Speaker 1: This is Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the Thing. Recently,
Speaker 1: I've been producing a documentary film series each summer on
Speaker 1: Long Island on behalf of the Hampton's International Film Festival,
Speaker 1: and I'm pretty much addicted to documentary films. A good
Speaker 1: documentary film requires a mixture of four basic ingredients. A
Speaker 1: great story, a filmmaker with passion, an experienced crew, and money.
Speaker 1: Today on the show, I'll speak with two documentary filmmakers
Speaker 1: who each made controversial political films using a slightly different formula.
Speaker 1: The story was there, but without any money or experience,
Speaker 1: they had to make up that deficit with excess passion
Speaker 1: or perhaps a better word, obsession. My first guest is
Speaker 1: Anthony Baxter. Baxter was a radio journalist for the b
Speaker 1: b C who turned to filmmaking when a unique strip
Speaker 1: of coastline near his home in northeast Scotland was threatened
Speaker 1: with development by billionaire Donald Trump. Trump had purchased a
Speaker 1: few thousand acres of land with the intent of building
Speaker 1: a golf course. Baxter's film You've Been Trumped documents the
Speaker 1: drama that unfolded amongst Trump, the Scottish government, who supported
Speaker 1: the project and the community of people who were deeply
Speaker 1: rooted there. I'm going to build for the people of
Speaker 1: Scotland the greatest golf course anywhere in the world. There'll
Speaker 1: be nothing like it, and it's going to be done
Speaker 1: environmentally perfect. It's just so false. You know, all these
Speaker 1: people alive and suited and booted and yes, Mr Trump, no,
Speaker 1: Mr Trump. It's a real mosaic of habitats. You've got
Speaker 1: everything from open sound to shrubs, two trees to wetlands.
Speaker 1: I've received many environmental awards over the years. The greatest
Speaker 1: thing I've ever done for the environment is what I'll
Speaker 1: be doing right here in Aberdeen. People who don't approve
Speaker 1: of this, I don't approve a Bullion. Filmmaker Anthony Baxter
Speaker 1: lives in a tiny village just fifty miles south of
Speaker 1: Aberdeenshire where the film takes place, and it was Baxter's
Speaker 1: pure frustration that fueled the film. The first thing was
Speaker 1: really I felt, look, this story is not being reported
Speaker 1: accurately in the media. In the two local newspapers were
Speaker 1: saying this is going to be a fantastic thing. For
Speaker 1: the end. They were on board from the beginning. Absolutely,
Speaker 1: Why do you think that is. Well, when Donald Trump arrived,
Speaker 1: the red carpet was rolled out as private jet touchdown
Speaker 1: at Aberdeen Airport. The press were invited and they all
Speaker 1: came along and they all said, this is going to
Speaker 1: be fantastic. In a way, I think it was celebrity
Speaker 1: is coming to this little part of Scotland and Donald
Speaker 1: Trump is going to bring with him all these jobs.
Speaker 1: And the media kind of just latched onto this as
Speaker 1: if it was going to be a saving thing for
Speaker 1: for the area. Who is the primary employer that what's
Speaker 1: the primary means of employment there? The main employer for
Speaker 1: the area is is the oil industry. I would say
Speaker 1: that has been the driving force of the economy in
Speaker 1: that part of the world. That's why there is only
Speaker 1: one percent unemployment one percent in Aberdeenshire, which is where
Speaker 1: you know, Donald Trump said he was going to be
Speaker 1: building a golf course resort and and employing thousands of people.
Speaker 1: And so when I heard that was happening, When I
Speaker 1: heard that this was going to be essentially saving the
Speaker 1: local economy according to you, thought that was strange because
Speaker 1: he didn't need saving. Well, there are two things that
Speaker 1: struck me about it. One was you know, the economy
Speaker 1: I felt didn't need saving. The other thing was that
Speaker 1: the environmental impact of this development was going to be enormous.
Speaker 1: I mean, this was being built on a stretch of
Speaker 1: unique scientific interest. To cite a special scientific interest as
Speaker 1: the highest accolade that our country can bestow to a
Speaker 1: protected site. So it's the equivalent in like in the
Speaker 1: unities of like a national seashore. Absolutely, when you have
Speaker 1: some massive tract of land that is of unique environmental value. Yes,
Speaker 1: so it wasn't protected land. It was protected. It was
Speaker 1: supposed to protective and development. Now what happened was nobody
Speaker 1: reported the environmental impact that this result was going to have.
