 Hello, this is Katie O'Regan. I'm with the Star City Film Festival, and I'm here in beautiful Sheboygan. And we're here to talk about our film festival, which is coming up November 10th through the 12th at the Blue Harbor Resort. We have 33 entries in our film festival this season. This is our sixth season, our sixth season, and it's going to be the best it's ever been. I don't know if you haven't been at the Blue Harbor Resort inside, but it's gorgeous. And the filmmakers are coming. They're gorgeous too. We have a lineup of a three-day event starting at six o'clock on Friday night. We have live script readings from people who have scripts who entered into the Star City Film Festival that were chosen. And we have actors that are going to tell their stories. We have films that are chosen, and we have talk backs with their amazing directors. We also have a very special guest here. Her name is Lacey. She's of the Lacey Awards. She's our little corgi. You'll see her in a little bit. That's her barking. Nice job, Lacey. Saturday all day at the film festival, we have two different screening places to see films. So they're simultaneously will be films going on. And there's a schedule, and you can look at my company, which is called Sacred Noise Society. SacredNoiseSociety.org is my producing company. I've had it for many, many years. It's my great privilege to present to you our filmmakers. We are a non-profit organization. We appreciate our sponsor this year. And her name is Trisha Brose, the best realtor in town. Look her up. Now we're going to talk to two wonderful women who drove all the way from Chicago to be with us today. They have a film that is chosen, and I'm going to let them introduce their very film. We have the director and the producer. I'm really, really feel honored to give voice to female directors and female writers and people that are from the area. We have Bethany Berg, who lived in Sheboygan for a very long time. So she's a local. Very interesting. Bethany, it's so nice to have you. It's nice to be here. Thank you. Yes. Tell us the name of your film. So the film is called Everything Fun You Could Possibly Do in Alito, Illinois. Very interesting. And we have the wonderful producer. Tell us your name. Christina Schaver. Christina, welcome. Thank you. Thank you. We're really excited to be here and really excited to be part of the film festival this year. How did you come up with the idea for your film? Actually, my family is from Alito, Illinois. My dad's side of the family is from Alito and lived there for generations and farmed out there and worked out there. And over the years, we've kind of all moved away. And I was like, I haven't been to Alito in so long. And I really don't have a reason to because my family is pretty much left there now. And so I was like, I should make a movie there. And Alito was a small town. 5,000 people. How many people? 2,700, 3,700 people, folks. There you go. And they made a movie there. Now, Susie Boggess is also. Yes. Am I saying her name? Yes, Susie Boggess. That's right. Susie Boggess is the she's a well-known country singer. She's amazing. And oh, my God, the soundtrack to your movie is beautiful. Yeah, because she sings the soundtrack and it's seamlessly integrated into the script was genius, by the way. That's all Bethany. That's all Bethany. Bethany, well done. Thanks. It's Susie. I mean, Susie is a great singer. We need to, we need to, Lacey, you're a singer, too, aren't you? We need to get Susie to come up to visit. Oh, that would be great. Yes. So your film is how long? It's a little over an hour, correct? Just right around the hour mark. So it's considered a feature film because it's over an hour. Yeah. It's it's not a documentary. It's very well acted. Isn't the woman who's one of the lead actresses. Isn't she with Annoyance Theatre? Yes. So Jennifer Eslin is the owner, actually, of the Annoyance Theatre with her husband. She's fantastic, by the way. She's hilariously funny. She's so good. She showed out to Annoyance Theatre. She's really great. And Sarah Savini stars across from her. Also, lovely, lovely actor. She is lovely. Yes. Really great. Yes. I really enjoyed your film. It's going to you hear Lacey Woopin in the background. So she's just she's agreeing with. Come here. So. So what was the most interesting thing about writing? You wrote this together, which is fascinating. We wrote it together like, let's write a film. We wrote it together, but we actually had another person who wrote the story. Her name is Gina DeAngelis, and she is really a wonderful writer as well. And so she served up the story. And yeah. Yeah. I think the most interesting part was we, you know, we had the story and we, you know, made a few tweaks for production and, you know, added Susie songs in it and added some dialogue as well. And, you know, changed some stuff as well, just based off casting. And I was talking to some people recently about the process. And my favorite part was when Christina left me in a room and she said, right, a scene now. Christina, you're a torture woman. I'm a torture woman. I'm a torture woman. And then and then she would water. Water only after one page. You get water after a day. And she would look up and she would say, it took you an hour to write that. So it'll take us this amount of time. Yes, I did do that. I did calculate that. But we wrote the story together. It was very collaborative. And, you know, we both are from one to school at the Second City, Chicago, where we learned a lot about comedy and that kind of stuff. So, yeah, it was. I didn't know that. That he was Second City. Yeah, I had to