 Hello everyone, I'm James Milan, welcome to this ACMI special. If you watch ACMI at all, you know that we've got a soft spot in our hearts for local filmmakers and for their work. And we are here with three members of a local film crew, production crew, I should say. And to talk about their latest production, and they brought everybody that we need to know along with them. So seated next to me, and welcome to all three of you of course, but seated next to me is Greg Hill, who is the director, the filmmaker for Gracie of the Ale Wife. And right next to Greg is actually one of the pivotal folks in the film. That's Jethro. Hello Jethro. Hello. Let's be here. Glad to be here. Yes, really glad you could make the time and get away from the river long enough to be here. Well you know, it was, I was a, I just tell you it was like out there with my best friend Jasper, well I might have been Otis, but we were, yeah it was a Sunday we should have gone to choir practice we knew, but we were out there and you know, had a couple of beers and threw the line in there and the next thing we knew we had caught the spirit of it. Yeah, so you're getting ahead of me a little bit there Jethro, because you know, people are going to be wondering, who the heck is that? That was week one or two. None other than Gracie. Yeah, that must have been your first thought as well I would think and of course, anybody as fierce as Gracie we need a handler for of course and that's Rhododendrum over there. Yes, I'm Rhododendrum. And she originated from a culvert in the A.L.W.I.T.E. Gracie? Incidentally, this is really not, this production was from 2016 and we just finally finished post-production on that. That sounds like you know some other local filmmakers we know. In fact, that's a timeline we're familiar with here at ACMI in fact. So let me just first of all find out, I mean how on earth did this exotic creature get here? So what is the, what was the inspiration, what was the genesis for this project? Well actually it was the genesis of our friend Bob and his notes he gave me, Gracie of the A.L.W.I.T.E. came to be because I had a broken post hole digger and some long black tubing. No. Seeing them together in my backyard I thought the double shovel of the post hole digger would fit in the tubing. It fit and it looked like a giant snake. Since I live along the A.L.W.I.T.E. for love monster movies the 50s and 60s and knowing that Grace Chemical had polluted the A.L.W.I.T.E. for generation it was fitting to have something like Gracie appear out of the book. Alright well clearly Jethro and Rhoda have something to say about that because I mean Bob made it sound like oh well it just kind of happened but you must feel like there's more there's more fate in it than that. We saw this creature going down to A.L.W.I.T.E. Creek and we somehow snagged, I can't remember now exactly every detail, Jaspers got it snagged it up there. We did have some trouble arguing about what we should do with it. He wanted to take it and sell it down at the fish market and I said let's take it to the what do you call it the anthropology museum and maybe we could sell it there and people could you know maybe give us donate some money you know we could talk about it but after that I don't know what happened. We woke up and the thing was slid her off anyway. Is that right? So suddenly you fell asleep in the middle of all that? Yeah so it sounds like a little something fishy going on there but just kidding Rhoda if I can just ask you I mean how how what's it like to you know be mainly responsible for this creature's well-being but also you know keep it from scaring the heck out of other people. Oh she's a good old gal she just likes to eat little fishies and a little mices and you know I just keep her in a little fish tank right there at the outside the aquarium and she's just just got a lovely life right now. You do have mousetraps here James. Yes we are we are we are all set so we should have warned you ahead of time. Alright and she doesn't mind being too this far away from from the alewife at the moment? For now she's fine as long as we keep her well fed and sedative and sedative. Please make sure that you do. Yes. Of course she was originally detected as you'll see in the clip she was originally detected by the scientist from Gracie with his detector. Aha. You'll see that in the clip. Alright so I think you know if we're going to talk too much more about this I think we kind of need to bring everybody up to speed a little bit. Hello there partner. Any luck fishing? Oh yeah a little bit here and there enough to you know to fetch dinner is about it. Enough to fetch dinner you said? That's what I said. Have you? Hey. Go ahead. Have you caught any strange fish from the street? I'll tell you I caught me a ten full the size of a sea turtle the other day. All scaly green eyes and all kinds of strange things it was in out of his ears. A tadpole the size of a sea turtle with green eyes and strange things. I've seen things in here you wouldn't mind. All floating around scurrying and snaking around coming out of that pipe right there too. Coming out of that pipe. That's what I said. I