WEBVTT - Video Stores III: Vidiots 0:00:01.840 --> 0:00:06.600 Ephemeral is a production of iHeart three D Audio For. 0:00:06.600 --> 0:00:14.520 Full exposure, listen with that phones. Last year, we ran 0:00:14.560 --> 0:00:18.360 a series of episodes on the history and cultural significance 0:00:18.480 --> 0:00:22.400 of video rental stores. In that series, we name drop 0:00:22.440 --> 0:00:25.720 a number of iconic locations, one of which is the 0:00:25.800 --> 0:00:30.600 Los Angeles based Vidiots. For decades, Vidiots has been an 0:00:30.600 --> 0:00:35.199 institution in Southern California's film community. It's also one of 0:00:35.240 --> 0:00:38.479 the only female owned and operated video stores into country, 0:00:39.400 --> 0:00:42.680 but due to the same struggles plaguing video stores nationwide, 0:00:43.159 --> 0:00:47.720 it shuttered its doors in twenty seventeen. However, the Vidiots 0:00:47.760 --> 0:00:51.840 team is hard at work planning a rebirth. They're nearly 0:00:51.880 --> 0:00:55.120 ready to open their new location in Los Angeles along 0:00:55.120 --> 0:00:59.680 with a restored neighborhood movie theater. So Today producer Trevor 0:00:59.680 --> 0:01:02.760 Young Ray turns to chronicle the journey of one of 0:01:02.800 --> 0:01:05.080 the country's most important video stores. 0:01:10.640 --> 0:01:13.920 As I mentioned in our series last year, video stores 0:01:14.080 --> 0:01:18.120 were instrumental in my upbringing. Without those spaces and the 0:01:18.160 --> 0:01:20.840 people in them, I wouldn't have a fraction of the 0:01:20.840 --> 0:01:23.800 love or knowledge of film that I have today. And 0:01:23.880 --> 0:01:25.560 I'm not alone in that experience. 0:01:27.080 --> 0:01:33.080 They're fucking fun They're inspiring. Who really truly wants to 0:01:33.120 --> 0:01:37.959 sit at home and never talk with another person about 0:01:38.000 --> 0:01:41.399 the thing that you love. I'm Maggie McKay. I'm the 0:01:41.440 --> 0:01:43.360 executive director of Vidiots Foundation. 0:01:44.880 --> 0:01:49.160 Maggie is the main person responsible for reviving Vidiots. She 0:01:49.200 --> 0:01:52.840 says physical media spaces like vidiots are more important now 0:01:53.080 --> 0:01:54.000 than ever before. 0:01:55.240 --> 0:01:58.240 All you have to do to make people realize they 0:01:58.280 --> 0:02:01.520 miss something is give them a taste of it. Record 0:02:01.520 --> 0:02:05.400 stores are a perfect example. New bookstores are cropping up 0:02:05.400 --> 0:02:08.680 now too. I've been trying to explain to my twelve 0:02:08.720 --> 0:02:12.359 and nine year old how much fun life was when 0:02:12.400 --> 0:02:15.600 we were growing up, and we sincerely took it for granted. 0:02:16.240 --> 0:02:18.520 I'm not a mall kid. I was never a mall kid, 0:02:18.840 --> 0:02:23.160 but we were not sitting at home on a device. 0:02:23.919 --> 0:02:26.360 I'm not saying that as an old lady. I'm not 0:02:26.400 --> 0:02:29.840 doing the like in my day. It was just more fun. 0:02:30.520 --> 0:02:32.960 All you have to do is give that back to 0:02:33.040 --> 0:02:35.880 people in some way, and they gobble it up. 0:02:37.280 --> 0:02:40.600 Like me. Maggie says her passion for video stores started 0:02:40.639 --> 0:02:41.800 when she was very young. 0:02:43.760 --> 0:02:46.680 I mean, I grew up in Lower Manhattan in Soho 0:02:46.840 --> 0:02:49.880 before it turned into a high end shopping mall for 0:02:49.919 --> 0:02:54.160 the one percent, and when I was growing up was scrappy. 