Anthony Baxter and Dylan Avery

Published Aug 13, 2012, 4:00 AM

This week, Alec talks with documentary filmmakers Anthony Baxter and Dylan Avery – each of whom has made a controversial political films, one about a golf course in Scotland; the other about whether 9/11 was a government cover-up.

Both films were made on meager budgets and both have attracted significant attention. Dylan Avery’s film, Loose Change, became an internet sensation and spawned a “Truther Movement” composed of people that believe that the government’s version of 9/11 is a lie. Anthony Baxter’s You’ve Been Trumped has given voice to people around the world who are fighting encroaching developments.  

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This is Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the Thing. Recently, I've been producing a documentary film series each summer on Long Island on behalf of the Hampton's International Film Festival, and I'm pretty much addicted to documentary films. A good documentary film requires a mixture of four basic ingredients. A great story, a filmmaker with passion, an experienced crew, and money. Today on the show, I'll speak with two documentary filmmakers who each made controversial political films using a slightly different formula. The story was there, but without any money or experience, they had to make up that deficit with excess passion or perhaps a better word, obsession. My first guest is Anthony Baxter. Baxter was a radio journalist for the b b C who turned to filmmaking when a unique strip of coastline near his home in northeast Scotland was threatened with development by billionaire Donald Trump. Trump had purchased a few thousand acres of land with the intent of building a golf course. Baxter's film You've Been Trumped documents the drama that unfolded amongst Trump, the Scottish government, who supported the project and the community of people who were deeply rooted there. I'm going to build for the people of Scotland the greatest golf course anywhere in the world. There'll be nothing like it, and it's going to be done environmentally perfect. It's just so false. You know, all these people alive and suited and booted and yes, Mr Trump, no, Mr Trump. It's a real mosaic of habitats. You've got everything from open sound to shrubs, two trees to wetlands. I've received many environmental awards over the years. The greatest thing I've ever done for the environment is what I'll be doing right here in Aberdeen. People who don't approve of this, I don't approve a Bullion. Filmmaker Anthony Baxter lives in a tiny village just fifty miles south of Aberdeenshire where the film takes place, and it was Baxter's pure frustration that fueled the film. The first thing was really I felt, look, this story is not being reported accurately in the media. In the two local newspapers were saying this is going to be a fantastic thing. For the end. They were on board from the beginning. Absolutely, Why do you think that is. Well, when Donald Trump arrived, the red carpet was rolled out as private jet touchdown at Aberdeen Airport. The press were invited and they all came along and they all said, this is going to be fantastic. In a way, I think it was celebrity is coming to this little part of Scotland and Donald Trump is going to bring with him all these jobs. And the media kind of just latched onto this as if it was going to be a saving thing for for the area. Who is the primary employer that what's the primary means of employment there? The main employer for the area is is the oil industry. I would say that has been the driving force of the economy in that part of the world. That's why there is only one percent unemployment one percent in Aberdeenshire, which is where you know, Donald Trump said he was going to be building a golf course resort and and employing thousands of people. And so when I heard that was happening, When I heard that this was going to be essentially saving the local economy according to you, thought that was strange because he didn't need saving. Well, there are two things that struck me about it. One was you know, the economy I felt didn't need saving. The other thing was that the environmental impact of this development was going to be enormous. I mean, this was being built on a stretch of unique scientific interest. To cite a special scientific interest as the highest accolade that our country can bestow to a protected site. So it's the equivalent in like in the unities of like a national seashore. Absolutely, when you have some massive tract of land that is of unique environmental value. Yes, so it wasn't protected land. It was protected. It was supposed to protective and development. Now what happened was nobody reported the environmental impact that this result was going to have. And I knew, having made a documentary for the BBC, that it was going to be significant. Knew that this was a protected site. But none of the local press was saying anything about this, and instead they were focusing in on the spack between Donald Trump and a and one local resident who didn't want to sell his property. And you know, I felt that the local people were being parodied, and so I went up and I spoke to them. I usually get up about seven and let the cut out, and in this dark mornings, I just nipped back to bed again and turn on the TV and little about c half to seven, Get