 I'm your host Mariah Riggs, director of the Main Street Landing Performing Arts Center. This month I'm really excited to have Liam O'Connor-Generau here on the show with me. Hi Liam, welcome to the show. Hi Mariah, thank you for having me here. So just a little background, Liam is a local Vermont filmmaker who just made a remarkable film called The Butterfly Queen. And he just showed it at the film house and I was like, you have to come on my show because I really want to interrogate you about your film because it's so amazing. So but before we get into it, I would like to know a little bit more about you. Liam, you grew up in Vermont, where'd you grow up? So I grew up in the small town of South Rygate, Vermont, which is the bottom edge of the Northeast Kingdom. And I was actually born in a church, I was born at home in a church that my parents happened to be living in at the time. And then shortly afterwards moved into quite a large old dairy farm. So I was raised with a lot of space and acreage. I was homeschooled, so I spent a lot of time outside playing in the hay fields in the sugar bush. So my childhood is like a pretty idyllic, Vermont agrarian rural childhood. That's pretty great. Yeah, that's Rygate, that's the town of Rygate. So I have to, obviously, this is sort of the leap of faith. How does a child from South Rygate on a dairy farm end up making films? Yeah, that's always a wonderful question. Yeah, so it started when I was, oh man, this is a romantic story. Okay, so it started when I was like six years old. And I watched the movie Willow, which is... I love that film. It's a wonderful movie. Really, it's a really old movie. Now I know. Okay, no. And I watched the movie Willow, and I was just really excited by the fantasy and the storytelling of it. And I was like, oh, I want to tell a story. But I was like six. Willow used the wand. Yes. Yeah, exactly. Animals changing into other animals, it's all got all kinds of really fun stuff in it. Yeah, this small heroic person who has to carry the weight of the world. One of George Lucas' most underrated movies ever. That's true. I mean, him and Ron Howard created quite a remarkable film. It's really quite good. Yeah, and it does a lot of what Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings movies did a long time before Jackson actually did that. Well, Peter Jackson has said several times that Willow was one of the movies that like inspired him with Lord of the Rings. Yeah, okay, so there's a long history of solid inspiration with that film. And so then when I was eight, my parents got me like a little tiny camcorder. And I just started shooting like little videos with my siblings and friends. And though, you know, like we would tie a rope to a sled and tow it around with the car in the snow fields and film that and cut that together. And then a little stop motion stuff with Lego. Wait, wait, wait. Your first tracking shot was with a sled and a car? No, that was actually my first documentary was someone was standing next to the slide. We were riding in the slide being pulled around with a car. Wow, I love that. Okay. Yeah. So and there's actually an homage to that moment. That's kind of impressive. Camera craft for a smaller person. It is impressive. I've always been very, very impressive. So yeah, anyway, so then that just has really just snowballed from there. Honestly, I think you can draw a pretty direct continuum from when I was eight years old to right now is like I'm continuing to make movies with with my friends and the group of friends that I have has grown larger and we've all gotten more skillful as as the years have gone along. And I've just been making movies since I was eight and and they're they're better now. That's the story. One would hope. One would hope they're better now than when you were eight. But I have to say I love the idea of a sled moving around with the documentary. It sounds pretty awesome. Some day some day we'll have to get that as like the B roll on your DVD of the butterfly queen or the Blu-ray, you know, texture content kind of thing. It's on the drive somewhere. I can do that. So so that's really and you know, obviously, you know, that's another thing is like having the time to be able to get into those kinds of projects too as a kid. Yes. And having the time that definitely is a huge testament to my parents for providing me with that time and also to like sort of committing to homeschooling. So I really was I didn't have to spend time in a classroom and being able to explore what I was really passionate and interested in. I really had the opportunity to do that. And so that's something that I'm sort of eternally grateful for. Yeah. I mean, that's that's true. And so listen to that parents. Give your kid time to like become who they are. So so so so I'm just trying to get a sense of your journey here. You did end up. We both went to the same school. We both went to Emerson. Emerson alumni. Shout out. And there are many of us in Vermont, to be honest, which is a great place to land if you're in the media and film. And I'm just kind of wondering what brought you back? I mean, I know there again, there aren't many of us who come back to Vermont from there. What brought you back here? So I do think that for me, Emerson was more of the away than Vermont was the coming back. I was going to go to Emerson