work in Door County and American Folklore Theater. And I got to also work with the son of the woman who started Second City. Oh, wow. Amazing. It was amazing. So what a great training. So I know, I didn't know we had it. It is really great that that's really wonderful. So and I could tell in your movies, very funny. Yeah, well, that's all Bethany. So it's going to be Friday night. Friday night, we put you in a slot for Friday night because you have another engagement on Saturday night. Yes. Yes. What do we have? Oh, I think we're just hanging out. I'm kidding. You're just hanging out. You guys, that's not for you. We're doing it. So you can come see their film at Friday night and then we're going to do a little talk back again. But I wish you luck. I would have a couple of judges who are judging the best films. Don't be mean. I'm not mean. I chose your film. So I think you're wonderful. You already won an award in my movies. Well, if they want any water. I know. I think Christina is the one who gives it out. Really? Yes. So Friday night, please come see their wonderful film and cheer them on. And you're going to see a clip from your film. Yes. And the rest is a secret. You have to come to the festival. Go to sacrednoisesciety.org. Thank you, ladies. Thank you. Thank you so much. We're so happy to do it. Thank you. It's cold. Oh, God, come on. Oh, it's cold. You've got to commit. OK. OK. Same committee. OK, we're committing. Fancy. Let's live here now. OK, we live in the home. OK. No, so we won. Oh, God. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. OK. All right, now it's the cops. Very special filmmaker. He's not only from Sheboygan. He made a movie called Sheboygan Who Knew. And he was in our first film festival. We did a one day film festival during the Ryder Cup in Sheboygan at the Stephanie H. Well Center and I chose his film. It was wonderful. Gabe, introduce yourself. Hi, I'm Gabe Leistico. I'm a local filmmaker here and I'm happy to be a part of this. Yeah. So, Gabe, your second film is called FUDS and you're a senior at UW at the film school, correct? Are you excited to graduate? Are you not excited to graduate? It's definitely a mix of emotions. It's, you know, what I've been doing for the past three years and just all the people that I've met and experiences I've gotten to have making all these short films for class. You know, I'm definitely going to miss it in that sense, but I'm also very much looking forward to moving on and working on some bigger things. And yeah. So we're showing both of your films. We're showing Sheboygan Who Knew as a remake because Gabe is in, he plays as an actor in it and he does the voiceover. And it's kind of a tongue-in-cheek look at Sheboygan. Growing up in Sheboygan, it's a really fun short, very short, what is it, five minutes? Yeah. Film, perhaps, yeah. And Fuzz, his second film that we're premiering here at this festival, is a very introspective, completely opposite from his first film. So congratulations on having two films that are completely different in shorts. I think that shows a lot about who you are and your range and your growth. So I talked to you before about this, but tell us a little bit of how you came up with Fuzz. It's an animated film. Yeah, with Fuzz, I really just started with the visuals of it. I really wanted to just make these striking visuals and then the story kind of came about after that and I found a way to connect them all. And then yeah, just kind of coming up with the story about what I wanted it to center around in terms of themes and a lot of it, like you said, is introspective. It's about taking a look within and getting lost and also find a way to overcome things within yourself. Finding a way to overcome things within yourself. It's such a needed theme in the world and I thought it was really cruel. I'm really proud of you, not that I have any credit for it, but I love to showcase your films. And I think you have a great career in film because what it takes to do in this business is it's tenacity and attitude and hope and faith and nothing because there's no way to get, to be in the movie industry, you just have to keep on doing it because there's no film that's made the same way or no thing that's cast the same way. No film festival is the same way. And a lot of it too is just hanging out to those amazing people you meet along the way. Even the characters, that's the best part about this industry and me choosing this career path is just meet some of the most amazingly weird and cool people in the best kind of ways. In the best kind of ways. Yeah, we creative times for a little odd, aren't we? It takes all of us and that's why at the Star City Film Festival, we embrace all things. We have live music, we have live script readings. We have of course our wonderful filmmakers and all the films. But we also have a little girl named Lacey who's sitting on the floor. She's our mascot, we have the Lacey Awards and it's gonna be a really wonderful time so please come down to the Lacey Awards and to see Gabe's film and we're gonna have a talk back with the audience as well. Anything else you'd like to talk about your film? No, I thank you guys for watching and definitely come out and see it. We got some great stuff lined up for you. Yeah, another special guest for the Star City Film Festival. She and I have an interesting history. We were in a show together called Art Pods that we actually toured in Wisconsin. She's a phenomenal dancer. She's a wonderful human being and she's a wonderful teacher. Her name is Kayla Shetter. Kayla, welcome. Thank you. Thank you, Katie. Kayla is here with two of