0:02:54.400 --> 0:02:57.720 It was a little scary down there. We didn't have 0:02:58.160 --> 0:03:03.320 a ton of freedom. There definitely were limitations, especially after dark. 0:03:03.720 --> 0:03:05.840 But there was this video store. It opened across the 0:03:05.880 --> 0:03:09.079 street from my house. The long gone but much beloved 0:03:09.200 --> 0:03:11.960 Rare Bird video. Of anybody in the world remembers Rare 0:03:12.000 --> 0:03:16.200 Bird video. I would love somebody to contact me and 0:03:16.400 --> 0:03:19.399 reminisce with me. I was also really lucky. I had 0:03:19.520 --> 0:03:22.800 movie theaters that were not that far away. I could 0:03:22.880 --> 0:03:25.280 like take a long walk or go a couple subway 0:03:25.320 --> 0:03:27.840 stops and get to a movie theater. But the video 0:03:27.840 --> 0:03:30.120 store was really the thing. Because I had agency in 0:03:30.160 --> 0:03:33.160 a video store, I could go by myself. My clerks 0:03:33.200 --> 0:03:36.520 at Rare Bird were not like the most like kid friendly, 0:03:36.920 --> 0:03:39.880 but they tolerated my bulkkit and I just would hang 0:03:39.920 --> 0:03:43.120 out for hours on end, and between that and access 0:03:43.120 --> 0:03:46.520 to movie theaters, I was able to sort of find 0:03:46.560 --> 0:03:50.000 myself some freedom and a hobby and an interest that 0:03:50.160 --> 0:03:53.640 obviously led me down a lifelong path and gave me 0:03:53.680 --> 0:04:00.120 a job. So I came into the videos universe in 0:04:00.120 --> 0:04:04.680 twenty sixteen. I was long employed as a film festival 0:04:04.720 --> 0:04:09.400 programmer and have always been pretty deep into the nonprofit 0:04:09.560 --> 0:04:13.520 film exhibition space, film festivals and anything I could do 0:04:13.600 --> 0:04:17.160 to connect an audience to a film and its maker. 0:04:17.839 --> 0:04:21.560 And I had always known about Vidiots because Vidiots was 0:04:21.680 --> 0:04:25.000 like a shining star in the history of la and 0:04:25.200 --> 0:04:27.400 it was one of the first places I sort of 0:04:27.400 --> 0:04:30.119 pilgrimage too, because I'd always really kind of lived closer 0:04:30.160 --> 0:04:32.839 to the East Side. It was exactly the kind of 0:04:32.920 --> 0:04:35.520 place that made me fall in love with film when 0:04:35.520 --> 0:04:38.320 I was younger, and a few people knew that I 0:04:38.480 --> 0:04:41.039 was getting restless in the job I was in and 0:04:41.080 --> 0:04:43.840 then I wanted to change, and those people connected me 0:04:43.880 --> 0:04:46.840 to Vidiots. And the first time I walked into Vidiots, 0:04:46.839 --> 0:04:48.520 which I had not been in there in a long 0:04:48.560 --> 0:04:54.640 long time, I just was like electrified by how incredible 0:04:54.640 --> 0:04:57.320 a collection was and how big it was. And when 0:04:57.360 --> 0:05:00.359 I met our founders Patty and Kathy, I was like 0:05:00.400 --> 0:05:03.920 cook Line and Sinker. I didn't know that Vidiots was 0:05:04.080 --> 0:05:07.640 founded by women, not to mention like third generation Angelino's 0:05:07.720 --> 0:05:09.719 and two of the coolest people I've ever met in 0:05:09.720 --> 0:05:13.560 my life, and I just was like enamored. I'm still 0:05:13.680 --> 0:05:17.880 enamored of Patty and Kathy. I walked away knowing they 0:05:17.920 --> 0:05:22.479 needed an executive director really badly. They needed someone to 0:05:23.000 --> 0:05:26.000 fundraise and expand the donor base and figure out what 0:05:26.160 --> 0:05:29.520 this sort of year round programming approach would be. And 0:05:30.120 --> 0:05:33.320 I walked away from that first encounter thinking like, if 0:05:33.320 --> 0:05:36.960 I don't do this, some shadude in a trucker cap 0:05:37.279 --> 0:05:38.839 is going to have this job for five minutes, and 0:05:38.880 --> 0:05:41.600 videots is going to close. No offense to dudes and 0:05:41.640 --> 0:05:45.120 trucker caps. But I could just see it becoming something 0:05:45.560 --> 0:05:49.599 that somebody who thought it was cool would do for 0:05:49.640 --> 0:05:51.679 a minute, find out it was going to be really hard, 0:05:51.920 --> 0:05:54.640 and then jump ship. And I was like, I'm not 0:05:54.680 --> 0:05:59.000 gonna do that. And even under incredibly difficult circumstances up 0:05:59.000 --> 0:06:01.600 and down, that always gone back to that moment and 0:06:01.640 --> 0:06:03.520 been like, if I do this, I got to do 0:06:03.560 --> 0:06:04.080 it all the way. 0:06:05.360 --> 0:06:09.240 Maggie says that very quickly Vidiots became a special place. 