heard what you said. Alright. Well have a good day there Mr. Dr. Scientist man. Tetrahydrozone levels are rising. Acetate. Multiforolone. Zone. Increasing. Polyhydrolyte. Discombobulating. These fellas come for miles around to eat their exotic flavors. Yeah but I can't go when they get one out of a bunch of money out of that. $500 worth of fish in here I bet. I'm telling you we sell them to the Peabot Air Pot and Fisherman Museum. We can get more money than we can ever do what to do with. I don't think, they just give you a little brass plaque. You don't get no kind of money they just donate. What we do is we tell them and we know where there's a hell of a lot more so they better keep feeding us. We don't? What we don't? They don't know that. That's not a fair trade. I don't think our mother would want us to be going through the world like that. We just sell the damn fish for poundage. Like our ancestors of old. Monster he's probably over there right now. You saw two creepy guys with the monster. I want to go talk to these men. I want to go over there. In the river where she's along. Yeah that's right. Small vegetation growth. Large vegetation growth. Floral growth. Small fauna. What is that? I would say that clears everything up right there right? Doesn't it audience? That's what happens. So let's talk a little bit. Take a half step back if we can. Just talk about this project. It's the product of your guys collective efforts and obviously some other cast members as well. Oh yes. And we know from Bob Smith's own words where the idea came from. But tell us about how it is that you approach making this film and the others that you have made in the past as well. Well we just come up with these ideas and some of us have characters like Jethro here has played Dr. Elliott Loch Ness, Paranormal Investigator in The Maltese Toad and also in The Haunting of Powder House, which was one we did a few years ago. And Rhoda here has played a number of different characters. We're a repertory. And we bounce ideas off one another and we shoot, do a lot of the shoots along the ale life. The river seems to be a constant theme in our work. In Powder House Park? Yes. And Nick has done quite a bit of, excuse me, Jethro has done a lot of, who? Who's this Nick guy you can talk about? Jethro has done a lot of repertory in the greater Boston area. I think he's played, how many pirate roles have you played? You do have that kind of voice. Way back in the olden days. Come out here. 74, you could not not get a part in a play. There's so many theater companies walk in. Yeah, you're right. Everybody's had a truck company going. Yeah, so we may ask you, Jethro, to channel this Nick person who apparently may have had, may be having a full-on acting career of some sort. He's pretty muddy, but he's in there somewhere. Another part of a repertory is this Nick character. Sort of like Nick Danger. Only Nick more dangerous. Okay, so you're saying that your repertory group, how large is the group? I know the name of the troop is Sunnyside Players. And so just tell us a little bit how long has that been in existence? How many members are in there? How consistent has it been over time? All those kinds of things. Well, we kind of met at a cooperative gallery in Inman Square probably in the early 90s. 93. 93, yeah. And we just kind of goof around and make jokes. So we've kind of been friends ever since in a weird way. And we just hang out and make stuff up. So there you go, from Piano Dave's. The establishment you were just referencing, right? Brought you guys together. And Totem Creation was one of the hallmarks of Piano Dave's. There was one out in front of Piano Dave's. There are Totems in Gracie. And we've also been involved in the creation of Totems in the sculpture garden. Free range sculpture garden which is along the Minuteman bike path outside Davis Square, Somerville. And the Totems are originally ship parts from the Charlestown Navy yard. They're those molds for the sand casting. And so while we were over at Piano Dave's they got a hold of a bunch of them and started to create Totems out of them. Like bare sculptures and eagle sculptures and all kinds of Totems. And one time we even put one out in Cambridge on the common. And one of our dear deceased friends unfortunately, well, we won't talk about that part. He put a note on it saying that this was a gift from the indigenous people. And it stayed out on the Cambridge Common for a while. You got confiscated, so who knows where? We always thought, I can't remember who was the governor then back then. But it was like to imagine that it was in his patio there somehow. Converscated. Was it Dukakis or was it? So that goes all the way back that far. That's a good long while. So it's just kind of, you know, a lot of it's just for fun. And just certain silly things that we've done for fun. Yeah, they take on characters and just after a while they come in. They move around, they get stolen, they reappear, it's very strange. We have about seven or eight members of the repertory. Marcus Netsche, is that how you pronounce Marcus's lab? Yeah. He's been one of our character actors. And of course Bob