her students who are wonderful performers, very special guests. We actually get to have an amazing dance performance with these lovely women at the Star City Film Festival on the red carpet night. So we're doing a very meaningful song to me. It's in my movie called Painting Jane and the song is called Sacred Noise. And it's a song I sing and I wrote and they are going to choreograph a dance to it which has never been seen before. And that's it, it's gonna be really exciting. You should come just for that. So Kayla has core connections. It's right on 8th Avenue in Sheboygan. She's a remarkable athlete. She's a remarkable person healer. You're a therapist and an amazing dancer. And Lacey agrees, Lacey's on the floor agreeing. Kayla, tell us about your business and your company. Absolutely, yes. So like Katie said, we're on A Street, right in Sheboygan here. I have a Pilates dance and acro space. So we have machines and we do classes and Adelaide and Sophia are my students that have been with me since the start. So I opened back in 2018 and they have really stuck with it and progressed tremendously over the last couple of years. And when we get these opportunities to perform and collaborate with the community, we really want to be a part of that. And we're very lucky to be able to do these type of things and to work with other artists in the area. And yeah, so the dance program is very small and we just perform as the opportunities arise. So your last day, Adelaide's last name, I know we don't have the mic on, but... Meln. Yes, thank you Adelaide for doing this. We're very excited. Sophia Yurk. Sophia Yurk. Are you excited to perform at the festival? Yeah, wonderful. I can't wait to see it. We have auditions for additional people at Kayla's studio, Core Connections at one o'clock on this Saturday. So if you're out there and you really, really, really want to perform, I really would love to work with you too. So just let us know, just in case. It's a big world and we welcome everyone, right? Absolutely. Lacey, we do. So I'm just very excited about the Lacey Awards and she's like done with the camera right at the moment. Lacey, why don't you go down here? So we also, I was talking to Kayla about our special guests that are coming to the Star City Film Festival. We have the amazing stars of Days of Our Lives, Taylor Penglis and Steve Blackwood who were on, Taylor has been on Days of Our Lives for 40 years and he's coming to be our guest of honor, which is really cool. And Steve Blackwood and he worked for 10 years on Days of Our Lives together. So they were, I mean, like they have a cult following and we get to hang out with them and they get to come and encourage us and I invite you all to come to the Star City Film Festival on the red carpet and we also have a workshop. So if you're an actor or a dancer or a singer and you wanna come to see what it's like to work with the pros, they're gonna give us a pro workshop on Sunday, November 10th, November 10th starts on November 12th, excuse me, November 12th. Our workshop starts November 12th at one o'clock and you can sign up on the website which is sacrednoisesciety.org and you can come and hang out with us. Once again, this is Kayla Shetter. She has core connections. I encourage you to come be a part of Pilates classes. Yeah, Pilates, dance, acro. Pilates, dance and acro. And you guys have been with Kayla since 2018. Wow, she's pretty cool, isn't she? Well, when I was putting together this festival, once again, this is our sixth season of our festival, I thought I really wanna have very special red carpet and I wanna include all the arts and I want dance. And Kayla, you were the first person I thought of because I love working with you and you're extremely talented and I can see why you guys stick with Kayla because she's an amazing teacher and a killer performer, by the way. So there you go. We're really a very, I'm speaking for myself and I'm really grateful to be here at this wonderful television station. It's something that most people don't understand that this has been going for many, many years and it's publicly funded. And these two gentlemen that are here that's got me left and our wonderful camera guy, hi, he's awesome. They do this and they're very consistent and we thank you very much. I'm going to painting Jane my feature film be on this channel. We're gonna do it for free for the public. I wanna give that back because there's lots of people, it's on Amazon right now, my feature. But I want people in Sheboygan to be able to see it. It's an hour 35, I'm really proud of it. We shot a lot of it here and we're gonna also show it at the film festival but I want to stay tuned to this channel so you can see when we're gonna for free. So you don't have to buy it on Amazon for $2.99 to rent it or for $9.99 to buy it. But you should buy it for $9.99 to buy it. Painting Jane by Katie, all right, good. Where's Lacey? Oh, she's upstairs. My heart's racing. I can't breathe. Ooh, ooh, ooh. Gave it to me. She did. Sometimes life's not fair. Yeah, it was a fair job. Now I have to get going, okay? Okay, everything is fine, everything. Sit down. Thank you so much. I love you, Sheboygan. Come to the Star City Film Festival. Come watch these beautiful ladies dance. I'm gonna sing. I'm gonna do some live script reading and there's some killer, killer short films. So if you know of anyone who doesn't have the means to buy a ticket, you can also email me. I'm always willing to welcome volunteers who really wanna show up and be a part of it. So love you, Sheboygan. Bye, this is Katie O'Riggan from the Star City Film Festival, signing off.