SPEAKER_01 0:00

My relationship's kind of interesting as part of my like filmmaking journey too is my wife and I do it all together.

SPEAKER_03 0:05

I love it. Is she also from the Midwest?

SPEAKER_01 0:06

We met in high school, but we were not like high school sweethearts. We were just close friends. We did speech team together. Speech team, which is a the weirdest thing I've ever experienced. It's like competitive public speaking and resource events. And it's this it's so bizarre because you you get up at six in the morning, you go to your high school dressed in like a business uh attire. So jump on a bus and you get to another school and you go to these rounds. There's three rounds in a day, and you're wearing a like a suit, and we we we met doing a dramatic duet piece, which is in and of itself a crazy thing.

SPEAKER_03 0:42

Public speaking? Dramatic?

SPEAKER_01 0:44

So there's like a couple of acting events. It's like track and field where you get different events. There's like radio speaking where you have to like put on a radio voice and do do like a radio like morning like uh news call. There's like uh some events where you have to write your own piece. There's some events where you take other people's writing and you get to perform them with like the all the dramatic intent and you know public speaking energy. Uh, and then there's a couple of acting events. So we did uh there's humorous and dramatic events. Um so there's and there's single-person humorous and dramatic, and then there's duet humorous and dramatic events. So we did a dramatic duet, which is I like the best way I can describe it is trauma porn.

SPEAKER_03 1:28

It was like it was like that is the perfect way to describe it. Okay, so I was on set for a 48-hour film project, which if you've never done one, is exactly as wild as it sounds. And somewhere between hour 14 and the mild hysteria of trying to make a short film in two days, I met this guy behind the camera who was just locked in. Fully in his element while the rest of us were held together by craft services and sheer willpower. Welcome back to Elisa Will Say, the show that's basically brunch with your boldest, funniest friend. Except sometimes we talk about filmmaking at 2 a.m. Welcome to my brain. I'm Elisa, your host, professional overcommitter, and occasional person who wanders on film sets. My guest today decided what to do for his honeymoon and came back with a production company and a short film adaptation of HP Lovecraft, which is one way to do it. Since then, he has directed three shorts, co-founded not one, but two production companies, become a Meisner acting teacher at Green Shirt Studio, and crewed on twenty-five other short films in roles, including DP, Gaffer, editor, colorist, sound designer. And I need uh you to know that this is a real credit. Worst boy. He is based between Elgin and Chicago. He has way too many projects in the pipeline, and he is somehow still looking for more to do. Please welcome Nick Carwite. So excited to be here. Amazing. Let's uh start by what sort of inspired you to do film and TV. Yeah. Um, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 3:18

Yeah, I I um I guess like tracing it way back. I've always been interested in art. My grandpa was a stained glass artist and a painter. His dad was a stained glass artist and a painter. My dad was an architectural model builder. I've always had like some sort of pull towards the arts. Um around high school, I started taking a lot of pictures. I became obsessed with taking pictures. I did like a 365 album where I took a picture a day for a whole year because all my friends were like and then I I like they did one year and I did I just did a whole other year up until a point where uh I was taking a picture on a beach and uh I was actually having somebody take a picture of me and I did a handstand and kicked a clump of sand into the into my little point-and-shoot camera's lens, and then they panicked and turned the camera off and it crunched all the sand into the into the lens, and I so I I made it two and a half years, uh or one and a half years, and um, but then I just I kept wanting to take pictures. I upgraded my camera after that. I um, you know, come like you know, college search time, I had no clue what I wanted to do or where I wanted to go. I had no interest in academia really at all. And my mom was like, let me just take you over to the like there's like a Schaumburg like AI art institute campus, and I I just had like no sense of where to go. I was feeling very like what do I do with my life? And she's like, You just love taking pictures. She like asked me one day, she's like, What are like the the if you had to name like five things that you could see you'd be happy doing every day for the rest of your life? I was like, I love learning languages, I would love to like become like uh like some sort of like linguist or interpreter or something. Uh I love um taking photos, I love theater, and um I think I stopped there.

