WEBVTT - Bret Wood on 'The Control Group' 0:00:03.040 --> 0:00:05.840 Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind from how Stuff 0:00:05.840 --> 0:00:14.400 Works dot com. Hey you welcome to Stuff to Blow 0:00:14.440 --> 0:00:17.360 your Mind. My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick. 0:00:17.360 --> 0:00:19.360 In today, We've got a treat for you. It's going 0:00:19.400 --> 0:00:23.000 to be a special bonus conversation with Brett Wood, the 0:00:23.040 --> 0:00:26.400 creator of the house Stuff Works podcast The Control Group. 0:00:26.560 --> 0:00:28.159 That's right. We've been needed to do this for a 0:00:28.160 --> 0:00:30.440 little bit, ever since The Control Group came out over 0:00:30.440 --> 0:00:32.440 the summer, because we really think Stuff to Blow in 0:00:32.440 --> 0:00:35.159 your Mind listeners will enjoy the show. It touches on 0:00:35.159 --> 0:00:37.400 a number of things that we've discussed in the past 0:00:37.520 --> 0:00:40.160 on this show. Uh, And so we're like, oh, we should, 0:00:40.200 --> 0:00:41.920 we should talk to Bratt, have him in the studio 0:00:42.040 --> 0:00:43.760 and maybe we can we can throw this at the 0:00:43.880 --> 0:00:46.120 end of an episode, at the beginning of old episode, 0:00:46.120 --> 0:00:47.760 but it ended up being just such a good little 0:00:47.840 --> 0:00:50.000 chat we thought we just put it out in its 0:00:50.040 --> 0:00:52.320 own neat little package. That's right. We had a great 0:00:52.320 --> 0:01:02.440 time talking to Brett and we hope you enjoy our conversation. Hey, Brett, 0:01:02.440 --> 0:01:05.200 thanks for joining us on the show today. Can you 0:01:05.360 --> 0:01:09.040 tell our listeners a little bit about yourself? Introduce yourself. Sure, 0:01:09.319 --> 0:01:11.920 I'm Brett Wood. I'm the writer and director of the 0:01:11.920 --> 0:01:15.440 Control Group. But I'm also a filmmaker, independent filmmaker and 0:01:15.840 --> 0:01:19.560 have been very involved in uh film restoration. I've written 0:01:19.560 --> 0:01:21.200 about film history a lot. So I'm kind of a 0:01:21.240 --> 0:01:27.440 movie guy who discovered uh the wonderful possibilities of the podcast. 0:01:27.560 --> 0:01:30.559 So here I am. And so you have a podcast 0:01:30.800 --> 0:01:33.200 on our network right now and in the Stuff Media 0:01:33.240 --> 0:01:35.760 group of us tell us about the Control Group. The 0:01:35.800 --> 0:01:40.360 Control Group is a ten parts of scripted drama podcast 0:01:41.040 --> 0:01:45.120 and it revisits a sort of fascinating period of history, 0:01:45.160 --> 0:01:49.680 the early nineties sixties when the CIA was doing two 0:01:49.760 --> 0:01:55.080 interesting things. On one hand, conducting secret drug experimentation for 0:01:55.160 --> 0:01:58.800 the sake of finding a a an effective method of 0:01:58.840 --> 0:02:02.920 mind control. At the same time, sort of funding medical 0:02:02.960 --> 0:02:07.280 research for the same purpose, UH in public institutions through 0:02:07.320 --> 0:02:12.040 a phantom organization. And these two phenomena have sort of 0:02:12.080 --> 0:02:16.880 been discussed in sort of the the secret history subculture 0:02:16.880 --> 0:02:18.720 that we all love. And so what I did is 0:02:18.760 --> 0:02:22.680 sort of narrativised them and combined them into one story 0:02:22.919 --> 0:02:25.560 and let them play off each other. Oh. So we've 0:02:25.680 --> 0:02:28.240 talked a little bit about this historical period on the 0:02:28.240 --> 0:02:32.080 show before, and I assume on the podcast I I 0:02:32.120 --> 0:02:34.320 have started listening and I'm hooked now. I haven't made 0:02:34.320 --> 0:02:35.960 it to the end of the season yet, but I can't. 0:02:36.160 --> 0:02:38.360 I can't wait to see what happens. I assume you 0:02:38.440 --> 0:02:43.160 get into Project Artichoke, Bluebird, that kind of thing. Yeah, exactly. 