ready, staff, Nick Borridge, give this manor job, eaches, give this minor job in a guard job. My father he sang songs that you never hear of the day. And he used to sing a song You'll never miss the water till the well runs dry, which is a very true. Seeing here are people who live in an almost kind of harmetic and very innocent lifestyle, their minding their own business on a farm on the Scottish coast, and along comes Darth Vader, if you will, Who's going to grip the whole thing down and displace all them? And they seem incredibly incredibly innocent people. Did they strike you that way that they just wanted to be left alone and go about their business? Absolutely? I mean when I first spoke to the people there, um, I said to them, look, you know, I think that Donald Trump should be held accountable for his actions here, and I want you to give me your trust that I will follow this story and and hold into account for this and all over the world, you know, whether it's in New York or whether it's in Michigan, and whether it's in Denver or all the places we've shown the film, people can't to us and they've said the same kind of thing is happening here. You know, it's not always Donald Trump, but often there is a developer coming in say look, we're going to develop this land. We think it's going to be fantastic for the economy, and the local government gets on side. Maybe there's a real this is striking accord. Let me just say that Trump is a very mixed bag. If he was a filmmaker, you know, he'd have water World on some of his slate, and he'd have I'm not going to say Citizen Kane, but he'd have some pretty estimable things. Trump is a very very complicated person. And I'm wondering you were around him. How much were you because in the film you doesn't seem like you are in direct, you know, proximity to him all that often? Is that true? Yeah? I mean I went up there. The first day I went up to film really was in May when he came over. I heard on the news he was there, So I went up and I said to the guy on the door of this this UM press conference, Look, I'm from Entres Pictures of the production company, which I am and um. I went down and I started filming there, and when I saw Donald Trump standing there saying, we are going to stabilize the dunes and make them better than they were previously. The scientists had said to me that if you stabilize the junes, it's the worst possible thing you can do. You know, by stabilizing the dunes, you are taking away the thing that makes them a site of special scientific interest. You know, they've been there for many hundreds of years, moving and shifting on their own, on their own accord. And if you stabilize them to build a golf course, then you are changing the landscape forever and that uniqueness. Well, you see. You see. The thing is with with Donald Trump. He's used to having media around who are going to give him good press. But I disagree with you. I think maybe that's the case over there. What was it about what was going on over there that people bit the Trump hook? Because in America they don't do them anymore. Trump is someone who is viewed with as much skepticism as he is with fascination. Who didn't say no? And why didn't they say? Now? Well, first, Bore the local government said no, and the Scottish government called in the decision, over ruling the local guy. Do you think their argument was that this is in the Scottish national interest, this is going to create so many jobs. They said, look, this is going to put Scotland on the map for golf, even though as we all know Scotland as stuff full of golf courses. Anyways, that's where golf was founded, you know, St Andrew's. And it's baffling to me. I have to say, I don't understand it myself, you know, I mean the end, it was just someone who you could point to who was ultimately responsible for their decision. On the national level. Well, the First Minister of Scotland, Alex Salmond, refused to do an interview with us, but essentially he was the one absolutely. And now, of course we've got this extraordinary situation where Donald Trump is furious about a wind farm which has been planned off the coast. He's saying that if the wind farmers built, he's out, He's out. Who's going to make that decision. That's down to the Scottish government, to Alex Salmond. But you see Mr Salmond has so there's been a wall of silence after Donald Trump wrote a couple of letters to the First Minister, furious letters saying you promised me this wind farm wouldn't be built, did they? Um? Well, the Scottish government's line at the moment is that was the previous administration and I actually, you know, the thing is is that this golf course development was given the go ahead by Mr Salmon, who said, we're giving this to go ahead because we believe the idea that's going to bring all these jobs. We understand there's going to be a serious environmental impact. But sometimes as a government you have to make tough decisions. How did he address the concerns about the environment, Well, he just ignored them. He basically acknowledged there would be an environmental impact, but he said that the economic developments, the economic gain, outweighed the environmental concerns. In the film, you see that the bulldozers have torn into the whole thing. The whole thing is completely lacerated and it looks like a golf course because the destruction, as you as you