also has played, Bob plays the gamekeeper in Gracie. Kyoko and... Our friend Kyoko Ono has been in the Maltese... No, that's her real name. She's in both the Alewife Library and the Maltese Toad, which are in post-production right now. And it sounds to me like from those titles, and just even looking at the trailer for Gracie here, that you guys have an appreciation for film history and for genres and for playing with those genres and for adapting them to the things that you want to do. Is that, again, how much of this has just kind of come about from you, as you said before, you've just been having fun together for a long time? Yeah. And how much of it was a vision that you had? Has there ever been a plan, I guess? I think a lot of it comes out the fact that Piano Dave's gallery was a cooperative and our productions are basically cooperative. Cooperatively created. We all collaborate in the productions. I may have been the director and camera operator for Gracie of the Alewife, but it was really everybody piling on with their ideas and their own improvisations of their various characters. And you can't help but be influenced by, you know, Jonathan Winters. That probably doesn't come through on this, but what is it? Monty Python or something like that. George Carlin, some of our influences. Gilda Radner, Sophie Sales. Bob Newhart. Yes, I'm detecting a theme here. You can't help it. And you know, some of it's kind of confusing for other people, but we just kind of, I think, get a kick out of feeding off each other. You can edit this out later, but I think somebody, after watching one of our things, says, this is just an in-joke. That's probably a very valid criticism there. Right, but I mean, all the three of you have been in from the get-go, right? So just tell me a little bit about what it is that this does for you guys. This work together. Unpredictable and fun. It's funny, and then you're just kind of improvising feed off of each other. We expect the unexpected. I think the favorite skit is in the shack that the Maltese Toad, where I'm his secretary, and we're literally shoulder-to-shoulder, but I keep on calling him on the phone. And of course I'm whiny and high-pitched, but we keep on calling each other on the phone. Get on line one, and then he'll start rambling, and I'll say, no, we've got a customer. And we keep on messing it up. Both at the Wife Library and the Maltese Toad will hopefully come out of post-production this fall, and maybe you might be screening them here at... And if not, just some wacky scenes. We don't want to hog the studio, but then again... So how does it get made like logistically and technically? How do you make these? Because you need equipment, you need some facilities or resources, right? We have a Panasonic camcorder. We have access to a shack along the Ale Wife, which we dubbed the Love Shack. It's more like the Wack Shack. It's a character in itself. It's a character in itself? It's a library once, so it's a paranormal research center next time. But the funny thing, I think it's funny, is that Rotor Dentress is a character that just seems to be making all these lateral advancements. She's the secretary there. She doesn't care what is going on there. Librarian. Getting paid is another hack job. And one of them doesn't even have resources. I think there's ants coming out of this thing. Above all, we're... We're going to be wrapping up sooner than we thought maybe if there's ants coming out of there. Above all, we are an improv, and we play off each other. There's some common themes, but it's having a lot of fun, but also poking some good satire at themes. Right. And in this case, tell us about the aim. What were you targeting here with Gracie? Well, the fact that the Grace chemical had been polluting the Ale Wife for years, and then our friend Bob had come up with this creature, we decided to put two and two together because we all... We noticed there was a culvert in the Ale Wife, you know, and that was... Chemical mutant. Yeah. And of course, you see the scientist in the film with his detector and his lab coat and he's looking like Gyro Guerlose. And that was part of it, too. And he actually... Marcus has actually extended his stay as a scientist in the Maltese Toad and the Ale Wife Libraries. And it's very weird and it doesn't make any sense. Okay, so there's no... There aren't overarching, you know, messages or goals that you're aiming for as much as you really are having a good time. Yeah. You choose the context in which you're going to do that. Any messages are just incidental. Yeah. I mean, like one of the focuses on this toad that's a mystery. Yeah. And then the other one was the library and there's just no resources like the librarian gets a donation of a phone that's a dial and she's like, oh, great, how am I going to press pound? Yeah. I mean, we've got to have a skeletal script that's funny though, how it all just puts stuff just starts forming around that. Future productions may feature a pirate play of Jethro's and maybe a production involving Vikings. The Viking ghost that land on the Ale Wife and come out and want to turn our shack into a Viking house. So