0:02:43.160 --> 0:02:45.200 And what's funny is a lot of people who were 0:02:45.280 --> 0:02:48.640 involved in these things never knew they were involved in 0:02:48.680 --> 0:02:52.600 these things, because, especially in the medical research, no one 0:02:52.680 --> 0:02:54.840 wanted to be working for the CIA or feeling like 0:02:54.960 --> 0:02:58.800 what they were doing is for government use espionage, so 0:02:58.840 --> 0:03:00.760 they kind of covered that up. And we would never 0:03:00.800 --> 0:03:03.720 have known about MK Ultra and Bluebird, nart a Choke, 0:03:03.840 --> 0:03:07.600 and Naomi if it weren't for sort of the accidental 0:03:07.680 --> 0:03:10.919 survival of certain records, which people were then able to 0:03:11.000 --> 0:03:14.680 go back and piece together and sort of create a 0:03:14.840 --> 0:03:17.480 narrative of what, you know, what had gone on here. 0:03:17.840 --> 0:03:20.840 And now some of this information is declassified, right right, 0:03:21.280 --> 0:03:25.520 but there's very little actual information about what they were 0:03:25.560 --> 0:03:28.160 doing other than it all sort of came together through 0:03:28.400 --> 0:03:31.160 financial records and it was pieced together, and then that 0:03:31.639 --> 0:03:35.120 gay people names interviews could be conducted and so we 0:03:35.200 --> 0:03:37.800 have a pretty good understanding of what went on, but 0:03:38.040 --> 0:03:43.760 not the thorough documentation of you know, government research programs today. 0:03:44.520 --> 0:03:47.120 And so the context here, if I'm not mistaken, it 0:03:47.480 --> 0:03:51.040 would be basically Cold war research into the idea of 0:03:51.120 --> 0:03:54.920 how how you could get information out of people, interrogation 0:03:55.000 --> 0:03:59.200 techniques and maybe even control people's behavior without them being 0:03:59.200 --> 0:04:04.160 conscious of it, right, and Americans always wanted a quick, 0:04:04.680 --> 0:04:07.280 an effective solution that was more science e kind of 0:04:07.400 --> 0:04:10.640 James Bondi and as opposed to sort of a long 0:04:10.760 --> 0:04:14.440 term psychological approach. You know, they wanted something you could 0:04:14.440 --> 0:04:16.760 slip in someone's glass, a dart, you could shoot in 0:04:16.800 --> 0:04:19.479 someone's neck and have that kind of control. But it 0:04:19.520 --> 0:04:22.360 just doesn't work that way. But you know, there is 0:04:22.400 --> 0:04:24.960 confidence that it could work that way, and so they 0:04:25.160 --> 0:04:27.400 applied a lot of their forces to coming up with 0:04:27.440 --> 0:04:30.760 this you know, magic bullet that would let you either 0:04:30.920 --> 0:04:37.120 affect someone's thoughts or mind them find out what they're thinking. 0:04:37.880 --> 0:04:39.559 One of the things I love about The Control Group 0:04:39.800 --> 0:04:42.760 and it is is a lovely show. I recommend all 0:04:42.800 --> 0:04:45.719 our listeners to check it out, for sure, But but 0:04:45.800 --> 0:04:47.640 one of the things I love is that it's it's 0:04:47.680 --> 0:04:51.720 It's obviously not just a situation where someone steps in 0:04:51.760 --> 0:04:54.359 and says, hey, I represent CIA. We're up to some 0:04:54.360 --> 0:04:57.960 sinister stuff. You're a sinister scientist. Let's do some experimentations 0:04:58.000 --> 0:05:01.000 on people. Uh. It does a really great job, especially 0:05:01.000 --> 0:05:04.039 early on, of of establishing you know this, the sense 0:05:04.080 --> 0:05:07.320 of of push and pull that would uh, that would 0:05:07.360 --> 0:05:11.320 see a professional end up and involved in projects like this. Yeah, 0:05:11.320 --> 0:05:14.760 they kind of um, you know, of play to someone's 0:05:14.800 --> 0:05:18.320 ego and uh, you know, if you're a medical professional 0:05:18.360 --> 0:05:21.479 in a someone's willing to fund your research almost without limit. 