say, has been done. But what hasn't happened yet is the skyscraper hotel and the undred houses and all the facilities. The skyscraper hotel, and he doesn't get the condos. Are they they're going to still have a Gulf operation. They they're going to have a couple of temporary buildings. But now he's saying that work on the rest of it is on hold until there's a wind farm decision. Once the status of the wind farm decision, well, we're waiting for a decision from the Scottish government on that, and you know that remains to be seen. But Donald Trump is a developer. That's what he does. He builds skyscrapers, he builds resorts. The Scottish government said in this case, look, you know, we understand there's this big environmental impact, but the economics outweigh that, and I think that question has to be put to the Scottish government. The Scottish government at the moment is fighting to have Scotland as a fully independent country. There's going to be a referendum in two thousand and fourteen for true Scottish independence, where Scotland would be completely separate to the rest of the United Kingdom. What's the public support for that. Well, you know, it's an interesting question. I don't know what the latest surveys are on that. But if you are going to have a government which overturns its own strict environmental policies in order to give a developer the green light to build a golf course, resort and a skyscraper, hotel and houses on one of its last wilderness areas. Then you have to ask yourself the question, you know, how will the Scottish government be behaving in the future, right? You know, this was an opportunity in a way for Scotland to stand up and say, look, you know we have here a prized part of our country which is beautiful. It's one of our last wilderness areas. We could stand up now and say, look, we know there is this development proposal to come in from Donald Trump to build this resort. It's going to bring a few jobs that the economists who we have in the film say the number of jobs will be closer to zero. You know, they had an opportunity to stand up for the environment. The Scottish government had that opportunity and it and it refused to take it. For the future of Scotland, I think that sends out huge alarm bells. If you have a fully independent Scotland, then it's going to allow that kind of thing to happen again. But I'm wondering, when you make films like this which involved these causes, what does this do to you in the long term, meaning the golf course is there, the damage is done in the scenic beauty. Do you feel any compulsion to participate in this process now beyond you having cut the camera or do you just walk away from it now and you're not really engaged by what's coming on? I think it really does get under you still care. I think the thing is is that the story doesn't really leave you. I think in a way this as you say, the golf course is there, it could be reclaimed in hundreds of years. In fact, there's a Scottish singer songwriter called Kareem Poet. He has written a song inspired by the film where the Steve Fogg in Scotland, which is called the Heart reaps its quiet vengeance on the resort and eventually it really is reclaimed by nature. The tist of labs and flows where the Ethan meets the ocean, and not even God himself could stop the northern leads from blowing. You can tear these turns asunder bounders wondering to dust with your cruel hands and crooked hearts, laden with lost an expensive life. But the horror will stumble in to color your eyes. The heart will stumble. And how did you raise the money for? You've been trumped? Where the money come from? So we didn't have any money. The way it works now for filmmakers, as you go to a pitching forum often and you say, look, I've got this idea for this film I think is an important story. You make a trailer, you found that yourself. You then stand in front of a load of executives from around the world and you tell them why you think this story is really important as a documentary, and they then decide whether or not they're going to fund it or not. And so when I pitched this film at the Edinburgh International Film Festival and we were voted essentially the best pitch. However, one of the executives from PBS actually said to me, I hope you've got a good lawyer, because if you're going to take on Donald Trump, you're going to need one. And there was no money forthcoming from that pitching session, so I had to remortgage the house and we hit the internet and crowdfunded this. This is how many documentary filmmakers are making films now. They hit a website like Indiego Go or Kickstarter, they make a trailer and they ask people to contribute money. I mean, you're in the land of Robert Townsend in Hollywood Shuffle where you're putting it on your own credit card and bar You're just you're just doing whatever you can. It's the only way you can do it. What was the budget of the film. Finally, I'm terribly British when it comes to things like this. I talk about money. I'm asking because I think people find this interesting. Meaning, a guy on a zone found a way the couple together, X. Would you say it was north of five dollars? Oh gosh, if way south of that? I mean it was south of that, Okay, I mean i'd say I'd say in a way to be honest with you, Alec, if you have a camera and you have memory cards or tapes to put into the camera, you're