for a year. And then I went to Emerson after taking a gap year to go ski bum out in the Rockies. I went to Emerson with the honestly with the intention of finding some more people to make a movie with. And I did because there's a lot of people at Emerson who are trying to make movies. And so I actually cast and did a lot of the crewing for my first like proper feature Zephyr, which is about a band of thieves who have to become rock stars to escape the mob, which is like almost a rock opera. I like to pitch it as a rock opera because that's a really high flutin phrase. But it is a movie with some musicians in it that play music. And yeah, it was actually really, really, really fun to do and went to festivals in the whole circuit. But yeah, we came back and shot that in Vermont because that was sort of where I had the connections and the people who would let me have locations to film at. And so the team of like 11 folks, several of them, most of them from Emerson came and lived in my parents' barn for four or five week shoot in the summer of 2015. Yeah, 2015. Wow. And yeah, and I did not go back to Emerson after that. Yeah, why not? So yeah, because I was already making films. I was already making films. Yeah. And I get that. And I'm not, you know, maybe slightly more now, but certainly then I was not a very urbane person and I do not want to be in downtown Boston. Yeah. And for those of you who aren't aware, Emerson College literally surrounds the Boston Common. So the Quadra Angle of the school is like about as downtown Boston. It's not like you're out in like Brookline. You know, it's it's literally across from the state capital and the main you're literally looking at the Capitol Building from the main student center. So right Boylston Street. Yeah, it's pretty it's it's a really hopping place, like especially, you know, in such a vibrant city as Boston, Emerson is in like the beating downtown part right next to the theater district, right next to the Common. That can be hard. Yeah, it was definitely hard for me. I think the way I characterize it is that I didn't appreciate that in order to be alone. I had to go inside, which is sort of the the reverse of what growing up in the Northeast Kingdom was like. It's very counterintuitive for Vermonters. And you know, actually, I can very much appreciate that. Myself being a native Vermonter and ending up in that environment. Yeah, it's it's a huge and I grew up in a rural farm in Huntington, Vermont. OK, yeah. Home and my parents were hippies and I was home birth the whole nine yards. Is that OK? So let's never I know we haven't gotten into that. But just to throw that out there, I find that very entertaining. We'll talk about that later. OK, OK. So so this is interesting. And also, you know, and you're not the first person to talk to me about this, it's very easy to sometimes get your great or being awesome friends to Vermont. If you're like, hey, I'll set you guys up for a few months in the summer. Let's make a project. Yes, it's great strategy. Yeah. And I think that, yeah, that's something that that is particularly marketable about the state is that it's a great place to go for the summer and especially at a certain age, you know, certainly making Zephyr when I was like 20 and everybody else was like 19 or 20 and then also making the Butterfly Queen when we were during production, I was 26 and everyone else was at that age or a little bit younger. That's a great age to be like, I'll give you a place to stay in some food for summer. Sure, whatever. Let's go. And so, you know, so when did you create because Liam also has his own production company called Walrus Dice? And that's actually the website, www.walrusdice.com. If you want to find out more about Liam and the work that he's done. But I wanted to kind of ask you started a production company. Was that before you started making films or how did how did the production company come about because that's always an interesting story. So I started, well, like I said, I started making movies when I was eight. Yeah. And I officially I was definitely then I was like, I make movies. And I came up with the fray, the the the name, the business name, Walrus Dice Productions when I think I was 13 and I was making a film called Vermont Jones, which is an homage to Indiana Jones, but took place in Vermont. It was about yeah, it was about the these different groups of characters that were trying to hunt down the lost maple leaf, which were like provide unlimited maple syrup. And so like there's there's the one group of people that want it purely for historical, artifactorial reasons and the other group that wants it because they can sell all the maple syrup. And so yeah, very Indiana Jones classic. Yeah. And so for that, I was like, I need to have a got to have a production company at the front of this movie. And so I came up with Walrus Dice just sort of in a flash. And then as a very canny 13 year old, I give myself a lot of credit for this. I just looked it up on Google. I was like, Walrus Dice, no results whatsoever. And so I was like, oh, this is cool. So I've been using that ever since and and the the company and the like whatever the ethos and rhetoric behind it has sort of slowly evolved to be kind of this like, you know, very scrappy, very personal art that you make you make the very best and and aim for