmmakers and I know that's like I don't know if that's taboo but I I've memorized actor phases versus film phases. No, it's just like visual memory. No, I get it completely. I like you could just see there. I have a hard time like I can see the person. I could tell you the movies but I could not get his name out which is great for audio form. People love that podcast. Oh, what was his name? Cronin. I heard a dog. What kind of doggy we got there? We've got a little terrier. No, he's well he just ate dinner and he's chasing our cats around so that's nice. Well, he has a terrier so he's got good job. Yes and his name is Charlie Chaplin speaking of that's great. Is this great way to start the podcast? Yes, Charlie Chaplin in these little baggy pants. All right, let's get on to talking about Patrick and Terrible. Yes. So you want to give him like your 30 second pitch pretend like I'm I've got all the money and you've got to pitch me your movie. All right, well it's set in the year 2165. The America is a third world country and the main export is human. I have a theory that people with ADHD have mirror neurons and within the movie people with mirror neurons are harvested for their psychic abilities and there is this psychic drug that is now banned called the yellow pill. The yellow pill once taken though helps you get gained these psychic abilities and you have to go under and inside the mind of an entero project entero and tarot itself, neuro to rain recovery operations. This is where they interrogate offenders and child traffickers which is this whole world of child trafficking and human exploitation and all of that other good stuff and it is there's a lot of body horror and all that other stuff in it but this is based off of a true events. I'm sorry, that's not 30 seconds. I just went right into it. That's okay. I was into it. Oh okay, well it's based off of true events of when I was actually experimented on during 9/11. So I'm very angry about it. So what did I do? I put it in film. So the main character Tara, she's been experimented on, exploited and sold to the flesh circus and she has to take this yellow pill which has been banned in order to interrogate a trafficker to find out where these missing children are and it's kind of like the cell where Jennifer Lopez entered the mind of the madman. It's kind of the same thing. It's for neural link. Oh all right. Yeah. See it's only a 30 second pitch if someone doesn't like it. Oh okay, yeah. I just went right into it didn't I? Yeah, no great. No, it's a great description. Yeah, that's like so when I first read it, you know, before I did any research and anything, I saw the Stopian. I saw, you know, the selling human. Well, see, here's what I do have a question. It's human trafficking. Now is this because I heard children to, of course, that's always going to be a very sensitive subject. And is it like we sell the adults for meat and we keep the children to like use a slaves or is it like yeah, there is a place called we don't have tattoo parlors anymore in the future. They're called chop shops. So these are where people can go to get cybernetic upgrades. I'm not just tattoos, but like actual like, you know, upgrades and sometimes they might chop off an arm for an upgrade so they don't need an arm. They sell it. So that's like this sort of they, they're trying to have this like sort of ethical way of getting body parts, but because there's always a need for organs and body parts. Well, yeah, like anybody's game. It's not, it's not just the adults. It's the children too. And the reason, you know, I know this is really controversial. But is it okay if I'm vulnerable? No, it's okay. I was assaulted. It's actually assaulted when I was very young. And this is also like I said, this whole this whole film is based off of like just all of my experiences for a cathartic release really. And part of that is the child exploitation. We're not showing any of that though. It's just implied. Yeah, it's it's it's tough with that. And I think it's like always a good direction for the implied with something like that. Now, so like this writing, this movie and everything, I guess you could say is like a very therapeutic like a release or healing, like a healing stage, is that what you'd say about? Yes, it's also a concept for a feature film, but the short film itself is so I can actually let it go and have more of a creative release when I'm writing the feature itself. No, yeah, completely under I can't relate with anything else and I'm really sorry to always sorry to hear anything like that. I have a few people I know in the past and I always knew that they they said writing it down was like a form of I guess like the first form of like before telling other people you could tell yourself. It absolutely and admitting it and and kind of facing it head on like the trauma and like this is it's also got a lot of like PTSD elements in this in the film because I myself was diagnosed with PTSD and have a disability of it actually. I have a disability rating for my PTSD like it's so similar that I was able to put it into the film. So the film kind of I'm a huge John Carpenter fan and the thing was about claustrophobia and not knowing who you can trust around you right. So I decided I wanted to do a film like that like