0:05:21.720 --> 0:05:25.200 And also say, you know, telling you you're onto something big, 0:05:25.240 --> 0:05:26.719 I think if you just push it a little further, 0:05:27.360 --> 0:05:30.160 go ahead and do that thing that ordinarily you might 0:05:30.200 --> 0:05:32.440 be reluctant to do, because I think you're gonna you're 0:05:32.440 --> 0:05:35.360 gonna break through, you know, onto something big. And it's 0:05:35.400 --> 0:05:40.719 about how you wear down someone's uh, moral resistance or 0:05:40.760 --> 0:05:43.200 their ethics. You know, you know, we have certain ethical 0:05:43.200 --> 0:05:46.560 barriers which serve us well and serve our fellow humans well, 0:05:47.120 --> 0:05:50.279 and a lot of times in this for the sake 0:05:50.320 --> 0:05:54.160 of the greater good, people want to push those barriers down. Well, 0:05:54.160 --> 0:05:55.920 we've got it. We've got to tackle this problem now, 0:05:55.920 --> 0:05:59.680 so let's not worry so much about experimenting on animals, 0:05:59.680 --> 0:06:02.040 experience many on people. You know, this is such an 0:06:02.120 --> 0:06:05.440 urgent issue, we've got to solve it at all costs. 0:06:05.520 --> 0:06:09.600 And once you drop your moral barriers, your ethical barriers, 0:06:09.640 --> 0:06:12.880 then it opens you up to all sorts of dangerous 0:06:12.960 --> 0:06:15.680 abuses of power, and we've seen that a few times 0:06:15.680 --> 0:06:19.080 in our in our history. Yes, well, you know what 0:06:19.200 --> 0:06:21.880 we're talking about a podcast, We're talking about an audio experience. 0:06:21.920 --> 0:06:24.320 So let's let's just take a short break to listen 0:06:24.360 --> 0:06:27.360 to the trailer for the Control Group for anyone who 0:06:27.400 --> 0:06:29.720 hasn't heard it, and then we'll come back in and 0:06:29.760 --> 0:06:33.400 discuss it some more. This is a time of great 0:06:33.440 --> 0:06:39.559 opportunity for us for modern medicine. Advancements are being made 0:06:39.640 --> 0:06:44.760 every day. For more than seventy five years, the Central 0:06:44.800 --> 0:06:48.200 State Hospital at New Canaan has provided treatment for those 0:06:48.200 --> 0:06:53.679 with mental disabilities. But in recent weeks something has changed. 0:06:55.600 --> 0:06:58.160 One of our doctors has adopted methods of treatment that 0:06:58.200 --> 0:07:05.000 are more experimental in nature, methods one might consider ethically questionable. 0:07:07.839 --> 0:07:11.800 The Control Group is a ten part scripted drama. Subscribe 0:07:11.800 --> 0:07:14.880 for free on Apple Podcasts and never miss an episode. 0:07:16.840 --> 0:07:21.440 Is that what you think I'm doing inflicting harm? To 0:07:21.520 --> 0:07:26.360 be honest, I don't understand what you're doing. And that's 0:07:26.360 --> 0:07:30.160 what frightens me the most. The control group from how 0:07:30.200 --> 0:07:34.520 stuff works. All right, we're back, So so Brett, tell 0:07:34.560 --> 0:07:36.120 me one thing that I was thinking about. We already 0:07:36.120 --> 0:07:39.560 talked about some of the historical examples that are essentially 0:07:40.200 --> 0:07:43.840 the bedrock upon which this, this, uh, this fictional drama 0:07:44.040 --> 0:07:49.200 is is created. Um, what was it like to to 0:07:49.280 --> 0:07:51.720 to build with the both these historical elements and then 0:07:51.720 --> 0:07:54.840 fictional elements. I'm I'm always your minded in cases like 0:07:54.920 --> 0:07:59.040 this of something that Umberto Eco wrote about in reference 0:07:59.080 --> 0:08:00.760 to the Name of the Rose, where he said that 0:08:00.800 --> 0:08:03.600 he would have this this list of of weird but 0:08:04.200 --> 0:08:07.920 historically factual tidbits, and then he would have the things 0:08:07.960 --> 0:08:09.840 that he just made up because they worked in a 0:08:09.960 --> 0:08:13.920 narrative sense in a fictional sense. And often people reading 0:08:13.920 --> 0:08:17.120 the Name of the Rose would confuse the two. They'd assume, oh, well, 0:08:17.160 --> 0:08:19.640 this is too weird or too modern. You must have 0:08:19.680 --> 0:08:22.400 made this up well, and then likewise, the things that 0:08:22.520 --> 0:08:24.760 feel right they would just assume that this was just 0:08:24.840 --> 0:08:27.600 part of the history. How does this relate to your 0:08:27.600 --> 0:08:31.040 experience with control group. It's it's very relevant because just 0:08:31.080 --> 0:08:33.880 today I as I. Occasionally we'll go back and RELI 