SPEAKER_03 5:10

You're like, I got three mom.

SPEAKER_01 5:11

Like, maybe you can make money doing photography. Let me take you over to the art institute. And um, yeah, I I I really um fell in love with photography first and foremost, and then I think I started hitting this wall of like um it's hard to justify, like, like I started learning a lot about how to craft images and and a lot of the work that takes to make a production succeed. And I was doing it on this, you know, still image level, and it's hard to get a group of people together and get like you know, tell this whole story with a single image, first of all, but it's also hard to like crew a photo shoot, um, you know, and like get like 20 people moving lights and doing all this crazy stuff for like one image that's just gonna like exist as a single image. And I also just started feeling like that, you know, um I used to not feel like I had a lot of things to say, and then you know, COVID happened to all of us, and we all I think uh especially the folks like my wife and I just had this sense of like there's stories we really would like to tell, there's there's pieces of media that we love that we would love to like um you know adapt, and there's all these like we started like incubating all these ideas and um like there's podcasts we want to do, blah blah blah, and so um I started kind of thinking like, well, you know, I've got a pretty good sense of lighting and camera work. Um I've done a lot of theater in my life, and like maybe I could make a film. Um it didn't seem that far-fetched to me. So I just started like during that time, I started just like ravenously studying, learning as much as I can. There's only so much you can learn through YouTube. I was just like, I need to do this so I can actually feel like I understand. Like I like it's all rattling around here, but I need to like put it into my body, and then um, yeah, like so from there we we decided okay, we're gonna make a film. Um, which uh it all kind of coincided with this idea that like, well, we we got married in 2022. We also took an acting class in 2023, I believe. And uh this acting class uh we took it at Green Shirt Studio, which is now where I I teach uh Meisner acting. Um and we were like our time in that program really like helped us gain confidence in not only like our our voices as actors and stuff, but as like just general creatives, and um we were like, you know, let's really just do this thing. I think we can make something really cool. And um we got married in 2022, and we were already kind of like we the way we did our wedding was an elopement. Uh we That's the way to do it, in my opinion. Yeah, and we wanted it to be about us. We wanted to have like a real, raw, vulnerable moment of love and like commitment to each other. So we're like, let's just elope, and we did everything ourselves. We didn't want to like spend any money, so like I took our wedding photos. She uh did our hair and picked out our outfits. She used her like grandma's like blue dress from her second wedding, and um, it had like little doves on it. It was the cutest ever. And then I I wore a uh like a pastel pink suit, and uh I made our bouquets, and we just like we're gonna do this day for free, basically. Like, and then like that was great, and then we were trying to like plan a honeymoon in the time that we were in, and like all this like inspiration we had welling up in us from like you know, this like COVID incubation period, then straight into these acting classes that are like you know, like really convincing you that like your own voice is what is actually interesting and stuff like that. And it's like okay, well, let's let's just get like we had like all this energy, and I was like, we could make this film, we just need to like invest a little bit of money into like um just some startup gear, and um like the other thing we did was I mean the the where the majority of our budget went to is we commissioned an original oil painting as like the key prop of the film. Um and so yeah, it was uh we just decided to go for it and we said like hey, this is gonna be our honeymoon. This is like what we have have saved up money for, and let's just do this, and this will live on forever. Uh and it can like kickstart some of our dreams a little bit, which is like what we want to do to get like this is like the the life we're choosing to live together, so let's just do it, you know.

SPEAKER_03 9:41

I think it did kickstart it. I think people think the first step is supposed to be perfect, and no, the first step is the first step, you know. The first step is just to get you to the second step. And I think what you what I'm getting from what you just said is you bet on yourself. You both bet on yourselves, and that I think is more important than uh the end product, if if that makes sense, because people at least know that you are capable of finishing a project because that alone puts you in, I don't want to like put a random number on it and say like the 20%, but like it does yeah, it does put you at the top because how many people have a script, how many people have a vision, how many people have um a thought of of a script, or just like how many people say it all of these things but don't have anything to back it up, and you do.