0:06:08.960 --> 0:06:14.640 For her, aside from like how legendary it was and 0:06:14.720 --> 0:06:17.960 how cool it was that neon and the look of it. 0:06:18.440 --> 0:06:21.599 I walked in the first time to meet Patty and Kathy, 0:06:21.960 --> 0:06:24.120 and they had a little office in the back, and 0:06:24.520 --> 0:06:27.200 the first thing I noticed was I saw the documentary 0:06:27.240 --> 0:06:31.000 section and I was like, oh, wow, this is really small. 0:06:31.120 --> 0:06:33.760 I was shocked. I was like, it was seemed to 0:06:33.760 --> 0:06:36.240 be one wall, and I was like, well, maybe that's 0:06:36.240 --> 0:06:39.920 something I can work on because I really love docs 0:06:39.960 --> 0:06:42.440 and I kind of part of my secret passion. And 0:06:42.480 --> 0:06:46.600 then I turned around and noticed that I was wrong 0:06:46.720 --> 0:06:50.000 and that the doc section at Vidiots went all the 0:06:50.040 --> 0:06:54.480 way around the walls, and that I realized there was 0:06:55.080 --> 0:06:59.920 an unparalleled commitment to documentary. And when I realized that, 0:07:00.320 --> 0:07:01.960 I just was like, this is where I want to be. 0:07:02.080 --> 0:07:04.640 This is where I had always wanted to be. I 0:07:04.839 --> 0:07:08.000 never really felt a sense of belonging like I did 0:07:08.160 --> 0:07:11.760 until not first encounter with Patty and Kathy. 0:07:13.440 --> 0:07:16.280 Without a doubt, Maggie knows just about everything there is 0:07:16.320 --> 0:07:19.280 to know about Vidiots, so I asked her to tell 0:07:19.360 --> 0:07:22.760 us more about the store's history and about the founders, 0:07:23.160 --> 0:07:25.160 Patti Pollinger and Kathy Towbert. 0:07:26.560 --> 0:07:28.960 So Patty and Kathy have been best friends since they 0:07:29.000 --> 0:07:32.080 were I think three. They've lived in La their whole lives, 0:07:32.240 --> 0:07:35.240 and I love hearing about their high school stories. They 0:07:35.320 --> 0:07:38.680 both had jobs. Kathy was in the music industry. She 0:07:38.720 --> 0:07:41.000 worked for Frank Zappa and had been in the music 0:07:41.000 --> 0:07:46.080 industry for a while. Patty worked for MGMUA, and they 0:07:46.120 --> 0:07:48.520 both really kind of got sick of working for other 0:07:48.560 --> 0:07:51.760 people and wanted to do something on their own independently. 0:07:51.920 --> 0:07:56.080 They wanted not to work in male dominated industries anymore, 0:07:56.320 --> 0:08:02.400 which was everything and remains everything. They looked around and 0:08:02.440 --> 0:08:04.120 they were like, what can we do? And they noticed 0:08:04.120 --> 0:08:07.000 that video stores were cropping up, but the video stores 0:08:07.000 --> 0:08:11.600 that were around them had really limited offerings and certainly 0:08:11.640 --> 0:08:13.840 not the kind of stuff they were interested in. And 0:08:14.200 --> 0:08:17.920 they saw that gap and they knew that they could 0:08:18.360 --> 0:08:21.680 not only fill it, but like do something pretty extraordinary 0:08:21.680 --> 0:08:24.600 with it. So they opened with eight hundred tapes in 0:08:24.680 --> 0:08:27.840 nineteen eighty five in our historical location at three to 0:08:27.880 --> 0:08:30.600 Zo two Peko in Santa Monica, a couple of blocks 0:08:30.600 --> 0:08:34.640 from the beach, and within a really short period of 0:08:34.640 --> 0:08:37.880 time it was booming. But I can tell you that 0:08:37.920 --> 0:08:40.040 it wasn't easy for them. When they went to get 0:08:40.040 --> 0:08:43.120 their first bank loan, one of the loan officers told them, 0:08:43.160 --> 0:08:45.240 why didn't you go ask your dads for the money. 0:08:45.920 --> 0:08:49.520 So they sort of opened videots in spite of real 0:08:49.960 --> 0:08:53.560 gender bias and disparity, and they made it work. And 0:08:53.600 --> 0:08:57.000 I think about that a lot as we're making progress 0:08:57.440 --> 0:08:59.120 against a lot of odds. 0:09:00.120 --> 0:09:02.520 Patty and Kathy always wanted the store to be a 0:09:02.640 --> 0:09:04.080 unique and exciting place. 