Speaker 1: And I knew, having made a documentary for the BBC,
Speaker 1: that it was going to be significant. Knew that this
Speaker 1: was a protected site. But none of the local press
Speaker 1: was saying anything about this, and instead they were focusing
Speaker 1: in on the spack between Donald Trump and a and
Speaker 1: one local resident who didn't want to sell his property.
Speaker 1: And you know, I felt that the local people were
Speaker 1: being parodied, and so I went up and I spoke
Speaker 1: to them. I usually get up about seven and let
Speaker 1: the cut out, and in this dark mornings, I just
Speaker 1: nipped back to bed again and turn on the TV
Speaker 1: and little about c half to seven, Get ready, staff,
Speaker 1: Nick Borridge, give this manor job, eaches, give this minor
Speaker 1: job in a guard job. My father he sang songs
Speaker 1: that you never hear of the day. And he used
Speaker 1: to sing a song You'll never miss the water till
Speaker 1: the well runs dry, which is a very true. Seeing
Speaker 1: here are people who live in an almost kind of
Speaker 1: harmetic and very innocent lifestyle, their minding their own business
Speaker 1: on a farm on the Scottish coast, and along comes
Speaker 1: Darth Vader, if you will, Who's going to grip the
Speaker 1: whole thing down and displace all them? And they seem
Speaker 1: incredibly incredibly innocent people. Did they strike you that way
Speaker 1: that they just wanted to be left alone and go
Speaker 1: about their business? Absolutely? I mean when I first spoke
Speaker 1: to the people there, um, I said to them, look,
Speaker 1: you know, I think that Donald Trump should be held
Speaker 1: accountable for his actions here, and I want you to
Speaker 1: give me your trust that I will follow this story
Speaker 1: and and hold into account for this and all over
Speaker 1: the world, you know, whether it's in New York or
Speaker 1: whether it's in Michigan, and whether it's in Denver or
Speaker 1: all the places we've shown the film, people can't to
Speaker 1: us and they've said the same kind of thing is
Speaker 1: happening here. You know, it's not always Donald Trump, but
Speaker 1: often there is a developer coming in say look, we're
Speaker 1: going to develop this land. We think it's going to
Speaker 1: be fantastic for the economy, and the local government gets
Speaker 1: on side. Maybe there's a real this is striking accord.
Speaker 1: Let me just say that Trump is a very mixed bag.
Speaker 1: If he was a filmmaker, you know, he'd have water
Speaker 1: World on some of his slate, and he'd have I'm
Speaker 1: not going to say Citizen Kane, but he'd have some
Speaker 1: pretty estimable things. Trump is a very very complicated person.
Speaker 1: And I'm wondering you were around him. How much were
Speaker 1: you because in the film you doesn't seem like you
Speaker 1: are in direct, you know, proximity to him all that often?
Speaker 1: Is that true? Yeah? I mean I went up there.
Speaker 1: The first day I went up to film really was
Speaker 1: in May when he came over. I heard on the
Speaker 1: news he was there, So I went up and I
Speaker 1: said to the guy on the door of this this
Speaker 1: UM press conference, Look, I'm from Entres Pictures of the
Speaker 1: production company, which I am and um. I went down
Speaker 1: and I started filming there, and when I saw Donald
Speaker 1: Trump standing there saying, we are going to stabilize the
Speaker 1: dunes and make them better than they were previously. The
Speaker 1: scientists had said to me that if you stabilize the junes,
Speaker 1: it's the worst possible thing you can do. You know,
Speaker 1: by stabilizing the dunes, you are taking away the thing
Speaker 1: that makes them a site of special scientific interest. You know,
Speaker 1: they've been there for many hundreds of years, moving and
Speaker 1: shifting on their own, on their own accord. And if
Speaker 1: you stabilize them to build a golf course, then you
Speaker 1: are changing the landscape forever and that uniqueness. Well, you see.
Speaker 1: You see. The thing is with with Donald Trump. He's
Speaker 1: used to having media around who are going to give
Speaker 1: him good press. But I disagree with you. I think
Speaker 1: maybe that's the case over there. What was it about
Speaker 1: what was going on over there that people bit the
Speaker 1: Trump hook? Because in America they don't do them anymore.