SPEAKER_01 10:32

And it was really um a great lesson in like you know, ask and you shall receive. Like there's like something so incredible about that process. Like, I had no budget, basically, you know, it was I I asked 16 of my friends to just show up and do this like goofy thing with me, and they like none of them had ever been on a film set except for our camera operator. And wild. Um, and even then, like, you know, she was like, like she she's been on a bunch of sets, but she like you know couldn't do it all, right? So I just like started like grabbing a friend and casting them into roles. I'm like, hey, you're really organized. Can you want to be a first AD? Great, thanks. And I and like and I would like send them YouTube videos about what that role was and like just be like Oh my gosh. Watch this video, like it really breaks it down. If you can if you can manage like this time management and just like keep pressure on me so I like don't like you know, and just like you know, talk to me if like, hey, like help me negotiate if I need to keep this shot or this shot or whatever, like just stay on my case and uh you know it'll be really helpful. I had a friend uh who helped us like uh punch up the ending of our script, and they came on as a script supervisor because they're like, Well, I'm kind of you know uh close to the script and they're also very detailed, so they're checking continuity. I had a friend of mine who had never recorded audio in his entire life, and I just added in my recorder, and like I was like, here's how you hold a boom, look out for shadows. That process taught forced me to learn like at least the baseline of every single film role. Um which has been something that has been really valuable to me as not only as I've grown as a director, but also as I've grown just as somebody trying to look for work in production. Well, you do call yourself the Swiss Army Knife, which I think is very applicable. And I I value my time on set, like even though like I'm aiming to be a director in a DP, I I so value my time on set as a guy. You learn so much just by being around there. The thing is, typically when a production has a DP already locked down, they're usually pretty talented. Uh and there's always something to learn, like you know, like a way they see the image, a way they think about the shots that I get to to like just sponge up when I'm there, but I'm also bringing value to a production, which I I always find um I maybe this is like uh I I I hope I'm not being like too insane in this, but every time I read a script, every time somebody tells me a production they're working on, I just get this like this feeling in my gut that I'm just like I could add something to this. Like I I don't know like what it is yet. Like, like if you need me to do like the color grade, I'll I'll do it. Like I I just find that like I I just have such a passion for the the entire process and the entire idea of storytelling that I'm just like if there's a way I can get involved to like bring more to this project, I'd love to do that.

SPEAKER_03 13:25

Well, that's the play. That's the play in there, right? Because if not, it would be boring. And what I'm getting is like you have a really uh positive uh collaborative spirit, and sometimes that like is more um sometimes that's even better on a set than than like actually having like a full resume because you could have a full resume and be shit on set and like nobody wants to talk to you and it's really awkward and awful, versus somebody who is like you're hungry for knowledge, you're hungry for like skills and learning and collaboration, and I think that that's that's by far an incredible skill. But and I don't think you can learn it, I think it's just somehow innate.

SPEAKER_01 14:09

Yeah, I mean I feel like you can maybe pick up on it being around other people that share that that kind of energy. Um but yeah, I I really like and this is something that like film in a bag and I have have discussed has been the greatest joy of all of us working together. Um we all share this sense of like play together and like the sense of like respect for each other's um like vision. So like doing this this big project we're doing this year, we're shooting our 12 films in 12 months. Uh wild. We it's been really cool getting to work on like these different directors pieces and like share these different visions and see how they all operate differently, but also find my way to like heighten that piece and add add a little character to it or add a little bit of um you know whatever. Like I I just I I think like um it's it's really cool, like just because it it forces me to like pivot and be creative in in new fresh ways because they all bring some sort of different vision, some different taste to each film that they make. Um, and I'm really excited to get into to the ones that I'm making.