PTSD like emotions feelings claustrophobia what would that look like. Yeah. Put it in my in my version. No, that's that's excellent. It's amazing how many people you know from our generation has been inspired by him because we just reviewed it's not out yet. It's in the can so to speak. They live and and how well he did because I listened to the commentary with him and Rady Piper and it was so interesting to hear like how he specifically designed it to be small not only to save money because he only had so much money this you know the studio would give him but how he used claustrophobia to make you feel trapped. Not only was the film showing that you're trapped by all these aliens and of course you wouldn't make any of the money unless you join them but like literally how he shot the film. And yeah that's amazing. I'm glad I love it. I love to hear of this. Absolutely and it's just it's so funny because a lot of John Carpenter's stuff is still so relevant today. And the conversations are still still so extremely relevant. That especially, I really, really, really, really, and I really liked the fight scene. It wasn't expecting it to be that long. I'll be real. Like there were moments where I was like, okay, it's done. No. Okay. Now it's no, it's not done. Okay. Now, no. How long was it like 10 minutes? It's so I think it's like eight something minutes. It's ridiculous, you know, for film. And he, so what he did was he wrote on the first page, they fight. And then the second page, which a page, you know, for for anyone who doesn't know in a script, it's, it's about one minute of film. So originally it was supposed to be like two, maybe three minutes, but he's like, I don't know. They just did such good work with the choreography and everything. Them and the stuntmen putting it together that he's just like, I couldn't, I couldn't cut it. Well, you got a wrestler like, that's what my boyfriend said, because my boyfriend is a huge wrestling fan. And he was the one who was like, okay, now we have to wait. And he was the one who showed it to me because I was such a huge the thing fan. And I hadn't seen really much else. I mean, I've seen vampires and like all that other stuff. But I hadn't seen that one. And he introduced it to me and was like, okay, now you have to just really pay attention to this scene. Just this one scene. Just pay attention. And why it starts. And I'm just like, that's such a dude thing. Just put on the shades, like just on these glasses. That's it. That's why they're fighting. Yeah. We were sitting there when we were talking about it. It's just like, all he has to do is put on the shades. And I'm like, yeah, after about one punch or one slam that they do in the concrete, I'd be like, okay, fine. I'll just wear the shades. I mean, this isn't worth it. You know, I feel like I'm going to go watch that movie again, just for one because it's like every time I watch it, I do get an idea. You know how when you're inspired by it, you're just always fired by your, your, your heroes. And every time I watch any of those movies, I just get an idea for something else. Yeah. I'm a designer, the, for apps, websites, anything like that. And occasionally I'll look at old art books, you know, from stuff like back in the 20s and 30s, like the posters and everything that they used to, you know, whatever I can get. And sometimes it won't even, I won't be inspired by the visuals, but I'll be inspired to go, oh, wait, it's probably ADD right there. Just like, let's go over there. You know, it's funny because I told somebody once I, because I have ADHD, you know, I was like, I, I will speak whatever language you want to speak. And I feel like right now we are both speaking ADHD. Oh, yeah. We're all over the place. But the conversation's going to make total sense. Oh, yeah. I mean, anyone with ADD will listen to this and be like, yeah, I got it. I know your wavelength. I know the direction. I see the lines you all are drawing. I see the connection. The important part is always to come back to the film that we're talking about. Yeah, absolutely. You have about John Carpenter. But, yeah. But though, I mean, just thing obviously inspired project and tarot and Jacob's ladder is a huge inspiration because that that was actually also based off of the experimentations that they didn't be at them. And was also was also about PTSD. Yeah. And I absolutely love that film. Yeah, that's, I mean, you got some great inspiration here. I mean, I don't know who wouldn't want to watch this short film. It's just a short, but it's, it's, so the thing is is I should say this the reason there is implied child essay is because I remember when I first wrote the script, they were like, wow, this female character is abnormally cruel. And I was like, Oh, because I forgot to put in the part where she was sexually abused by her stepfather. So that's, yeah, there's reasoning. There's reasoning. It's like, this is why she's coming back to like, like murder him now because I mean, he deserves it. And I, and I feel like dystopian films create hard characters. And like if you're looking at it from a lens of like nowadays, you know, like your hardest thing sometimes in your day to day life can be traffic or something. But yeah, you look at it and you're like, wow, they're incredibly