0:08:34.120 --> 0:08:37.040 listener reviews and comments, and one person said, like, this 0:08:37.120 --> 0:08:40.560 is totally unbelievable, and it would be funny to like 0:08:41.000 --> 0:08:43.520 lay it out and sort of show, actually, this happened, 0:08:43.559 --> 0:08:47.600 this happened, this happened, And the things that I've created 0:08:47.679 --> 0:08:53.000 are there's really not that much that I've done. It's 0:08:53.080 --> 0:08:56.120 episode ten. I take a big sort of speculative leap, 0:08:56.160 --> 0:08:59.319 and I won't spoil it until you get there. Um. 0:08:59.400 --> 0:09:01.160 But for the most part, the things that are in 0:09:01.200 --> 0:09:05.120 the show are things that actually happened, with something called 0:09:05.160 --> 0:09:09.079 the deep patterning, which is using UH drugs and shock 0:09:09.160 --> 0:09:12.880 therapy to sort of flatten someone's brain waves and basically 0:09:12.920 --> 0:09:16.880 erase their memory and make them a blank slate, psychic driving, 0:09:16.920 --> 0:09:21.040 which is too play, repetitive messages and headphones or in 0:09:21.320 --> 0:09:24.720 speakers implanted in a bed continuously around the clock. Like, 0:09:24.800 --> 0:09:27.040 these are all things that happened. And one thing that 0:09:27.720 --> 0:09:33.520 some people are disturbed by is something that's amidst all 0:09:33.559 --> 0:09:36.439 this horror. It's pretty subtle, but was still very much 0:09:36.440 --> 0:09:40.040 a part of this is sort of the inherent sexism 0:09:40.080 --> 0:09:44.600 of what was going on, because it was frequently men 0:09:45.160 --> 0:09:50.240 controlling women because women were perceived as being more malleable 0:09:50.280 --> 0:09:55.080 and passive. And and to me, that's the thing that 0:09:55.160 --> 0:09:58.600 sort of shows how we're crossing over from a doctor 0:09:59.640 --> 0:10:03.439 lower r his ethical standards to a person who is 0:10:03.480 --> 0:10:09.720 allowing themselves to be morally corrupted or you know, instead 0:10:09.720 --> 0:10:12.840 of crossing a professional boundary, now they're crossing crossing a 0:10:13.040 --> 0:10:17.800 personal boundary and that and I think the two are 0:10:17.880 --> 0:10:22.120 almost interchangeable. When you start lowering one, uh, you know, 0:10:22.360 --> 0:10:26.040 social ethical restraint, others start to fall and it becomes 0:10:26.040 --> 0:10:29.640 this horror story of it's not only about medical research 0:10:29.679 --> 0:10:33.160 and mind control now now it's about you know, men 0:10:33.400 --> 0:10:36.400 abusing women or men feeling that they have the right 0:10:36.440 --> 0:10:40.960 to control women and women within in the early nineties 0:10:41.000 --> 0:10:42.600 when there's not a lot of power, when the women 0:10:42.640 --> 0:10:44.640 were the nurses and the men with the doctors, how 0:10:44.640 --> 0:10:47.120 can a woman fight against that? And so I tried 0:10:47.120 --> 0:10:51.160 to make that a very important component of the control 0:10:51.200 --> 0:10:54.840 group and also like one of the sources of frustration 0:10:54.920 --> 0:10:56.560 and horror when you listen to the show, because that's 0:10:56.600 --> 0:10:59.960 something we can relate to we can all relate to, yeah, 0:11:00.800 --> 0:11:04.720 getting electric convulsive therapy and you know those kinds of things. 0:11:04.760 --> 0:11:08.320 So your background is in film. Did you originally conceive 0:11:08.400 --> 0:11:10.920 the Control Group as a film project and if so, 0:11:11.240 --> 0:11:14.440 how did the transition to audio format go. Yes, it 0:11:14.559 --> 0:11:18.679 was intended as a feature film, and it had script 0:11:18.960 --> 0:11:21.480 and we have found locations and I was in the 0:11:21.520 --> 0:11:24.160 process of casting it. Very low budget kind of stuff, 0:11:24.440 --> 0:11:27.560 and we were going to shoot it at an actual, uh, 0:11:27.600 --> 0:11:29.880 what had been a medical facility which is no longer 0:11:29.880 --> 0:11:33.079 in use, and that is where a lot of the 0:11:33.240 --> 0:11:36.280 architecture of the Control Group, even