aim for a specific kind of production value, sort of no matter what resources you can actually bring to that. And that was really the ethos behind both Zephyr and the Butterfly Queen. We used to at Emerson, we used to call it combat production. I was like, it was kind of funny because like no matter what the world threw at you, whether it was weather or anything like that, we tried to reach a certain level of production and make it work with what we had. Yes, exactly. And that's, you know, that is that is sort of what you have to do. And I think that that, right, because when you watch a movie, you're oftentimes not going to get the context of how it was made. Nobody is going to be able to take you aside before or afterwards and say, oh, by the way, you know, they were really struggling at this point. So like cut them some slack, you know, you don't watch a movie and then say, no, it could have. I mean, it didn't look great, but I liked it anyway, right? You want to get lost in the vision, right? And lost in the fantasy, which, which I have to say, you know, I have only seen Butterfly Queen, but it does a remarkable job of transporting the viewer. Thank you. That's really, thank you for saying that. Yeah, in a very compelling way. So you get lost in the medium, you get lost in the picture, you go on this journey with your protagonists, not going to divulge too much. I'm going to let you do that, but you, but you get lost in their journey and you go on the journey with them. And, and so, you know, and sometimes, sometimes starting out filmmakers or smaller budget productions, sometimes the production gets in the way of the story. Yes. Yeah. And, and, and becomes almost like a separate character or character flaw, as you could suggest it. Yeah. And one of the things that I thought was so compelling about your work is that it's invisible and that and that the story just is and you get transported into this place. You go there, you go on this journey and you come out of it and you learn the lessons that I would hope you were trying to teach me, maybe not, but, but, but it is a fulfilled, it is a fulfilled craft and it's quite well done. Thank you. Yeah. And I think that that, you know, as backhanded as it might be, one of the, what I really like about the film is that the, the comments, any of the critiques that we've gotten on the film have been about the story, which means that we really succeeded in actually making like a quality film because nobody is getting lost in the, in the like, well, you know, I could tell it was shot at this point, you know, or like the costumes were inconsistent, you know. Did I mention your boom, Mike? You know, the classic low budget like situations like, you know, like there aren't huge inconsistencies. Like it seems like the missing scene is completely has an overarching theme that's consistent. Yeah. And the story, I mean, the beauty of like sort of the shots, the editing, the structure of it just completely supports the story. Yeah. So it isn't something that's divergent, which can be something. Yes. And I think, yeah, I mean, and that's a huge, a huge testament to all the work of all of the other people on the movie. Right. You know, like as we actually all know, right? It takes a village and yes. And so huge. Yeah. Huge shout out. And I kind of wanted to I'm going to actually go back to my things because we're really on a tangent here. I'm trying to. OK, so Walrus Dice, obviously it sounds like it almost was an organic process that happened with Zephyr and Butterfly Queen, sort of as a parallel to create your production and kind of bring it under an envelope. Yeah, together. And so I guess the other thing is, did you use did you did you use do you use a lot of the same crew, probably not cast, but I was saying a lot of the same crew for Zephyr as the Butterfly Queen? Some. OK. I wouldn't say a lot. No. Some of certainly some of the some of the key roles, like the director of photography was the same. Who's I would hope so. I mean, no, as a director, you can work with the D.P. That's really good. Then take with that. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, so the director of photography for both films is and who is is Whitaker Ingh-Bretzen, who is from Woodsville, New Hampshire, which is right next to Ryegate. And so we you grow up together. Yes, he's about 10 years older than me. So we started we met doing film slams when I was like 15 or so. Forty to our film competitions. And we were we were we were mortal enemies for a little bit. And then we joined forces and we've made so it's like it's like Robin Hood and Little John, like you guys never had the staff fight, but like it's kind of like that something. I think you'd really appreciate that analogy. Yes. And then there were a handful of other crew folks. And then. Yeah. And and other a lot of the Emerson folks did not transfer over from Zephyr to the Butterfly Queen, because most of them have gone their separate ways that none of them were really tied to Vermont to begin with. And so more of the continuous element has been the the Vermont and our friends that I've done like short films with over over the course of time, which I find very, very interesting. So I kind of want to get into that a little bit because, you know, and I kind of want to get into this to a little bit is you've kind of come out