really talking about your time. And the location was to drive away from your exactly. So I was able to drive up there, and that's really what was so important to me. I mean that, you know, and that's what documentary filmmaking for me is all about trying to get to the truth of something you find, well, is this real life? Is this really unfolding? And sometimes real life is stranger than fiction, and this is this is a classic example of that. I don't think your film is finished. There's a there is a part two. I think the thing is. What we've found is that, for example, we've been showing the film in Croatia recently, and we showed it in the town of Dobrovnik, which is under threat from you know, an alleged as Radia arms dealer who's building this golf court wants to build a golf course resort overlooking the sound the town of Dobrovnik, which is a UNISCO protected site, and the local villagers put the film on to try and bring home to people this is what the future could hold for us if we allow this kind of thing to happen. I mean, in Croatia, the government is supporting the building of a hundred golf resorts. You know, in a way the film where we've been screening it in America, there are people who come up to us and they say, you know, there's a similar kind of development being planned for here, and so you're right. It isn't over. What are you working on? Well, at the moment, I'm working on trying to get the film out to an audience. We think that this story is one that has to be told, is one that resonates with people here in America. But we're doing distribution now we don't have Why do you think you don't have distribution? Do you think that some people are overlook the film if you were in the distribution world, because what's new about spitting on Trump? Well? I think on the film shows Donald Trump. Has you never seen him before? I mean, because here you see him bullying and harassing local people and developing a unique wilderness area and destroying an environment. Store see, I happen to be a very truthful person. His property is terribly maintained. It's slum like, it's disgusting. He's got stuff thrown all over the place. He lives like a pig. And I did say that. And I'm an honest guy, and I speak honestly, and I think that's why some people like me and some people probably don't like me. But I think you do himself a great service if you fixed up this property, you do show it on camera. There's a thing that Trump does, which is the thing I loved most about the film. There is his Trump condemning these people and marginalizing these innocent people, these completely innocent people. We were surprised ourselves. I think about the impact it would have on audiences, but people in theaters when they see it, it's got a tremendous power, I think, because people feel very strongly about what's happened, and they feel very strongly for these people and for the environment. Donald Trump's golf course in Aberdeen, Scotland opened last month. Plans to build the hotel are on hold, pending a decision by the Scottish government to allow a wind farm to be built within view of the course. You've Been Trumped is playing at the Village East Cinema in New York. It opens in Los Angeles on August. My next guest, Dylan Avery, was an eighteen year old film student in upstate New York when he came up with an idea for a summer action movie about a vast nine eleven conspiracy while working as a waiter at Red Lobster. Avery combed through undreds of hours of eyewitness accounts, news footage, and official reports from nine eleven His fictional script gradually dissolved into an obsessively researched documentary called Loose Change, which alleged that nine eleven really was an inside job. Here's a clip of only seven ft long high, has a hundred and twenty ft wingspan and weighs almost one tons. Are we supposed to believe that it disappeared into this hole without leaving any wreckage on the outside? Why is there no damage from where the wings, or the vertical stabilizer or the engines would have slammed into the building. Avery's film became an online sensation after being posted on the Internet. Loose Change spawned a truth or movement composed of people that believe the government orchestrated nine eleven and then covered it up. And as with all conspiracy theories, talking about them in public can get you into trouble. That hasn't stopped Dylan Avery. The nine eleven Commission was a cover up, and the only question is what it was covering up. What do you think it was covering up? Easily the the complete abundance of warnings that it appeared the government received. When you have John Ashcroft flying private jets in July two thousand one. When you have massive put options placed on American United Airlines leading up to the events, that is suspicious, to say the least, when you take those facts because this is a game. Obviously I shouldn't say game, but this is an exercise that a lot of people have toyed with. One thing you do sing in the film, which is the one I can't let go of, is the destruction of the entire Rolls Royce engine system and the entire fuselage of the plane that goes into the Pentagon. Shanksville is more glaring the Pentagon, because I mean, I've seen news footage taken immediately after, I've seen photographs taken that day, days after the fact, and there is just nothing there. There's a hole in the ground, there's