though it's audio only 0:11:36.720 --> 0:11:40.600 comes from of this sort of modern facility that adjoins 0:11:40.679 --> 0:11:43.600 this creaky old mansion that was very much part of 0:11:43.640 --> 0:11:45.840 the space we were going to shoot it. And it's 0:11:45.840 --> 0:11:52.319 funny that same uh, modern building connected to this um 0:11:52.559 --> 0:11:55.400 sort of monument to the past is pretty common in 0:11:55.880 --> 0:11:58.719 big statemental hospitals in Millageville. Here in Georgia you have 0:11:58.800 --> 0:12:03.359 the same thing. You have these ultramodern buildings sitting alongside 0:12:03.400 --> 0:12:08.559 these crumbling Victorian buildings. So that was where we were 0:12:08.559 --> 0:12:13.120 going to shoot. But when they reviewed the script prior 0:12:13.160 --> 0:12:16.400 to our shooting, they Withdrew permission for us to film there, 0:12:16.920 --> 0:12:19.560 and so this project went on the shelf, and I 0:12:19.679 --> 0:12:22.480 chose something else that I had in my other script drawer, 0:12:23.000 --> 0:12:25.800 which was very simple and inexpensive to film, so I 0:12:25.840 --> 0:12:28.000 did that instead, and it's a film called The Unwanted. 0:12:29.000 --> 0:12:34.720 You can stream it on Amazon um And so adapting 0:12:34.720 --> 0:12:36.560 it was a lot of fun because for a two 0:12:36.600 --> 0:12:39.679 hour movie you have to you have to be very concise. 0:12:39.760 --> 0:12:41.760 Everything has to be short and quick and move along. 0:12:41.840 --> 0:12:44.719 But suddenly to have this expanded canvas of a ten 0:12:44.800 --> 0:12:48.080 episode podcast and having like five hours in which tell 0:12:48.160 --> 0:12:50.720 the story was very liberating. And then I think the 0:12:50.720 --> 0:12:53.720 thing I love the best is that certain things that 0:12:53.760 --> 0:12:57.640 are cheesy when you do it on film, hallucination, no 0:12:57.640 --> 0:13:00.559 one can do like an acid trip. On film, It's 0:13:00.559 --> 0:13:03.719 always gonna be cheesy. It's never going to quite be 0:13:05.240 --> 0:13:11.000 you know. It's it's someone's visual representation of the unrepresentable. 0:13:11.240 --> 0:13:13.640 But with audio you can kind of cross that line 0:13:13.880 --> 0:13:18.320 much more easily, and and sometimes what you imagine is 0:13:18.480 --> 0:13:22.040 much more effective and much worse than what I would 0:13:22.040 --> 0:13:24.480 have been able to as a filmmaker put on screen. 0:13:25.080 --> 0:13:27.520 So like and even like the Horrors of Shop treatment. 0:13:28.440 --> 0:13:30.720 If I had tried to stage that on film, would 0:13:30.720 --> 0:13:34.320 have probably looked, I don't know, kind of conventional, or 0:13:34.400 --> 0:13:38.199 it would have that when you just hear the sound 0:13:38.320 --> 0:13:42.240 of someone like a convulsing on a gurney and you know, 0:13:42.720 --> 0:13:45.240 choking with the mouth piece in their mouth, that's to me, 0:13:45.320 --> 0:13:48.240 that's much more visceral and what you in your mind 0:13:48.280 --> 0:13:53.120 create as much more effective and affecting than you know, 0:13:53.240 --> 0:13:57.679 what I would have literally represented for that. So the 0:13:57.960 --> 0:14:01.640 cast of the Control Group is excellent. Everybody really really 0:14:01.679 --> 0:14:04.200 brings it. Is this the same team that you've assembled 0:14:04.240 --> 0:14:06.160 for the film or do you assemble a different team 0:14:06.200 --> 0:14:09.320 for the audio of how did how did this come together? Yeah, 0:14:09.400 --> 0:14:11.079 totally different team. Because the film was going to be 0:14:11.200 --> 0:14:14.040 years ago and I hadn't fully cast it yet, And 0:14:14.920 --> 0:14:19.200 in between making The Unwanted, I made another film called 0:14:19.200 --> 0:14:20.960 Those Who Deserve to Die, which is sort of a 0:14:21.000 --> 0:14:23.800 supernatural revenge film which we're just completing so it's not 0:14:23.840 --> 0:14:26.840 out yet, And and that brought me in contact with, 0:14:27.240 --> 0:14:31.400 you know, another bunch of actors. And so the cast 0:14:31.480 --> 0:14:34.680 of the Control Group is basically all these actors I've 0:14:34.720 --> 0:14:37.200 worked with in previous films. So there's someone from those 0:14:37.240 --> 0:14:39.960 who deserve to die someone from the Control Group. And 0:14:40.040 --> 0:14:43.640 also in one of the other hats I wear is 0:14:43.720 --> 0:14:47.160 doing some like film and video production and things like that, 0:14:47.200 --> 0:14:49.880 and I've dubbed foreign films into English, which is a 0:14:49.880 --> 0:14:51.760 lot of fun. And so I've used some of the 0:14:51.840 --> 0:14:54.240 voice actors from that process. So I had a little 0:14:54.240 --> 0:14:59.600 bit of experience in sort of constructing a film and 0:14:59.680 --> 0:15:04.200 they're of audio only, UM, so that I definitely used 0:15:04.320 --> 0:15:08.040 all my tools from the film toolbox in making the 0:15:08.080 --> 0:15:11.480 Control Group. Now Joe and I were off Mike here. 0:15:11.640 --> 0:15:13.960 We were already chatting a little bit about movies of 0:15:13.960 --> 0:15:16.080 the past, and Joe and I talked a lot about 0:15:16.280 --> 0:15:20.520 especially B movies um on the show. So we have 0:15:20.560 --> 0:15:23.680 to ask you, well, what are your favorite mental hospital 0:15:23.760 --> 0:15:27.160 films and did you draw inspiration from any of them 0:15:27.200 --> 0:15:31.800 for the Control Group. Oh, that's a good question. Um. 0:15:31.840 --> 0:15:35.640 I mean, you can't not be aware of one Flew 0:15:35.680 --> 0:15:37.680 Over the Cuckoo's Nest just because it is like the 0:15:37.760 --> 0:15:43.280 big one. But Sam Fuller shot Corridor was definitely influential. 0:15:43.440 --> 0:15:46.680 But there was also some lesser known films that I 0:15:46.760 --> 0:15:50.280 like a lot. There's one called The Caretakers, which is 0:15:50.400 --> 0:15:55.720 very interesting and the snake Pit, of course, and u 0:15:57.720 --> 0:16:00.880 uh John Cassavetti's A Child as Waiting, even though it's 0:16:00.920 --> 0:16:04.560 about sort of a hospital for children with you know, 0:16:04.600 --> 0:16:09.520 mental retardation and developmental disabilities, but still these ideas of 0:16:09.560 --> 0:16:12.160 this sort of clinical setting, which some of these movies 0:16:12.640 --> 0:16:14.760 are about the horror of a mental hospital and some 0:16:14.840 --> 0:16:17.320 of them are about this is modern medicine, this is 0:16:17.600 --> 0:16:21.600 this is hope. And so I kind of like for 0:16:22.080 --> 0:16:23.880 my world to be a little bit of both. It's 0:16:23.880 --> 0:16:26.920 a place where there are people who are genuinely interested 0:16:27.040 --> 0:16:32.160 in providing health care and looking for the latest and 0:16:32.360 --> 0:16:35.800 you know, some new means of treatment, but also a 0:16:35.840 --> 0:16:41.360 place where you know, uh, certain treatments are being performed 0:16:41.400 --> 0:16:43.240 that are maybe in ten years not going to be 0:16:43.240 --> 0:16:47.880 looked upon as the most humane. Another thing Robert and 0:16:47.920 --> 0:16:50.720 I have talked about before is how you know, there's 0:16:50.800 --> 0:16:57.040 certain professions that are very very often demonized in film. 0:16:57.280 --> 0:16:59.880 You know, you almost never, like unless it's a vampire 0:17:00.000 --> 0:17:02.800 of you almost never get a priest character who's good, 0:17:02.960 --> 0:17:06.159 you know, And I feel like the psychiatrist is a 0:17:06.280 --> 0:17:09.560 character who's kind of like that is very very often 0:17:10.440 --> 0:17:13.760 a creepy villain in the film, and I know that, 0:17:13.920 --> 0:17:16.920 and obviously I don't feel that about psychiatrists in real life. 0:17:16.960 --> 0:17:19.440 I mean, most mental health care professionals are people who 0:17:19.440 --> 0:17:22.240 are devoting their lives to try to help people. But 0:17:23.400 --> 0:17:27.840 I wonder if that reveals some kind of underlying anxiety 0:17:27.960 --> 0:17:34.080 that people have about the mental health treatment relationship. And 0:17:34.359 --> 0:17:37.520 so I wonder if doing this show, especially