0:09:05.320 --> 0:09:09.240 They didn't just want to do something transactional. They wanted 0:09:09.280 --> 0:09:12.000 to have a spot to party. They wanted to hang out, 0:09:12.320 --> 0:09:17.440 wanted to meet dudes. They wanted to create something that 0:09:17.480 --> 0:09:19.760 people would come to on a Friday night and hang 0:09:19.760 --> 0:09:22.200 out at. And that is precisely what they did. And 0:09:22.240 --> 0:09:24.240 one of the unique things that they did was they 0:09:24.240 --> 0:09:27.880 designed the space to really be hospitable to a party. 0:09:28.200 --> 0:09:30.480 One of the things that they did that we will 0:09:30.840 --> 0:09:33.599 absolutely replicate in the new space is that everything was 0:09:33.640 --> 0:09:36.760 on rolling racks, so you could move the collection around. 0:09:37.160 --> 0:09:40.120 And it was very much meant to be a place 0:09:40.160 --> 0:09:42.600 that you knew you could go down on a Friday 0:09:42.679 --> 0:09:44.680 night and there would be a party at Vidiots, a 0:09:44.720 --> 0:09:50.600 party with really interesting, open minded, inclusive people. They did it. 0:09:51.000 --> 0:09:53.120 They made a space that people wanted to be at. 0:09:54.280 --> 0:09:59.800 I'm perpetually amazed at how many people in La out 0:09:59.800 --> 0:10:04.120 of LA internationally know about Vidiots, remember it and revere 0:10:04.200 --> 0:10:06.560 it and love it. That's always a really good thing 0:10:06.679 --> 0:10:09.400 for me when I'm in the mire of fundraising and 0:10:09.920 --> 0:10:14.160 buried under her pandemic shipping supply issues and how are 0:10:14.160 --> 0:10:16.960 we going to make the next one hundred thousand dollars? 0:10:17.360 --> 0:10:21.120 When I hear that, I'm bullied by it. 0:10:22.320 --> 0:10:24.920 Vidiots also made a point of amassing one of the 0:10:24.920 --> 0:10:27.600 most comprehensive video collections in the country. 0:10:28.880 --> 0:10:31.840 When they started, they were going after the really hard 0:10:31.880 --> 0:10:34.920 to find stuff, a lot of experimental film, a lot 0:10:35.000 --> 0:10:37.760 of music video, which is some of my favorite stuff 0:10:37.760 --> 0:10:40.959 in the collection. They didn't go black market. They were 0:10:41.000 --> 0:10:44.719 sensible and they were thoughtful about their curation, but they 0:10:44.760 --> 0:10:47.640 were going after things that they knew nobody else was 0:10:47.679 --> 0:10:49.680 going to have, and stuff they wanted to see, honestly, 0:10:49.679 --> 0:10:52.880 and filmmakers they wanted to support. They knew that, especially 0:10:53.000 --> 0:10:56.800 with their positioning in Los Angeles, they could be really 0:10:56.840 --> 0:11:02.040 instrumental in helping emerging filmmakers get their work to audiences. 0:11:02.160 --> 0:11:04.400 And so they became really known as a place where 0:11:04.440 --> 0:11:07.559 if you'd made something, or you'd captured some kind of 0:11:07.600 --> 0:11:10.840 crazy footage, footage of the ninety two uprising, we've got 0:11:11.320 --> 0:11:14.800 that at Vidiots. Because people had this stuff and they 0:11:14.840 --> 0:11:17.360 didn't always know what to do with it, and some 0:11:17.440 --> 0:11:20.679 of those people have become really well known filmmakers. So 0:11:20.720 --> 0:11:23.800 the collection holds a lot of history in the VHS, 0:11:24.000 --> 0:11:26.960 and the VHS preservation is something that's really important to us. 0:11:27.240 --> 0:11:29.960 I really wish there was more of a preservation focused 0:11:29.960 --> 0:11:34.680 on VHS because there are so many people who simply 0:11:34.760 --> 0:11:38.640 were excluded from making work on film, and so when 0:11:38.720 --> 0:11:41.160 VHS came along, when tape came along, they turned to 0:11:41.200 --> 0:11:45.040 that and they were able to make work on that format. 