clearly you're guys creative. The wheels are still spinning. Oh, God, yes. You can imagine more projects going forward, of course. There'll never be lack of projects. And how much, in general, how much time or how big a part of your lives is this work that you do together or this play that you do together? I've got a full-time job. I'm a retiree. It takes a while to get us all to coordinate a lot of times. Yeah. It's always tough to get people together. To find the time. I mean, it's not our BO end all, but it's our... We just hope it's not going to be our end. And to the extent that you think or want there to be an audience for this, who is that? I mean, it sounds like something... Good question. That it's like you've been accused of it being an in-joke, etc. Clearly, you're having a good time yourself so we can assume that you guys are enjoying it. Yes. I'll confess my two older sons watch it, but they find it amusing for all the wrong reasons. Gracie up on YouTube does have 186 hits now. Or views. So, clearly, somebody's watching it. I don't know how much of. Right, but again, how much does that figure in for you guys, if at all? How important is it for us to have an audience? Yeah. I'd say very important because we do it not just for ourselves, but for the creative. We're trying to create something that people will enjoy and get a kick out of. And do you have opportunities to present the films in a setting in which you can invite the audience in and have them be there and see their reactions, talk to them afterwards? Well, this may be the beginning of it. You have opened a Pandora's Box there, James. We did a few scat. We were actually on Public Access TV where it was the Branco-Cranco show, one of my characters. And I had them on. And you were mentioning Somerville? Yes. Somerville's Media Center, yep. I know her friend who has a gallery. He has to get his license back again. Then he wants to have like a film festival. Yeah, the Outpost 186. Yeah, because again, I think, you know, you guys are putting something into this and again, getting something out of it, but also wouldn't it be nice to just kind of see if it connects and how it connects to other people in real time instead of kind of hearing about it? Yeah. So hopefully either, you know, in collaboration with us, Somerville, some combination, you know, that can be part of the future too, right? Right, yeah. Anything, we, half an hour has gone like that. It is. So we need to be wrapping up. But what else should folks out there know about Gracie and the Owl Wife or Sunnyside Players or anything else? You are invited to fill up the next two or three minutes in whatever way you'd like. Well, just that we have had some previous productions. A couple of them are on YouTube, but we really have to get our YouTube channel better organized. And we do have the Maltese Toad and the Owl Wife Library, which have been filmed. And it's up to moi to, you know, finish up the editing. We just had a review of the footage, the video footage in Arlington last week to see what clips we wanted to keep and what clips we wanted to not use. So Arlington, you'll be seeing more of us, like it or not. The unnameable first thing we did, I think all of us, I always see the way that they would be tied together, because a lot of the humor would be, oh, there's that character again. They're not that different anyway. But I think that's even part of it, too. Yeah, it is part of it. That guy, yeah. He plays the same character, which is obnoxious, and then we just kind of play sort of different characters. So make sure that Gracie doesn't sneak away back into the culvert. Fair enough. Well, she's going back into her tank. She's going back into her tank. She's got a firm hand on her from what I can see. Well, because she's a product of the chemicals, and she's a mutant. And, you know, just keep her entertained. She's very well behaved as long as you keep feeding her. As long as the river rats don't get a hold of her and try to sell her off to the Peabody Sherman Museum. The mother and daughter threw her back in the river. I forgot about that. Well, because they cared about her. That was an act of charity. Yes. Well, they cared about her. All right. Yeah. I am sorry to say the time is up. We are going to just thank our guests at this point. I have been speaking to three members of the Sunnyside players. Greg Hill, of course, has been, is going to soon edit the rest of the other two films, but he has clearly completed his work with Gracie. I'm doomed. I'm doomed. Jethro. I'm doomed. Slash Nick. Thank you very much for being here. Thanks for having me. And, of course, Rhododendron. You know, in other circumstances, known as Martha Whitman, perhaps. Yes. Rhododendron's my stage name. Well, there you go. Really appreciate you guys taking the time to be with us today. Thank you, James. Clearly, this is a fun project. It is showing on ACMI's channels. And please enjoy and let these guys know once you do. I've been speaking with these three Sunnyside players. I'm James Milan. This has been an ACMI local filmmaking special. Thanks for joining us. See you next time. Thank you, Arlington. Thank you.