based on 0:17:37.680 --> 0:17:41.840 historical examples, where this relationship that's supposed to be a 0:17:41.880 --> 0:17:44.600 positive one that's supposed to help people heal, could go very, 0:17:44.760 --> 0:17:49.359 very wrong and very abusive. Um. Did did that inform 0:17:49.640 --> 0:17:53.080 your your ideas about that anxiety, that cultural anxiety we 0:17:53.119 --> 0:17:56.439 have And I didn't think about it specifically, But you know, 0:17:56.720 --> 0:17:59.000 all this stuff is like we carried around with us, 0:17:59.160 --> 0:18:02.359 especially if we love movies, then we have the whether 0:18:02.400 --> 0:18:06.080 we're that conscious of it or not. UM. But you know, 0:18:06.960 --> 0:18:11.399 psychiatrists are the Frankenstein's of the twenty one century. You know, 0:18:12.040 --> 0:18:15.600 back then the horror was digging up a body to 0:18:16.520 --> 0:18:20.159 anatomize the corpse. That was sort of the foundation of 0:18:20.160 --> 0:18:23.480 the horror of Frankenstein. Of surgery, you actually got to 0:18:23.560 --> 0:18:25.840 cut into a body. You know, now we've grown used 0:18:25.880 --> 0:18:30.159 to that. That's science. And so now it's profaning you know, 0:18:30.320 --> 0:18:34.159 the body by opening up the mind and you know, 0:18:34.200 --> 0:18:37.359 taking something that's supposed to be uh, you know, uh, 0:18:37.960 --> 0:18:41.879 invading the sanctity of the mind. That doctors seem to 0:18:41.960 --> 0:18:45.760 have this uncanny power to open crack open the head 0:18:45.760 --> 0:18:49.199 as an expression we use in the control group. Um, So, 0:18:49.240 --> 0:18:51.160 I think it's not so much like you said, It's 0:18:51.200 --> 0:18:56.720 not that we distrust doctors and psychiatrists necessarily. It's more 0:18:56.840 --> 0:18:59.160 the fact that they seem to have this power which 0:18:59.200 --> 0:19:01.879 we don't fully under stand, but possibly have this power 0:19:02.000 --> 0:19:05.480 over us that intimidates us. That you know, they may 0:19:05.520 --> 0:19:07.800 know us better than we know ourselves and be able 0:19:07.840 --> 0:19:11.680 to unleash something within us that we didn't know was there. Yeah. 0:19:11.680 --> 0:19:14.560 I think, well, it's something you touch on in episodes 0:19:14.560 --> 0:19:18.240 of the show, is the idea that psychiatry makes people 0:19:18.440 --> 0:19:22.520 maybe feel vulnerable because of its potential access to secrets 0:19:23.000 --> 0:19:27.119 which people don't want. The things people don't want known 0:19:27.720 --> 0:19:30.960 are potentially knowable by someone who knows how to look 0:19:31.000 --> 0:19:34.679 for them. Yeah, and you know, and and uh, and 0:19:34.760 --> 0:19:37.359 nobody wants to have their secrets known, right, especially if 0:19:37.359 --> 0:19:39.960 they don't know them first. Yeah, it's like you know, 0:19:40.040 --> 0:19:42.879 I kind of would not spill out a dream I 0:19:43.000 --> 0:19:47.000 had and let somebody else, you know, uh, analyze it 0:19:47.080 --> 0:19:49.320 until I kind of understood it myself. And I sort 0:19:49.320 --> 0:19:52.880 of feel like it's the same sort of thing. And um, 0:19:52.920 --> 0:19:57.960 so there's that protection of yourself that you don't know yet. 0:19:58.040 --> 0:20:01.840 But then there's also the the uh, the minding of secrets. 0:20:01.840 --> 0:20:03.320 There are things that I know that I don't want 0:20:03.359 --> 0:20:05.280 to tell anyone, and the fact that someone else may 0:20:05.320 --> 0:20:06.520 be able to get that out of me is a 0:20:06.560 --> 0:20:10.640 little frightening, right, Not me personally, of course, I'm an 0:20:10.640 --> 0:20:13.639 open book. Well, I mean, it's interesting you say that, 0:20:13.680 --> 0:20:17.200 because I mean a creative project like this, you are, 0:20:17.200 --> 0:20:20.880 in a sense taking a dream of your own, analyzing 0:20:20.880 --> 0:20:22.920 it and then putting it out for everyone else, uh 0:20:23.359 --> 0:20:25.920 to to to see and and reanalyze and say, who 0:20:26.000 --> 0:20:29.080 is this Brett Wood? And and uh and why does 