of this place in Vermont. And I find part of what you're doing incredibly exciting because Vermont, you know, we have filmmakers, but we don't produce a lot of homegrown filmmakers and the fact that the crew has kind of come out of like your upbringing and you guys have like kind of created your own crew together and kind of come up together, I find really fascinating. And it's it kind of ties into the Vermont homegrown ethos, if you will. And I find that really fascinating that you all kind of came up together and now you're making these fabulous films, which is I hate to say, probably in some ways, how Vermont film has to kind of. Yeah, come up. Yeah, I would say that filmmaking in Vermont will not to not to speak to everyone, there are plenty of filmmakers in the state. But I do think that one of the one of the things about Vermont is that there are not very many Vermonters. And so anything that requires an economy of scale, which generally film production does is has to be performed differently in the state. But that's true of like all of basically any of the economic industries that happen in Vermont, like farming in the state only works at a smaller scale, because an industrialized farm. Doesn't really exist here. And that's that's a whole issue of agriculture itself. Yeah, but yeah. So so I think being able to produce produce films in Vermont requires a lot of us the same aesthetic and ethos and thought process as like having a family farm in the state and you do everything yourself, you do do everything yourself. Yeah, very similar to farming. Well, and also, you know, you come out of that where like, you know, it's like, I hate to say the Yankee ingenuity spirit, but the fact that no, but it really is. It's it's actual thing where like you do everything yourself. Yes, you know, there's like a renaissance man person, you know, kind of thought where you kind of do everything. You wear a lot of hats. You're able to like produce things. You work as a team, right? Because film is a collaborative effort. Yes, exactly. Yeah. And especially, yeah, like with I mean, with the Butterfly Queen, I wore a ton of hats and then my producer slash art director, Shauna Testa, wore like many, many more hats. Right. So like post production was just us going out and shooting all the pickups ourselves and then cutting it together. Shauna did the color grade. We edited it together. I did the sound mixing. And so, yeah, as a two person, basically, once we wrapped principle, it was two people who did almost the rest of the movie. So really, two people did in the entirety of the post production? Yeah. So we had a couple of composers, one main composer and then another composer. So I was going to ask about the soundtrack. Yeah. So the music was done. You're not John Carpenter. No, no, the music was done. The music was really two, two actually Burlington based composers, one, Demetrios, Capricornitis, who's originally from the Northeast Kingdom, but is in Burlington now did the score and worked on the film for years and years and like was involved in the process since, you know, before the pandemic. And then a local producer, a DJ named Tusev did one of we've got an EDM track in the movie that that he did as well. Oh, yeah, I kind of think that's exactly what you're talking about. OK, yeah. So so like really cool, local Burlington talent making the music. So this is a great time to get into the timeline. So, you know, I wanted to ask, too, how did you come up with the plot for the Butterfly Queen? Oh, boy. OK, so the like briefly overview the what the plot of the Butterfly Queen is. So the Butterfly Queen is a queer, rural fantasy adventure about a non-binary sheep farmer slash cartoonist and their vagabond best friend who have to they kind of get stuck in the Butterfly Queen's nightmare dimension and have to steal back a sketchbook in order to in order to get back home and sort of fulfill a variety of other things that are going on in their lives. And so really the themes are friendship and loss and forgiveness and like acknowledging who you are as a person and trying to do that for other people as well. And my goal with the story was to try to tell a try to tell a love story about friendship as opposed to a love story about romantic love. So really like this platonic kind of this is what. You know, drawing again from most of my own experiences. This is like the hard the hard and difficult parts of having a best friend and the fact that it requires continual work and how rewarding it is. Yeah. And while at the same time, being fantasy with dragons and swords and monsters and which which we all wish we could have those experiences in our own friendships. Yeah, because you know it's just going to make you better friends. Exactly. Well, yeah, being able to bring right, we all feel like we have those moments in life that are heightened. But being able to do that like and really push it with a movie is pretty cool in a fancical world and against an existential crisis like a butterfly queen. Yes, exactly. Exactly. And so where the story actually came from, yeah, that's that's that's the genesis. And so and so you were developing this script in the plot and around. I mean, when was this 20, 2018, 2019, 2017 when I started writing it? Yeah. So just another time. Just so you know, when you make a really fabulous movie, like