0:11:45.480 --> 0:11:47.760 If we don't preserve it, that work is going to 0:11:47.800 --> 0:11:51.240 go away. So it's important to the history of LA 0:11:51.360 --> 0:11:51.800 for sure. 0:12:02.480 --> 0:12:06.720 Throughout the nineteen nineties, chain stores like Blockbuster and Hollywood 0:12:06.800 --> 0:12:10.840 Video started to dominate the market, but Maggie says that 0:12:10.920 --> 0:12:12.679 wasn't much of a problem for Vidiots. 0:12:14.120 --> 0:12:17.920 I mean, Patty and Kathy are brilliant businesswan. They understood 0:12:17.960 --> 0:12:21.600 their community so innately, and actually the late nineties and 0:12:21.679 --> 0:12:24.920 early two thousands were fantastic for Vidiots. They were cranking, 0:12:25.480 --> 0:12:28.560 enormously successful. I think two thousand and three was their 0:12:28.559 --> 0:12:30.719 peak year. And let me tell you, they made a 0:12:30.760 --> 0:12:34.120 lot of money, a lot of employees. It was booming. 0:12:35.200 --> 0:12:38.040 I think a police like Vidiots was naturally set up 0:12:38.280 --> 0:12:42.520 to actually, in some weird way benefit from chain stores, 0:12:42.760 --> 0:12:47.080 because as soon as those chains started to really take over, 0:12:47.600 --> 0:12:50.680 people knew what they were missing, and they knew that 0:12:50.800 --> 0:12:53.959 Vidiots was the place to go for that. So at 0:12:53.960 --> 0:12:56.640 that time, I mean, we had people driving down from 0:12:56.679 --> 0:13:00.319 Santa Barbara on a regular basis because they knew that 0:13:00.360 --> 0:13:03.240 they couldn't find what they wanted because chain stores had 0:13:03.240 --> 0:13:07.319 put so many independent stores out of business. But it 0:13:07.360 --> 0:13:10.120 was their curation, it was what Patty and Kathy were 0:13:10.120 --> 0:13:13.360 putting on the shelves. They had like resisted a lot 0:13:13.360 --> 0:13:16.640 of populist stuff that they sort of like didn't think 0:13:17.040 --> 0:13:20.640 was up to their artistic standards. And the Olsen Twins 0:13:20.679 --> 0:13:23.160 were the moment. I don't see why we just can't 0:13:23.160 --> 0:13:25.280 tell them the truth. You mean that were the witness 0:13:25.320 --> 0:13:28.880 protection program. Oh, that's a big trend for guys. Hey 0:13:29.000 --> 0:13:29.960 want to go see a movie. 0:13:30.080 --> 0:13:32.079 Oh and by the way, we'll want to get here alive. 0:13:32.800 --> 0:13:35.360 And at a certain point, like they started having kids, 0:13:35.800 --> 0:13:38.560 their customers started having kids, and they were like, well, yeah, 0:13:38.600 --> 0:13:41.160 of course we have to have the Olsen Twin videos, 0:13:41.240 --> 0:13:45.280 and they stocked them and they rented. You'd be surprised 0:13:45.280 --> 0:13:48.160 who was renting some of that stuff. So you take 0:13:48.160 --> 0:13:51.920 home something really mainstream like that. But then you also 0:13:52.400 --> 0:13:56.360 get to introduce your kid to something. You know, Miyazaki. 0:13:56.920 --> 0:13:59.200 I really love it here, but people don't seem to like. 0:13:59.240 --> 0:13:59.800 Which is in this. 0:13:59.800 --> 0:14:01.840 Town depends on the people. 0:14:02.160 --> 0:14:03.400 Now take me for instance. 0:14:03.640 --> 0:14:05.679 I just met you, and I know I like you. 0:14:06.720 --> 0:14:11.840 I do think that younger audiences are sort of an 0:14:11.960 --> 0:14:15.680 afterthought right now, certainly for streaming, because streaming is really 0:14:15.720 --> 0:14:18.800 hard for little kids, and it's so easy to get 0:14:18.840 --> 0:14:22.360 them hooked. So big streaming services are like, give them 0:14:22.400 --> 0:14:27.400 one show and then have the next episode just automatically roll. 0:14:27.920 --> 0:14:33.000 It's so algorithmic. It's such a marketing thing that is 0:14:33.160 --> 0:14:39.280 really challenging to get younger people to discover anything new. 0:14:39.960 --> 0:14:44.440 That's where physical media comes in. I use Moonstruck as 0:14:44.480 --> 0:14:47.440 an example. I mean, you waited for the right man 0:14:47.520 --> 0:14:48.280 the first time. 0:14:48.920 --> 0:14:50.720 Why didn't you wait for the right man again? 