harsh. It's like, yeah, but look at the environment they're in. Exactly. And that's, you know, and it's really funny because I remember when I was a kid speaking of dystopian, one of the ultimate dystopian films, Terminator, the second one in particular, I do not know why, but I was super influenced. And just for some reason was like, yeah, when I get older, I have to join the military because I got to be ready, like Sarah Connor. I don't know why I thought that was just like, I'm going to go in the military. So I'm going to be ready. Well, I mean, if you got as ripped as she did in the second one, holy moly every time I rewatch that. It's like, geez lady, you are ready. Yeah. Well, when I was in my 20s, yes. Yeah, no, I feel yeah, when I was in my 20s, I could, I ran a marathon and I was in shape. And then my 40s hit and I'm like, oh, Jello. Yeah, no, my 40s hit. And I'm just like, I'm just funny chocolate. And watch me. Yeah, I want to, I want to write about these things. I certainly don't want to do that. Or I don't want to train to do that. Or I don't want to live the experience anymore. Well, that's you obviously. But yeah, I'm talking about getting getting in shape for film. I was like, oh, these people are dedicated. You have to be. And that's the thing, like I was like in speaking of filming on set, like my, my boyfriend and I were talking about how we have to start getting back in sex, getting back in shape, not in sex. We have to get back in shape beyond set because both of us have just pretty much been living off of chocolate. And that is one of the things we always have, like this is a young man's game. This is a young or a young person. I should say young man, young person's game. And I feel very, I feel it. I feel it in my bones literally. It is definitely very painful. Yeah, back in the day, you could recover like, I don't know, one sleep an hour. And now I'm just like, oh, that's like 48 hours right there. You could recover from that after and having a couple of beers. Yeah. Oh, yeah. No kidding. Hangovers. We're so easy. Anyone who's listening that's young, enjoy it now. Really enjoy it now because it does. It catches up. That's rough. It's so rough. There's so much. But getting into this just in case, so because you know, we're having a good combo. I want to make sure that we tell everyone about your perks on the end. Go go. Yes, let me actually go ahead and pull that up. Well, one of the perks that you can actually get is you can get the film list inspiration. You can get the playlist inspiration. Another huge thing that I like to do our special thank yous, especially within the film, you can even get zoom chats with us and pick our brain about world building and conspiracy theories. Because my the director and I love conspiracy theories and we're talking about them all the time, which is how we make our films. Oh, man, we bring those up all the time on the podcast. So I'm wondering, what type of conspiracy theories are you like the kind of like government is testing on us that yes, I know it. Oh, absolutely. And then know that's a fact because they experimented on us. And then I'm like, oh, they definitely definitely done it with on civilians. I forget the comedian that said this. I wish I could remember his name, but he said, you know what? I have people that don't believe in any conspiracy theories. And he's like, really? You think they're batting a thousand? You don't think. Well, really? Yeah. And then the comedian was just like, I've got a kid. I don't like to lie to him, but I lie to him every day. He's like, you don't think the government's the same way. Yeah. So that's how I always look at it. I love it when he's like, you think they're batting a thousand? Yeah. Oh, man, there's so many. There's so many good conspiracy. Like very creative and I've always wondered if they hire writers for some of them. You know, like for the big flamboyant ones. Yeah. Yeah. Like I know there's a theory like my friends and I talk about were like, yeah, King James was just like really jealous. And he rewrote the Bible because he was like, okay, no. If no woman wants me or they're like, oh, he's gay anyway. And I was like, oh, well, if nobody wants me, then marriage has to be a thing. And everybody has to have one person per person. And it has to be a man. And he's just a jealous old man. He's just a jealous old man who had to rewrite it just so he can have people hang out with him. That's the fear. That's like one of our like personal theories. He's just a miserable man who rewrote it. I can't have someone. I'm going to force it. I'm going to rewrite the rules. I am. Yeah. And you have to be married. You have to listen to your husband. And you have to do just like, I just call these really terrible rules that they just put on to the when you test him in or what I've never read the Bible, but my my boyfriend, I will say that right now. I've never read it. Okay. My boyfriend's been to Bible college. Oh, all right. So he knows this. Yeah, he knows it's a link out with that. You know, yes. And he's got a lot of really interesting theories. Just just and he's also a filmmaker. I'm dropping that right now. If you ever want to talk to him about something like really cool conspiracy theories. Oh, amazing. Yeah. I mean, I we just bring