0:20:29.119 --> 0:20:31.880 he think like this? And quite often I realized things 0:20:31.880 --> 0:20:35.720 about myself that as people pointed out I as people 0:20:35.800 --> 0:20:40.399 point it out, I say, huh, maybe I you know, 0:20:40.600 --> 0:20:43.680 I knew I have certain tendencies in me, and maybe 0:20:43.680 --> 0:20:47.320 there's more tendencies or you know, there's more things like 0:20:47.440 --> 0:20:51.199 this than I realized. And also when you make a 0:20:51.200 --> 0:20:54.399 film or when you create a big project like this, 0:20:54.480 --> 0:20:56.159 you don't want to analyze it too much because you 0:20:56.200 --> 0:20:58.160 have to kind of. I've always been a strong believer 0:20:58.240 --> 0:21:02.320 in writing from the gut, don't sensor your elf, don't uh, 0:21:02.560 --> 0:21:05.600 don't understand it too well, just do whatever it takes 0:21:05.600 --> 0:21:08.600 to open up the faucet and let the words flow. 0:21:09.480 --> 0:21:13.360 And it is, you know, like a form of therapy 0:21:13.520 --> 0:21:15.440 that you let this stuff out, you know, and you 0:21:15.480 --> 0:21:17.320 want to dig into the weird stuff that no one 0:21:17.359 --> 0:21:20.720 else or not many other people are digging into so 0:21:21.200 --> 0:21:23.280 and all my films and in the control group, and 0:21:23.320 --> 0:21:26.240 hopefully as we move forward, I'm going to continue to 0:21:26.240 --> 0:21:29.240 do that. And you know, of course, you as you 0:21:29.280 --> 0:21:31.760 do that, you make sure you're doing something that is 0:21:31.800 --> 0:21:35.000 not morally reprehensible, and you there's some purpose to what 0:21:35.080 --> 0:21:38.760 you're doing. But I think it's it's important for the 0:21:39.119 --> 0:21:44.280 artists to not completely understand their work, because once you 0:21:44.320 --> 0:21:48.600 understand something, then there's no longer any reason to explore it. 0:21:48.760 --> 0:21:51.960 So for me, for better or worse, it's taking that 0:21:52.040 --> 0:21:55.000 kind of muck out of the inside of me, putting 0:21:55.000 --> 0:21:57.600 it on a table and then just kind of like 0:21:57.840 --> 0:22:00.960 fishing around in and and seeing what's there and turning 0:22:00.960 --> 0:22:03.560 it into a narrative and putting it in people's ears. 0:22:03.920 --> 0:22:06.000 I think we just mentioned this on the show recently, 0:22:06.040 --> 0:22:09.280 but I often think it's hilarious when like an interviewer 0:22:09.400 --> 0:22:12.639 asks a creative person to explain their novel in terms 0:22:12.640 --> 0:22:17.960 of their autobiography. Just is that's somebody else's job. Come on, 0:22:18.560 --> 0:22:21.760 But I'm sure that like after they read it and 0:22:21.800 --> 0:22:24.359 then after they've heard feedback, they probably discover all sorts 0:22:24.359 --> 0:22:27.760 of things about themselves that they were not really thinking 0:22:27.760 --> 0:22:29.400 of when it was being written. Because you know, any 0:22:29.440 --> 0:22:32.439 time you write or even do any kind of like 0:22:32.560 --> 0:22:36.520 extemporaneous speaking, you're just like letting it flow out and 0:22:36.560 --> 0:22:39.520 you can't stop and understand it as the words are 0:22:39.560 --> 0:22:43.640 coming out. So it's it's kind of the a fun thing. 0:22:43.680 --> 0:22:45.800 It's like improv you know, it's kind of nice to 0:22:45.880 --> 0:22:48.919 turn the creative faucet on and sort of see what 0:22:49.000 --> 0:22:52.239 comes out, and hopefully you know, you still have your 0:22:52.240 --> 0:22:56.960 friends and relationships after you've done so well. In that case, 0:22:57.000 --> 0:23:01.320 maybe allow me to illicitly ask you to summarize what 0:23:01.400 --> 0:23:05.520 your work means, if you if you expect people to 0:23:05.640 --> 0:23:08.320 come away from the control group with a with a 0:23:08.400 --> 0:23:10.359 thought or a message or a takeaway. What do you 0:23:10.440 --> 0:23:14.280 what do you think that thought is? Well? On a 0:23:14.400 --> 0:23:16.880 broader canvas, all my work is about people who are 0:23:16.920 --> 0:23:21.280