SPEAKER_03 15:27

Well, before we get to that, let's heighten the stakes here with some hot cakes. They're like hot takes because they stack up. Chicago's best kept secret? It's not doing this. It's Joel MySonette Photography. He's legitimately the best, and it's about time everybody knew. Actors, execs, LinkedIn Lurkers, book at my sonetphotography.com. And thank me later. Alrighty, we're gonna put 60 seconds on the clock. And what's a filmmaking rule everyone swears by that you think is completely wrong? Ooh.

SPEAKER_01 16:16

This is tough. Uh any any any filmmaking rule can be broken if you have a reason to break it. I think that's just yeah, sorry.

SPEAKER_03 16:27

Uh director. If your life was a 48-hour film project, what genre did you pull from the hat? Ooh, um uh road film. Your Meisner trained. Has acting made you a worse person to argue with? Uh ooh, uh uh the no, actually. Chicago versus everywhere else. Is staying here a creative choice or a flex? Uh a flex. Bigfoot, real or not? Uh probably real. Biggest pet peeve, onset, go. Um Badcrafty. Best film ever made. One answer, no explanation. Uh good burger. What's the location you've scouted that genuinely scared you a little?

SPEAKER_01 17:17

Um, the place I shot at two days ago that was this haunted house house called the Gorman House. Um, if a ghost was following you around said, what would it be judging you for? Um, I misplace every object that has ever been put in my hands.

SPEAKER_03 17:33

Thank you so much for playing that's a little nice.

SPEAKER_01 17:37

This is really on brand.

SPEAKER_03 17:39

Yeah. Um, I do like to get a little weird, and since we're already on ghosts, um any like weird rabbit holes that you are googling or searching?

SPEAKER_01 17:50

I've got a ghost story lined up because I've I've I've followed the podcast a little bit. I saw the phone bag episode. I was prepared for this. So um my parents and my aunt and uncle, they live my aunt and uncle live up in Minnesota. My parents went to visit them, and this whole they were there for like a couple weeks, and for all those weeks, they were doing this thing where they would just like set up a little camera on a tripod and take a picture of the four of them doing the fun activities they did for the whole trip. You know, they got pictures of them golfing and riding their bikes, and um one of the pictures that they set up was around the campfire. And my uncle had this scarecrow from Denmark. And um they told him what Scarecrow from Denmark a bunch, he would always travel there and stuff. So he had all these like Danish friends, and they have And so he just packed up a scarecrow in your luggage? Oh yeah. Uh it was gifted to him. They had these traditional scarecrows that like are supposed to, you know, be stewards of your garden. They protect the garden, all that kind of stuff. And they're there. I I feel like this is a benevolent ghost story. Uh good. But the whole thing is that the scarecrow, uh, it's it's supposedly imbued with a spirit, a human spirit, and that's why it wards off the crows. And when the scarecrow starts getting old and deteriorating and falling apart, um you're supposed to burn the scarecrow to set the spirit free. Um I'm getting chills all over my body. They set up a camera to take a picture of the four of them at the fireplace, and they they rattled off like 50 of these shots. And it was while the scarecrow was in the fire burning. Um what? Oh my god! And I just to just for context, the scarecrow, it was so cute. It was like kind of like it looked like Raggedy Yan kind of a little bit. It had these two little circle eyes, a triangle nose, and a dotted circle mouth. Like five dots. And we're watching they they're taking pictures, the scarecrow's on fire in the foreground, and the four of them are seated in little like armchairs behind the fire pit. And the shot right after the scarecrow fell over in the fire. Stop. There is a lick of fire five feet above all their heads. Two dots, a triangle, and five dots mouth. It is my parents don't know how to do Photoshop. They brought me this photo, like this this is I was like, what are you talking about? And then they showed me, and I got I got head-to-toe chills. I'm getting head-to-toe chills now. Exactly like the scarecrow's face. You like freaking on. And it was like five feet above their heads. There's it, I was like, I was studying this image like like a like a forensic scientist. I was like, okay, there is a window in the background. Is there a chance that the fire could have reflected off there and made this look a f- And I was like, no, it just is straight to me. Do you have this picture? Can you please send it to me? I will send it to you. I I have to scrounge it up, but I do have it. And it is so cool. I'll send you the whole series if you if I can find it. Uh because it's freaky. Uh and yeah, it's like it looks exactly like a scarecrow's face. And I like to this day I'm like, damn, the the Danish knew it. Damn it.