the butterfly queen, we are talking about years of work. That's true. Yeah. And that's a real thing. And that's a real testament to you doing, you know, the adequate work to make it work. Yeah. And it does, especially when you don't have, you know, all the money to throw at it, you end up having to just use time, especially when you are doing so many things yourself. Yeah. So I guess a real brief timeline to start writing it in 2017 and wrote through 2018 and was going to try to shoot it in 2019, but couldn't I couldn't really get quite the people together. And also the story wasn't quite there. So at some point in 2019, I was like, OK, we'll shoot it in 2020 and then really started to do pre-production and cast and get a crew together in the fall of 2019. Oh, no. Yeah. You can see where this is going. And then we had a team pretty well together going into March of 2020. And then it became clear that trying to shoot the whole movie summer of 2020 was not a good idea at all. So we did end up filming for a week in 2020, just like a couple of scenes, you know, everybody coming from out of state quarantined and we had masks and continual testing and did the whole thing. Well, temperature checks because we didn't have tests at that point. Right. And or like easy ones. Anyway, so then we really delved back into pre-production to get the artistic look of the film up to a higher level. And that's that's when Shana Tess actually took on the role of art director and we had like 20 people join the art department. And so, yeah, well, because the movie is really art heavy. Is yeah, there's costumes and there's props and there's sets. And there's, yeah. So we hired a bunch of people to do that. Yes. Your characters are not in Kansas anymore. No, there's a pretty severe non kids anymore. Yeah. So and it's actually probably great. I mean, maybe that was a wonderful organic moment that allowed you to really get deep into the creative process. It was really, really cool. And so then we did end up shooting it in 2021 after another eight months or so of pre-pro, which really helped. And how did you do the casting? So the our lead character, Casey, the cartoonist farmer is a friend of mine from Emerson, actually, who I worked with on Zephyr. They were they were one of the characters in Zephyr. And I thought they were really good. They're a really good actor and Casey full name, Casey. So Cade Pintoto is the name of the actor. Thank you, Cade Pintoto. And so I approached them and they're non binary. And I was like, do you want to play at this point in the script writing process? Like I had like purposefully left pronouns out of the script. So there wasn't any gender in the movie at all. And so I was like, Cade, do you want to play this sheep farmer slash cartoonist? And they were like, that sounds really cool. Just you want to lead this fantasy film? And they were like, yeah. So then Casey became a non binary character because being played by a non binary actor. And then after that, casting the other main leads, we only have like a very small number of lead actors. We ended up casting through backstage.com, which for all of you watching at home is Craigslist for actors. It's an online database where you as an actor can create a profile and then as a casting director or just regular old director, you can be like, this is the kind of character I'm looking for. And then people submit and you can review back and forth. And by the way, if any of you are looking to step into the acting field in that particular way, that is one way to get into it. It really is. Yeah, I mean, and we had a lot of people audition. And yeah, we saw some really, really good actors and eventually narrowed it down through this iterative casting process. Yeah, because it's not a huge cast. No, it's not. Yeah, but we were able to find our leads that way. And so and then some of the smaller parts are played by like local community theater actors that I knew growing up. Yeah. And actually, Vermont has an incredible community actor resource. It really does. I would say that is something that it's not that hard to find in Vermont is actors. There are actors here. Yes, certainly character actors. Like that look great on film. Yes. And I always just like I go to plays. I mean, I do a lot of theatrical stuff and I'm just like, wow, it looks so good on film. Right. Yes. Just like these really articulate faces and like you can do the shadow and the lighting and it just works, which you did a great job with lighting. I mean, so and not to get too into the minutiae, but did you do most of the lighting yourself or did you have like a lead gaffer? I mean, how did you guys? A lot of natural light, I think, but then there was a lot of interesting light. And there's a lot. And I think there's there's less natural light than it looks like, too. So props to the lighting team. Yeah, brought it. Yeah. Yeah. So a lot of the lighting was spearheaded by Whitaker, who's the director of photography. And then we had a gaffer, Jason Smith, who was there for almost the entire production and then a G&E department of another two or three people at any given time. Yeah. And so it was and we rented. Which explains why it looks so good. Well, yeah, we rented some pretty serious gear. Yeah, it sounds like it. And yeah, it was. So what did you shoot on? I'm just kind of curious. What was