no fusilize, there's no engine, there's no tail, there's no What did the eleven Commission say about that? They simply said that the plane crashed going at a very high rate of speed. There are websites dedicated specifically to airplane crashes and to the debris leftover, and you can go to any jumbo jet crash ever, and you will see something some kind of trace. I mean, the eyewitnesses that showed up to the site said themselves, I didn't even know if I was in the right place. I didn't see a plane. What happened to the people that were on the plane that that plane took off? What have people postulated to you has happened? Oh man, there's that makes sense to you. There's a lot of theories out there, but I and that's the one thing that I've tried to avoid talking about in the past couple of years is theories because it's just dangerous territory and you start talking about things that may or may not have happened to the extent without endorsing or even discussing any theory. Are there any that addressed that, for example, that have made any sense to you at all? I mean that there's all kinds that the four original planes were herded to an Air Force space and then the path messengers because all four of the planes on the morning of nine eleven averaged about capacity. I don't know how often you fly ALEC, but even back in two thousand one on a weekday morning, it was hard to get four planes that empty. One of the theories is that the four planes were shepherded into an air Force space. The people were taken off of that plane put onto a fifth plane, and then that plane shot down again. Just a theory. I'm not saying that's what I believe. But but let me just finish this school. We could go on and on and you can take all the truth movement, and you can take all that information and set it aside, because what's daunting is you never will know. So we go down there now and what do we have. What do you think about what's been what's happening at the site of the World Trade Center now, at the site itself. Uh, it would be nice for everything to have been built and for they're not to have been this long drawn out battle of the memorial. It would have been nice for the tenure anniversary for everything to have been I don't want to see it back to normal, um, because you know, how are things ever going to get back to normal in this country. It just it seemed like something wasn't complete. Um. It was a very surreal day for me because you know, it's ten years after the fact. You know, a lot has happened in the past decade, A lot has happened with the movement with the country. I mean Ground zero was a madhouse. It was just amaze. You know. We all felt like we were just kind of being corralled through these gates and fences and eventually made our way to the free speech zone where the truth movement was assembled. Essentially, when you say, quote unquote the truth movement was assembled, is it a desperate bunch of people from different distinct groups. Who's part of that umbrella? You know, it's tricky. I suppose it is a giant umbrella at this point, because you know, when you you tell somebody you want the truth about nine eleven, they they probably already have many preconceived notions about what it is you're asking, just because they've seen so many different aspects of this movement over the past decade. There's a lot of it propelled by your film, A good percentage of it the wind of the truth movement. Yeah, and you know, unintentionally, so you know it was never yeah it was it was never a goal of your Yeah, it was just, hey, let's make this movie to express these things. You say. You're there. Are you treated like a deity among those people? Do they kind of like you're you know, I actually I don't like being idolized, and I don't like being put up on a pedestal and having attention drawn to you. Yeah, because it's just I'm just a filmmaker. That's all. That's all it's ever come from. So when when you first get into this and when you first kind of start to open your eyes to this information, it's very easy to get sucked in, and it's very easy to feel overwhelmed and like almost anything could be true more or less. But you have to kind of reach that point where you take a step back and you start to analyze things and just like, all right, well, what what's good for the movement? You know, what's good for the cause, and what are the things that truly matter? You just said the movement. Do you believe that you're a filmmaker who's making films and you're pointing in casting a lightem what you think is a set of facts or do you think you're part of a movement or both or neither? Which is it? Primarily I'm a filmmaker, and that's that's the whole reason loose change exists. But and then I wrong to assume that you've kind of gotten out of the movement business. The last couple of years. That's well, it's tough to say, I mean, because I'm still involved. I was still there at Ground zero and the tenth anniversary. I still talk to all the people that are actively Why did you go? I went mostly to pay my respects and to see how construction had come along, and also to see the people that I hadn't seen since two thousand and six. I think you cared about. Yeah, this is a movement, and these are people that I care about and that I know you know, And I went down to Ground zero mostly just to be there. So tell us how does Loose Change begin? Um? The