SPEAKER_03 21:13

But also how creepy that they're the Danish are like, oh, let's I don't know, and I I can't do accent. I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry, Danish. Like, oh, let's do a scarecrow. And then, oh, uh, we will uh kill this person so then we can put the screen inside.

SPEAKER_01 21:31

Yeah. Oh man. Well, I mean, and like so if you have a uh deteriorating Danish uh scarecrow, please burn it to set that spirit free. Wow asking for it.

SPEAKER_03 21:43

So that is crazy. That is pretty crazy. Oh my gosh. Um is that the extent of your woo-woo-ness, do you think?

SPEAKER_01 21:52

I yeah, I would say. I'm I'm generally like I I just am somebody who understands that there's things we don't understand. And I just leave it at that. I I I I like the mystery a little bit. I'm not I'm not so um I guess you know another piece of my woo-ness is the production company that my wife and I founded is called Cosmic Egg Productions. And we have just Why Cosmic Egg. We have an animal spirit deck. And uh in that animal spirit deck it's like you know you draw a card and it's like horse and then you read a little thing. It's like tarot but it's like less dark. Yes. It's always just like food for thought and like you know I don't really look at it as magic obviously I just like look at it as like oh this is something that I can maybe be mindful of and whatever comes to my mind as I'm reading this passage maybe there's something I can be working on in myself or like focusing on you know and we we draw like a card at the top of every month and it's just like a cute fun thing we always do. And the year that we shot the picture in the house um there is a the last card in the deck is called the cosmic egg which is like a symbolic of like the birth of a universe um great beginnings and unbound potential and stuff like that. It's this idea that like the the universe universe hatched from an egg and the in the iconography is an egg with a snake swirling around it and it's just really cool. And um I like like clockwork constantly like many times in a row like I would shuffle the deck like power shuffle it do all kinds of crazy shit kept spawning the cosmic egg and it was like it was both inspiring and also like a burden I was like what like cosmic potential do I have like brewing in my my wife just kept being like cosmic egg you gotta you're on your path and I'm like stop it and then I was like fine I'm gonna make my movie and then there was this like energy behind doing that that like brought us to that name and I um I think there's something really cool like we both love cosmic horror uh hence the Lovecraft adaptation and and a lot of our other stuff that we write tends to have an element of like psychological horror and horror that is like bigger than the characters can know or understand or things that are just like uncanny that happen that shouldn't happen and yeah that's like a lot of the stuff that we like to write. And then um so uh and then also this idea that like the horror is scarier in your mind than it is for me to show it to you. So like uh leaving a lot unsaid and unspoken is a big uh part of what we do. Um but then there's also this this sense of like you know um that like each film is this like birth of this new universe and stuff that I really And you're doing three f you're directing three films this year. Yes I am all in July I yeah so I mean I did I can rattle them all off and just give a quick like log line on each one. But the thing is they all have like that little gimmick that I like the little spark of something I was describing earlier. So like the first one I'm uh the first one that's getting shot is called Super Duper, which is a retelling of the day my wife and I first said I love you to each other.

SPEAKER_03 25:12

They're so cute.