the film shot on? So it's shot on the Ursa Mini, which is a black magic. Black magic camera. For people who don't know. Yeah, the Ursa Mini is. The Ursa Mini is a, oh, man. The black magic Ursa Mini is a cinema camera, cinema slash, it is a digital camera. And we shot in 4.6K, which is pretty big. And then that allowed us to actually zoom, punch in just a little bit on some shots so that the final movie is in 4K, which is still pretty big. And yeah, what's special about black magic's cameras is that they have a really large dynamic range, so they can capture a lot of color information across sort of a range of lighting situations. And then it's really, black magic has a software that makes it really powerful to then edit the colors of that video, which is what we were able to do with the butterfly queen. So you could punch stuff in post-production. Yes, make it look pretty spicy. Yeah, which, by the way, I noticed, and I was wondering how you did that. So that was a post-production, and that makes sense that that camera allows you to utilize that and make it work. Yeah. That's so interesting. I'm thank you, because I was curious about that. Cool. And then, so I'm gonna kind of, so we kind of talked about it, but what are the challenges for producing a full-length family of sea film in rural Vermont? Hmm, okay. So the main challenges are that it is remote, right? So it takes a long time to get to anywhere else if there's something that you need. So we did have a couple of points where equipment broke on set, where we like ran out of a supply and we needed to resupply. And so that, you know, just the calculus of how far you're gonna have to send someone to get stuff to replace the thing is a lot harder in rural Vermont. So logistical challenges. Yeah, no, like really intermittent cell service, which makes it really hard to negotiate and move everyone around, logistics are hard. And the weather was a nightmare. It rained almost the entire shoot, which made it very difficult to work with. Water and cameras don't mix. Yeah, exactly. And it was cold and, you know, we had a lot of vehicles. We ended up using, really glad we were shooting on my parents' farm, because we got to use a lot of tractors and hay wagons and materials like that. And I think that, but I think the flip side of that is that the remoteness and the smallness of the community means that there was a lot of buy-in. There was a lot of like really excited people in the immediate area who wanted to make this movie real. And that's like most tangibly obvious in that we were able to get housing for everybody who was coming from out of town in neighbors like bedrooms and spare rooms and houses. And that was just fantastic. That is wonderful. So thank you. Thank you to your local community. Thank you. And that's such a Vermont resource, right? Yeah, exactly. Because people always tell me, oh, you can't make film in Vermont. It's too difficult, blah, blah, blah. We do need to work on the supports for filmmaking in Vermont. Yes. That's a whole nother interview. We're not getting into that. I want to talk quickly too, and I want to let our audience know how do people go out and see the Butterfly Queen? You've been all over Vermont, but how does one go see it in the next couple months? Okay, so. Yep. Three parts to that question. I will start with the first one. So you can watch it most immediately at the Vermont Sci-Fi and Fantasy Film Expo, which is the last two days of April, the 29th and 30th at the Champlain Valley Expo, which is an Essex Junction. So we're there as part of the convention. We'll be tabling and selling merchandise and talking about the film for two days, and it's playing at one o'clock, both Saturday and Sunday. So that's where you can just watch it in person. Go see it. Yes, definitely come watch it. We will be releasing it, the plan is to release it online before the end of the year, so it'll be available for streaming before the end of 2023. And we're also doing, we're continuing to screen at festivals throughout the country, and we're planning a college tour, a national college tour for the fall. Congratulations. Yes, thank you very much. So that's, yeah. And what's next for you? This is a wonderful question. Continuing to make movies is what's next. Yeah, like, again, Sean and my producing partner and I are talking about what the next project is gonna be. We don't have anything concrete yet. We're still working on promoting this movie and getting it. That's the thing, like we finished the movie almost a year ago, but it takes a long time to keep seeing the project out. And you've created, I wanna congratulate you two not only on making a seller film, but doing a remarkable job on outreach and marketing. Thank you. And getting your film out there. That's half the battle. It is exactly half the battle. And most people going to film don't realize that. Liam, thank you so much for making a fabulous film and being on our show. I can't tell you how proud I am and I'm so glad you're making films in Vermont. So thank you. Thank you everybody for watching. And we'll see you right back here next month. Take care. Bye. She can make you think things. What? Who? The Queen. You want your home back? Don't look at me. She was your best friend. Casey, let's just go. Looks like a train. That's freaking weird. There's different rules in here.