0:14:50.960 --> 0:14:55.040 Because he didn't come. I'm here you'll like Moonstruck was 0:14:55.080 --> 0:14:58.280 not marketed to me when it came out in the eighties. 0:14:58.640 --> 0:15:02.400 I was a kid. I liked the box art of 0:15:02.560 --> 0:15:04.920 the VHS and so I took it home and watched it, 0:15:04.960 --> 0:15:07.520 and it became instantly one of my favorite movies and 0:15:07.600 --> 0:15:10.280 led me down this really interesting path something wild. I 0:15:10.320 --> 0:15:13.200 saw really really young, the Jonathan Dummy movie because I 0:15:13.360 --> 0:15:15.480 liked the box art, and it made me a much 0:15:15.520 --> 0:15:20.200 more interesting viewer because I was watching that was not 0:15:20.240 --> 0:15:20.760 made for me. 0:15:22.320 --> 0:15:25.040 Maggie says that when DVD rolled around in the early 0:15:25.080 --> 0:15:29.520 two thousands, Vidiots was very smart about transitioning from tape 0:15:29.520 --> 0:15:29.960 to disc. 0:15:31.280 --> 0:15:34.400 If they knew that they wanted to bring DVD in 0:15:34.880 --> 0:15:37.080 and they knew that it was going to have a 0:15:37.160 --> 0:15:41.560 solid shelf life, they could move the VHS off. What 0:15:41.680 --> 0:15:44.080 they did that was really smart was that they hung 0:15:44.120 --> 0:15:49.960 on to vhs that didn't get a digital release, and 0:15:50.000 --> 0:15:52.640 they also hung on to a lot of what I 0:15:52.640 --> 0:15:56.920 think initially they thought was like crappy stuff that they 0:15:56.960 --> 0:16:00.160 just didn't want to buy a DVD of it. They 0:16:00.160 --> 0:16:02.120 didn't think it was a very good movie or a 0:16:02.280 --> 0:16:05.280 good show, and they weren't gonna rent it much. Now, 0:16:05.440 --> 0:16:09.760 some of that stuff is really interesting and really valuable 0:16:09.760 --> 0:16:12.720 for us to have in the VHS archive because it's 0:16:12.760 --> 0:16:15.560 out of print. That actually stands for some really popular 0:16:15.600 --> 0:16:18.480 stuff too. I mean, recent news about Bruce willis everybody 0:16:18.520 --> 0:16:21.720 went nuts about Moonlighting, while we've got every episode of 0:16:21.760 --> 0:16:26.080 Moonlighting on physical media and go ahead and google how 0:16:26.560 --> 0:16:29.080 expensive Season four of Moonlighting is if you can even 0:16:29.120 --> 0:16:30.920 get it anymore. And that's a good show. 0:16:31.520 --> 0:16:32.840 My goodness, mister Presto. 0:16:32.920 --> 0:16:34.480 We're looking a little pale today, aren't we? 0:16:34.840 --> 0:16:35.680 And who have we here? 0:16:35.840 --> 0:16:39.800 I don't know now now no reason to be Shylott's. 0:16:39.320 --> 0:16:42.080 See a little confidence, a little charisma, a little dale kange, 0:16:42.200 --> 0:16:46.479 remember less than one. Imagine your entire audience is completely naked. 0:16:47.040 --> 0:16:48.440 Boggles the mind, doesn't it. 0:16:49.120 --> 0:16:51.440 Another thing Patty and Kathy were really well known for 0:16:51.760 --> 0:16:53.480 was I mean, they had it in print on all 0:16:53.480 --> 0:16:56.360 their materials. If you can't find something, tell us we 0:16:56.440 --> 0:16:59.880 have a friend who is friends with this incredible queer scholar. 0:17:00.440 --> 0:17:04.640 And they were saying that Vidiots was instrumental to their 0:17:05.040 --> 0:17:09.080 graduate work because Vidiots was the only place they could 0:17:09.160 --> 0:17:11.159 go and say, I can't find this thing? Can you 0:17:11.200 --> 0:17:13.600 find it for me? And it was like a point 0:17:13.640 --> 0:17:18.000 of pride for our clerks to be able to hunt 0:17:18.000 --> 0:17:20.240 something down, find it and give it to the person 0:17:20.280 --> 0:17:23.160 who needed it, whether it was for someone really well 0:17:23.200 --> 0:17:25.760 known whether it was for someone academic or whether it 0:17:25.920 --> 0:17:28.919 was just a fan, they were going to find it. 0:17:28.960 --> 0:17:32.080 And we're still like that. I will spend an inordinate 0:17:32.119 --> 0:17:35.919 amount of time trying to find an obscure movie for 0:17:36.000 --> 0:17:37.480 anybody who asks. 0:17:38.280 --> 0:17:41.080 But when streaming started to take off in the twenty tenths, 0:17:41.440 --> 0:17:43.119 vidiots prepared for disaster. 