original Loose Change feature film script was ambitious. If I had to pick one work, it had card chases, It had people assembling at the White House on the end, It had this, It had that I did. I wrote a script without any care to budget or how I would actually film it. So when the time came around to actually start and plan out this film, that's the thing that I had spent a year two years writing. It was kind of a slow realization that the film that I wanted to make was not possible. So it was especially after Corey came back. My best friend Corey who signed up to the army, and he signed up after nine eleven. He signed up before his first day of basic training was on September eleventh, because he signed up in August two thousand and one. It was kind of a running joke at the time. It was, well, you know, we're we're not in a war. There's not gonna be a war anytime soon, so we don't have to worry about you. You know, it'll be fine. And then the timing couldn't have been creepier. Um So I would send him DVDs of the movie as it was over to Iraq. Yeah, so while he was over in Iraq fighting the Iraq War. Um So, while your best friend was over in the Iraq fighting the Iraq War, you were sending him the basic elements of your nine eleven conspiracy theory film. Well, yeah, I don't. I'm hesitant to use conspiracy theory, but whatever, whatever, whatever you want to call it, you know, but I would prefer to at least have some common language with you, which the phrase you would rather use. I suppose the nine eleven Truth film. You're sending your friend the elements, the raw elements of your nine eleven Truth film. While he's fighting a war that is founded upon the events of not eleven essentially, So yeah, it's it was a very interesting time to be alive. And then he comes back and what happened. So when he got back, we tried shooting a couple of scenes, and you know, in hindsight, for like my first time directing with a little mini DV camera and no experience whatsoever. I mean, some of the scenes didn't turn out too bad, but it became apparent after I started cutting it together or attempting to cut it together, I realized the film just wasn't gonna happen, not the way that I envisioned it. When you crossed the line from the narrative film to the documentary film with a fact similar, the facts were definitely similar in a lot of the basic premises. But the really interesting thing about it is that the Loose Change screenplay predicated the actual events of what happened after Loose Change occurred or after Loose Change went viral. Because in this script, these three characters see these problems with the official story and with what their government is doing, and slowly take steps to educate the public, and then those steps go essentially viral around the world, and suddenly they're held up to be this thing that they wanted to accomplish, but didn't expect the actual the whole world to actually listen to them. So it was very interesting when Loose Change, the documentary was released and it went viral around the world and back and gave people some confidence to question the official story, and the popularity of the war was waning as well, and the popular the war was waning. So you not only had this increased flow of information about nine eleven and what had happened, but you also had this increased distrust of the government, and you had this climate where it seemed like almost anything was possible. So it for a lot of people you think a little bit, yeah, but did you see that leap now differently than you did back then, that that's a bit of a leap. Well, to some people, that maybe, but then you you look back, you look at the pretenses that have been used for war and things like the Gulf of Tonkin. While although three thousand people were not killed in broad daylight and the Gulf of Tonkin incident, you see these events which later turn out to not be everything they were cracked up to. Be. What was this like for you in terms of your own personal life? What was the cost for you of doing this Where you were saying in the middle of a war, the government's fingerprints are on this, Potentially the cost wasn't terribly drastic. I didn't. I had a couple of friends that, while they didn't necessarily distance themselves or disappear from my life entirely, they certainly didn't agree with it. What about their parents, parents? Not a lot of interaction. I didn't really interact a lot with my friends parents on the topic, because, again, I was aware that it was a very about your own family. My mom supportive from day one. You know, I'm I'm her shining star and she will do anything to support me. My father no idea. He's not really been in my life. So um my grandmother staunch Bush voting Republican. UH, thought it would be better if I focused on my cartooning as opposed as opposed to my filmmaking. So I see any conversations with her about that, they're they're brief, but it's I mean, and she's she saw like early early editions of it, you're making a movie. Now I'm working on a couple of things. I'm wrapping up a short film. I have a couple of film about what it's about. A guy who wakes up in a hotel room, has no recollection of how he got there. He's dressed in a three piece suit. There's a gun on the bedside table. He gets a call on his cell phone and before he knows that he's beating someone to death, and of course immediately