SPEAKER_01 25:13

Thank you. This is a story uh I was so inspired I've I've watched uh Before Sunrise, before sunset before midnight Richard Link Later's Before trilogy like a thousand times and I was re-watching the um behind the scenes uh where he talked about the process that he made it and it was so fascinating to me especially as a Meisner teacher and actor um to see how he approached the writing process uh instead of being a guy because he similarly was retelling a story from a unique day of his uniquely cinematic day of his life and he but he was trying to bring these two actors in and give them some ownership of their characters. So he wrote like a really crude outline where he's like okay the two of you meet on a train you're both going different places and you decide to get off the train at a stop that neither of you were planning to get off at together and he's like but he he felt like he was struggling writing that type of scene because he's like I can't I want it to feel real I want it to feel like the like these are the choices you're genuinely making so he started asking his actors he's like to Julie Delphi he was like what would get you to get off the train with a complete stranger and she's like that's crazy I I typically wouldn't but he would maybe have to be reading something that I would be interested in. He would maybe have to be um uniquely warm and uh patient and he can't come on too strong and and she started like rattling off all this criteria and then Link later's like great let's write that and so what I found is it's really interesting instead of forcing actors to fit a mold of a character he built the story structure and the literal dialogue around them. So I'm trying to do a similar experiment I've I've cast two uh incredible Meisner actors uh Cordy Nelson who works at Greenshirt and Erica Massini who is taking classes at Greenshirt but also who is just like a profoundly uh gifted actress and um they are basically being put in the same scenario that my wife and I were in and that was the night that she she first told me that she loved me so it was really really um a special day but I'm I'm putting a twist on it I'm taking obviously taking two actors that you know are very different from Sarah and I putting them in a similar scenario giving them some like stakes and some some needs that they each have and then asking them questions and then writing how they respond. Ooh that's fun like I don't know how it's gonna end yet and we still have like one more writing session left uh and I'm really excited about that because that's the general pitch and I'm I'm really excited to see these actors have been bringing such a beautiful like raw life to the piece and I can't wait to like see how that one kind of turns out. Because even on the day yeah I think there might be you know there's a lot of stuff that they're not saying and it's just gonna be told through their reactions and and stuff like that. So uh even on the day the the takeaway for the audience might be different than what we planned in the writing.

SPEAKER_03 28:24

So that's really cool. That's awesome. And you're doing that for three films which is wild that you're like playing and tinkering with something new um for each one which is I mean that in itself is play. I mean that's why we got into film. Not to do like the procedural I mean sure maybe some people but like not to do like the ABCs every single time the same way. It's to have that fun have that play have that imagination.

SPEAKER_01 28:54

Yeah the one of the other ones I'm doing the the play that I'm bringing to it is it's like a very experimental piece. It's like a psychological horror a woman makes a potion.

SPEAKER_03 29:04

You ooze creativity my goodness uh this has been so fun thank you so much for being on the podcast uh I don't want to take up any more of your time but yeah this has been so fun uh and I can't wait to see all of your films. Yeah thanks for having me what a fun fun guest that was great and and a little scary and if you have a scarecrow please burn it. I mean I don't know anybody who has a scarecrow but I think that might be a me problem. Um the Danish what are they doing? If you if you enjoyed this episode and want to follow Nick please follow him on Instagram at Nick underscore cartright underscore creative and his two production companies at cosmic egg productions and at film in a bag if you're interested in the 12 for 12 um films that he is working on please go to film in a bag YouTube. You might see me in a couple um you know humble brag. Thank you so much for listening if you enjoyed this please like subscribe do all the good stuff um really appreciate y'all and go burn your scarecrows by an Entrepida entertainment podcast produced and edited by Jacob Cagle music by Eric Facus and photography by Joel Mysenet and I am your host Ilse Sacharia Rivera. The views and opinions expressed on Ilse Will Say are entirely those of the host and guests and do not reflect the views of any employers, sponsors or innocent bystanders. This podcast is for entertainment purposes only nothing said here should be taken as professional advice, expert opinion, legal guidance or a reason to DMSU conspiracy theories we're here for the laps y'all carry on