0:17:44.520 --> 0:17:47.560 We knew was going to go south pretty quick. Community 0:17:48.000 --> 0:17:50.320 that loved us. Many of those people were still there, 0:17:50.359 --> 0:17:52.679 but a lot of them were not. So many of 0:17:52.680 --> 0:17:55.680 those people had migrated off of the West Side because 0:17:55.680 --> 0:17:58.679 it became unaffordable. And that's not to say that we 0:17:58.800 --> 0:18:02.680 didn't still have a very devoted Santa Monica fan base, 0:18:02.840 --> 0:18:06.480 but it wasn't enough to sustain. Yeah, it was really hard. 0:18:06.720 --> 0:18:11.399 It was really really difficult. At one point, Alejandro and 0:18:11.520 --> 0:18:13.800 Yuriito came in, I believe, with his. 0:18:13.840 --> 0:18:18.960 Son real quick. For anyone who doesn't know, Alejandro Inyori 0:18:19.040 --> 0:18:22.439 too is an Oscar winning director famous for films like 0:18:22.480 --> 0:18:25.439 The Revenant and Birdman. Those happened to be two of 0:18:25.480 --> 0:18:28.840 my favorite films. So I really love this story. 0:18:28.960 --> 0:18:32.399 They were browsing. I like, went in the office. I said, Patty, 0:18:32.520 --> 0:18:33.960 go talk to him. You got to go talk to him, 0:18:33.960 --> 0:18:36.200 go talk to him. She went out and started talking 0:18:36.240 --> 0:18:37.959 to him. He was asking how it was going, and 0:18:38.000 --> 0:18:40.320 she was like, yeah, it's really hard. Like I'm not 0:18:40.400 --> 0:18:43.199 gonna pretend that it's easy. And he gave us this 0:18:43.320 --> 0:18:46.800 amazing pep talk about how you have to suffer for 0:18:46.880 --> 0:18:49.520 anything that's worthwhile, and like, all I can think of 0:18:49.640 --> 0:18:53.399 is like Leonardo DiCaprio in the woods fighting a bear, 0:18:53.720 --> 0:18:58.280 and us like Haulling eleven thousand VHS tapes and fifty 0:18:58.320 --> 0:19:02.520 thousand titles up Mountain. I returned to that image a lot. Yeah, 0:19:02.520 --> 0:19:05.439 it was really hard, and it's still really hard, but 0:19:06.080 --> 0:19:06.639 it's worth it. 0:19:08.920 --> 0:19:14.640 In twenty seventeen, Vidiots closed its iconic location in Santa Monica. However, 0:19:15.000 --> 0:19:19.000 they always knew that this wasn't the end of Vidiots. 0:19:19.160 --> 0:19:22.399 So we shuttered the brick and mortar in seventeen. We 0:19:22.440 --> 0:19:25.040 put everything into storage. I don't know if anybody else 0:19:25.080 --> 0:19:28.560 thought it was visible, but I was hellbent on not 0:19:28.760 --> 0:19:32.520 closing unless we did it with the intention of reopening. 0:19:32.760 --> 0:19:35.280 So everything went into safe storage. We gave up the 0:19:35.320 --> 0:19:38.119 brick and mortar. We continued programming. We're doing stuff at 0:19:38.160 --> 0:19:41.760 the Ace Hotel. During the pandemic, we were doing virtual stuff. 0:19:42.480 --> 0:19:46.680 I actually think that the future of film are spaces 0:19:46.800 --> 0:19:50.960 like Vidiots and partnerships like the one that we have 0:19:51.119 --> 0:19:58.480 with Movie, with streamers and distributors that understand how amazing 0:19:59.000 --> 0:20:05.720 and on lucrative it will be to forge relationships with 0:20:05.800 --> 0:20:08.479 brick and mortar spaces. I can tell you our partners 0:20:08.520 --> 0:20:10.919 at Movie are down with it. They get it, and 0:20:11.000 --> 0:20:14.399 I think that companies that don't get it are gonna 0:20:14.680 --> 0:20:18.720 be sincerely disappointed when they don't have a future generation 0:20:19.320 --> 0:20:23.760 of film lovers, because I really think these