them up because it's just, you know, we all have ADD. (laughing) - It's funny, Brad, who's in the podcast, he went to the Air Force. He's probably the most centered, you know, like he can really stay on topic and then Chris and I are just like, "Bing, bing, bing, bing, bing." - I feel that everybody needs at least one of those and I know Ryan is really good at that. - Just like staying the course. - Staying the course. - Yeah. - And I am one of those people where I'm like, "Hey, the picture is there and it will come together. It's just not in order." - Mm-hmm. Yeah, it's just like, you know, sometimes people, you know, do a puzzle, they do all the edges first and then they fell in the middle. Like 80-D people were just like, "Whatever matches will do it." And at the end of the day, the puzzle's still complete. - The conversation still fits. - Yeah, it's fine. - Yeah, it's like, we'll talk here, we'll talk here, a little bit here, but the whole thing, you're like, "Oh, I get it, I get it." They're saying. - See, exactly. And like I said, always bring it back to the film. And before we forget, I wanted you to mention a few of the people that you're also working with on it 'cause I saw you've got the director. You're the writer and the producer, but you're a producer. - writer, designer. - I figured you could drop. Name drop. - Yes, Monique Efta. She is the director extraordinaire and we just cast the, okay, so I did tell this to you but I'm gonna say this to everybody. So I had originally written this so that I could star in it 'cause it is based off of my life, but as a 40 year old woman, it didn't make sense for the character to be killing somebody for her first time in her 40s. Nobody, nobody trains that hard and then has their first kill in their 40s. - Yeah, just waiting. (laughing) - Waiting for the, just like for 20 years after she's of age, like, no, she's not gonna do that. She's not gonna wait to kill her stepfather. Like, so we cast a 20 year old who I am really excited about her name's Casey Queller and really excited about what she's gonna bring to the table. We've got David Net, Courtney Merritt and Ryan Chowvy actually is the DP. So we're really excited to bring this thing together and hopefully you guys like the world. That's what I'm really, I don't wanna talk too much about it, but I'm like really hoping y'all like this 'cause it's a cyberpunk. - I think a lot of people like World Building 'cause you know, I saw Fantastic Four just a couple days ago and the World Building and that. It's like 'cause I told everyone, I think Marvel and Disney did the impossible. They made a fantastic, a good Fantastic Four movie. - I was a little nervous about that. - I think we all were. (laughing) - And I mean, it's just because, I mean, we all watched the other ones and it's like, yeah, there's not much nice to say about most of them. They're like, so, but you know, what was cool about it? And I think relating to your film is just like, World Building, I think really, I mean, it really helps you just get away. Like you leave kind of like your seat and you just enter the movie. And I think if you do that well, kind of like they live or anything, the thing, you world build right, people can escape. - And we plan on, so the one thing I do like to do in my short films is I do like to make them really bloody and we like to use practicals. So the last short film that we did, we actually gutted somebody. - Oh boy. - Like you could see their ribs, their intestines, like it was called Sloppy Seconds because the woman, it was based off of sort of like a Tales from the Crypt episode. In that she feeds the mistress to her husband 'cause she's like, oh, you're cheating on me. Here's some brisk at honey. - Oh, nice. - Yeah, it's like the mistress is completely gutted when you actually see like the Sloppy Seconds. It's like, oh my god. So that's like the, but with this, we're actually doing, we're taking it a little bit farther. - Now when you're doing practical nowadays, 'cause you know like so many of like the squibs are gone nowadays and everyone's doing a million, whatever CG shots are. Now when you're doing it, how much longer does it extend the seed? - Yeah, that's a good question. I remember one time we had to have a shot set up and it was like, it was a head shot and it was a practical head shot, but we didn't use this whip. And we actually used a pressure hose because we just wanted to be safe. And it actually took us like two hours to set it up and we only had one take. You could only get it in one take. Kind of like John Carpenter, you know the chest scene. You only had, they could only get that twice. - Yeah. - We could only get this once and we got it. - Good. - But it takes two hours to set up because it's like, when it's like you're practicing without the blood, you wanna practice pressure, you wanna, you know, especially with pressure hoses, you wanna practice and like we had it taped to the guy's head like in the back. So it was just like he had to, like as soon as it sprayed out, he had to react like he was shot. So it looked like, yeah, so it was just like all this timing and stuff like that and like practice. So we had to keep practice, practice practicing and rehearsing before we actually shot it. - You get those things right? It's