realizes what he's doing and stops. Um it's called Olsen and it's it has shades of some real events that happened back in the fifties, but the script has become its own entity. Now you're making a film about coffee that I made that last year. That was a documentary made when I was living down an ocean beach. What's that film called buzz Kill? That was just pretty much a fun project that me and Wes Davis my buddy made. Um My, my buddy West goes twenty one days without drinking coffee. I know, I go from nine eleven to no coffee. Um, But it was just a fun project. Like he we were hanging out at the buddy's house and he mentioned it and sounded funny. Did you feel that you needed that though, because like in my work, if I find that scessory, you can go from doing King Lear and the next thing you want to do is like The Sunshine Boys or something. Yeah, it was nice. It was nice to do a documentary and to go into somewhere and be like to take a break. Yeah, to take a break. Do you find that sometimes was suffocating? It was suffocating. Oh yeah. Even to this day, I still can't get jobs because people were like, oh, I want to direct a feature film, and I was like, okay, what didn't you make that nine eleven documentary? No thanks. It's it's tricky because lose change happened because I wanted to make a film. It came. It was born out of the passion of being a filmmaker, and then lose change took over my life. And now it's almost like like like filmmaking is completely out of the equation now. But do you feel for you personally? That's one of the greatest impacts of the loss for you of you as a filmmaker. Well, that's exactly as I get compliments on the film and how it's made, but no one's ever like, here's some money, let's make something. You know, No all I've ever had is really just broken promises and phones that don't get answered. And I've tried, and I've tried, and I've tried reaching. Uh what funding right? It was? It was the cost of gas. Food. So do you find that's the kind of movie you're forced to make? Now? You have to do films that are very very yeah, I mean even my short. I mean, I just it's been like a couple of hundred bucks and that's mostly just food and you know, taking care of everybody, which is fine, I mean, everybody has to get their start doing that. But to be at this place where I have, I mean, Vanity Ferret called it the first Internet blockbuster. You really don't get much more of a glaring review than that, at least at the time. I mean, the Vanity Fair article in two thousand and six came, it's such a great time and it was such a positive piece. Have you wanted to pull adult in Trombo? Have you ever been ahead anybody that was willing to hire you and you just didn't put your name on the film and you use a different name. Note not even that you wouldn't even know, You wouldn't do that, You wouldn't accept that. I don't know at this point. I mean it depends on the paycheck. What do you love about making film? You're creating these little universes, and you know, you're you're inviting people into them for an hour or two at a time. And you had this, you had this legitimate opportunity to take people away for an hour or two and to just suck them out of whatever's going on in their life. And you're you're giving them escape, You're giving them a vacation for an hour or two. And directing right now is like in a superpower to me that I'm slowly working my way up to, because it's just like when you can get on a set and when you can get these performances out of these people that just go down in history. I mean, that's that's art right there. And who were some filmmakers that you admire? I hate to be cliche, but Kubrick, I mean Stanley Kubrick. I mean that that man commanded such power with his films, and he had most powerful He had such a way with what he did, just the way his films came together and the way he approached it. But also maybe kind of a minor point for some people, but his penchant for natural lighting. I Yeah, Kubrick to me was someone who was who occupied his own zip code, so to speak, in terms of films, in terms of a tone, in a mood. And it doesn't surprise me that Kubrick is your favorite director, one of your favorite directors, because Kubrick, to me, is the ultimate truth or filmmaker. His films are disturbingly truthful the way people behave, what they do, the nakedness of their ambitions and their intentions. Yeah, if Loose Change hadn't gone in the direction it went, if it hadn't put you where you are now, what do you think you'd be doing right now? That's a very good question. Maybe I would be directing feature films, you know. Maybe I would have a career. Maybe I have all the things that I dream of right now. Or maybe I wouldn't. Maybe I would still be an oneana trying to figure my life out and trying to figure out how to break through. It's tough to say, it really is. Um. I do have those moments a lot where I think about what if. M H. Dylan Avery still lives in Los Angeles, writing scripts and working towards his dream of directing feature films. Loose Change is still available on the Internet as well as Netflix. This is Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the Thing.

Here's The Thing with Alec Baldwin

Award-winning actor Alec Baldwin takes listeners into the lives of artists, policy makers and perfor 
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