younger generations 0:20:24.040 --> 0:20:26.760 are the ones you need to look at. If you're 0:20:26.800 --> 0:20:31.960 worried about the state of film economically, creatively, but especially economically, 0:20:32.440 --> 0:20:34.840 better start paying attention to how these kids are being 0:20:34.840 --> 0:20:37.160 invited into this art form, because they are not being 0:20:37.200 --> 0:20:38.200 invited in right now. 0:20:39.640 --> 0:20:43.120 Maggie largely laments the rise of streaming. She says, well, 0:20:43.160 --> 0:20:46.159 it's not all bad. We've lost something very important in 0:20:46.200 --> 0:20:47.040 physical media. 0:20:48.600 --> 0:20:52.280 The word everything is the problem. Right. We have incredible 0:20:52.359 --> 0:20:55.800 relationships with some of the best streaming services out there, 0:20:55.840 --> 0:21:00.199 Movie Criterion, we love Nightflight. We don't inherently have an 0:21:00.240 --> 0:21:04.440 issue with streaming services. It's a great way to expand access. 0:21:04.760 --> 0:21:09.240 The problem is big corporate entities have blocked access not 0:21:09.440 --> 0:21:13.560 just for physical media, but for theatrical as well. When 0:21:13.680 --> 0:21:19.720 one point of access eradicates another, that's just bad for audiences, 0:21:19.760 --> 0:21:24.200 it's bad for filmmakers. And the word everything is a myth. 0:21:24.400 --> 0:21:27.960 I mean everything is not digitized, everything is not available 0:21:28.000 --> 0:21:31.480 on a streaming service, and just inherently the way streaming 0:21:31.560 --> 0:21:35.040 services are set up, everything can't stay on a streaming service. 0:21:35.480 --> 0:21:40.480 And more importantly, everyone can't afford all of those streaming services. 0:21:41.000 --> 0:21:46.719 And so what streaming, maybe not intentionally has done, especially 0:21:46.960 --> 0:21:50.920 with the quote streaming wars, it becomes about bottom line, 0:21:51.119 --> 0:21:56.800 and when it becomes about what one company has over another, 0:21:57.520 --> 0:22:01.160 the people who lose out are audiences. And the people 0:22:01.200 --> 0:22:06.200 who really lose out are audiences that don't have the resources, 0:22:06.840 --> 0:22:11.800 or the time or the inclination to know. Oh, if 0:22:11.840 --> 0:22:16.520 I want full access to a multitude of films, I've 0:22:16.560 --> 0:22:20.720 got to have sixteen seventeen now streaming services. It's insane 0:22:20.840 --> 0:22:26.800 and it's unaffordable. The other thing is like the human interaction. Yes, 0:22:26.960 --> 0:22:30.320 when you take a home video home with you, you're 0:22:30.359 --> 0:22:33.520 watching it and you know it's a different experience than 0:22:33.520 --> 0:22:36.119 the theatrical experience when you're with a group of people, 0:22:36.520 --> 0:22:39.200 but you still have a point of connection to another 0:22:39.280 --> 0:22:41.080 human being while you're doing that. And some of the 0:22:41.119 --> 0:22:45.680 most fascinating conversations I've had, some of the most inspiring, 0:22:46.280 --> 0:22:49.960 have been in a video store with another clerk or 0:22:50.119 --> 0:22:55.840 another customer, or I've overheard conversations between customers. So even 0:22:55.920 --> 0:22:58.159 with physical media that you take home and watch, you 0:22:58.320 --> 0:23:02.720 still have a point of connection to another person. Strangers 0:23:02.760 --> 0:23:07.920 talking to each other about something they have commonality around 0:23:08.400 --> 0:23:13.440 is how we prevent the world from syncing into oblivion. 0:23:14.400 --> 0:23:16.960 I mean, maybe I'm a crazy person, but I think 0:23:17.400 --> 0:23:21.560 this socio economic cultural divide we're looking at right now 0:23:21.880 --> 0:23:25.960 is not unrelated to the fact that access to the 0:23:25.960 --> 0:23:28.880 most popular art form for the last one hundred plus 0:23:28.960 --> 0:23:33.120 years has become really diminished. And I think that about 0:23:33.359 --> 0:23:38.359