just worth it. Like even though it's like two seconds of frame, you know, it's like boom, boom. - It was literally two seconds, but it, but you just see the chunk and the brains 'cause it's actual chunk and brain. - Oh, what'd you use for brains? - We used, we used a can of cherries. - Oh, it worked really well. - Can of cherries corn, like corn, like crunchy corn and something else kind of slimy and buckets of blood. - Oh, right. - Yeah. - But like the cherries really just stuck. It was just sticky, that's like-- - Yeah, there's so sticky, like just, yeah. I can see that. Oh, I bet cleaning that up was fun. (laughing) - Awful and we filmed it in my friends house and my friend was like, it's okay to get on the carpet. We're like, are you sure? - We're not gonna do that. We didn't do it, we didn't. - Yeah. - Yeah. - I try to keep it clean on the sets. I tried to respect everybody's space. - Yeah, one other question I have with it. What color of blood do you guys like to get for this? 'Cause I've heard some people will go with like that deep, like maroon blood and some people keep it a little thinner. - I like to go thick and I like to keep it dark. I like to put blue in mine. - Okay. - And my blood, yeah. - Just a little bit of blue. - Yeah. - I always wonder. It's just amazing to me that every time you see a zombie film, or the walking dead and they'll show the consistency of their blood and I love how so many different special effects people have just like a different recipe. - Yeah, I love blood sprays but it's just, there's just something about the ooze that makes it just seem like it's more painful. - Oh no, I get it. Yeah, like that's, when that impact too, you can just time it just right in that boom. Yeah. Just make everyone feel it. - You reminded me, that's kind of like that fud in Texas chainsaw massacre, right? When he hits that guy in the head, like fulc. And that's the kind of like blood that I would think that would come out just like that oozy, like bluish dark red. Like that's the kind of, that's the kind of pain I'm talking. - That like fresh blood. - Yeah. - Yeah. - Yeah. - Disgusting, nasty shit. (laughing) - All right, it was a lot of fun to talk to you about this. And I really want people to go visit your IndieGoGo with it. And I just, yeah, this sounds really good. I, you know, it's, it's never the greatest beginnings, you know, you telling us about your personal trauma, your PSD, your experimentation. But I mean, hopefully you can lead to really nice short film like this. - Yeah, well, that's the thing is like the healing, part of the healing process is getting to create something I'm hoping is actually gonna be quite beautiful, even though it's gonna be really great. (laughing) You know, I mean, I want it to be shot beautifully. And we want it to be like, you know, that like the neon 1980s kind of like we want that look, and we want something beautiful. And we want something that people are gonna have a conversation about, even though it's a short film and it's a concept, we still want to make something that people are like, oh, like I can either relate to that or, you know, 'cause there's a lot of veterans who don't have other types of movies for them. They just have military type movies, like war movies. It's like, what about this stuff like afterwards? You know, and even picking up the pieces, you know? - Yeah, I worked with a guy, I've got a lot of military in my family, but this one just happens to be, he was in sales, and I worked with him. And yeah, the amount of, after getting back from Iraq and everything, the amount of pain pills that he got addicted to and how long it took to get off that and how it led to a divorce. And, you know, it's just like that trauma afterwards is just so consuming. - Yeah. But once you handle on it, and if you can create something beautiful, I highly recommend it because it is extremely cathartic and I think helps with healing. - Yeah. - Anybody who's listening, like, creates something beautiful. - Yeah, take all the pain and yeah, just get it on. It's amazing how many people can come up with ways to therapeutically get it out through writing, through filmmaking, through, I mean, some people, I've seen people do poetry just like get up there and just like let it all out and I think you do you see it on their faces you see them change Music Yeah, all that absolutely any kind of art form I I find is extremely therapeutic and is for everybody and Nobody needs permission to do it. Yeah, it's you can get out there and you just gotta release it and you know I can't wait until this is released by the way. This is the sounds like it's gonna be a fun film I mean some of the subject matter might not be so much fun, but at the end of the day the I Think I think everybody'll be clapping. Yes, that is the goal You can help them you can help them make this happen just a visit their Indie Gogo You can just Google search a project in tarot and Tracy. Thank you for coming on Thank you for having me. I appreciate you so much. Yes, this is a lot of fun. We'll put this up on geekscape and you can catch it also on our analog Jones Yes, so at the end of the day we like to say remember to be kind Everyone she did it. Yeah Unpracticed everyone she just knew You're listening to the geekscape network