Speaker 1: Trump is someone who is viewed with as much skepticism
Speaker 1: as he is with fascination. Who didn't say no? And
Speaker 1: why didn't they say? Now? Well, first, Bore the local
Speaker 1: government said no, and the Scottish government called in the decision,
Speaker 1: over ruling the local guy. Do you think their argument
Speaker 1: was that this is in the Scottish national interest, this
Speaker 1: is going to create so many jobs. They said, look,
Speaker 1: this is going to put Scotland on the map for golf,
Speaker 1: even though as we all know Scotland as stuff full
Speaker 1: of golf courses. Anyways, that's where golf was founded, you know,
Speaker 1: St Andrew's. And it's baffling to me. I have to say,
Speaker 1: I don't understand it myself, you know, I mean the end,
Speaker 1: it was just someone who you could point to who
Speaker 1: was ultimately responsible for their decision. On the national level. Well,
Speaker 1: the First Minister of Scotland, Alex Salmond, refused to do
Speaker 1: an interview with us, but essentially he was the one absolutely.
Speaker 1: And now, of course we've got this extraordinary situation where
Speaker 1: Donald Trump is furious about a wind farm which has
Speaker 1: been planned off the coast. He's saying that if the
Speaker 1: wind farmers built, he's out, He's out. Who's going to
Speaker 1: make that decision. That's down to the Scottish government, to
Speaker 1: Alex Salmond. But you see Mr Salmond has so there's
Speaker 1: been a wall of silence after Donald Trump wrote a
Speaker 1: couple of letters to the First Minister, furious letters saying
Speaker 1: you promised me this wind farm wouldn't be built, did they? Um? Well,
Speaker 1: the Scottish government's line at the moment is that was
Speaker 1: the previous administration and I actually, you know, the thing
Speaker 1: is is that this golf course development was given the
Speaker 1: go ahead by Mr Salmon, who said, we're giving this
Speaker 1: to go ahead because we believe the idea that's going
Speaker 1: to bring all these jobs. We understand there's going to
Speaker 1: be a serious environmental impact. But sometimes as a government
Speaker 1: you have to make tough decisions. How did he address
Speaker 1: the concerns about the environment, Well, he just ignored them.
Speaker 1: He basically acknowledged there would be an environmental impact, but
Speaker 1: he said that the economic developments, the economic gain, outweighed
Speaker 1: the environmental concerns. In the film, you see that the
Speaker 1: bulldozers have torn into the whole thing. The whole thing
Speaker 1: is completely lacerated and it looks like a golf course
Speaker 1: because the destruction, as you as you say, has been done.
Speaker 1: But what hasn't happened yet is the skyscraper hotel and
Speaker 1: the undred houses and all the facilities. The skyscraper hotel,
Speaker 1: and he doesn't get the condos. Are they they're going
Speaker 1: to still have a Gulf operation. They they're going to
Speaker 1: have a couple of temporary buildings. But now he's saying
Speaker 1: that work on the rest of it is on hold
Speaker 1: until there's a wind farm decision. Once the status of
Speaker 1: the wind farm decision, well, we're waiting for a decision
Speaker 1: from the Scottish government on that, and you know that
Speaker 1: remains to be seen. But Donald Trump is a developer.
Speaker 1: That's what he does. He builds skyscrapers, he builds resorts.
Speaker 1: The Scottish government said in this case, look, you know,
Speaker 1: we understand there's this big environmental impact, but the economics
Speaker 1: outweigh that, and I think that question has to be
Speaker 1: put to the Scottish government. The Scottish government at the
Speaker 1: moment is fighting to have Scotland as a fully independent country.
Speaker 1: There's going to be a referendum in two thousand and
Speaker 1: fourteen for true Scottish independence, where Scotland would be completely
Speaker 1: separate to the rest of the United Kingdom. What's the
Speaker 1: public support for that. Well, you know, it's an interesting question.
Speaker 1: I don't know what the latest surveys are on that.
Speaker 1: But if you are going to have a government which
Speaker 1: overturns its own strict environmental policies in order to give
Speaker 1: a developer the green light to build a golf course,
Speaker 1: resort and a skyscraper, hotel and houses on one of
Speaker 1: its last wilderness areas. Then you have to ask yourself
Speaker 1: the question, you know, how will the Scottish government be
Speaker 1: behaving in the future, right? You know, this was an
Speaker 1: opportunity in a way for Scotland to stand up and say, look,
Speaker 1: you know we have here a prized part of our
Speaker 1: country which is beautiful. It's one of our last wilderness areas.
Speaker 1: We could stand up now and say, look, we know
Speaker 1: there is this development proposal to come in from Donald
Speaker 1: Trump to build this resort. It's going to bring a
Speaker 1: few jobs that the economists who we have in the
Speaker 1: film say the number of jobs will be closer to zero.
Speaker 1: You know, they had an opportunity to stand up for
Speaker 1: the environment. The Scottish government had that opportunity and it
Speaker 1: and it refused to take it. For the future of Scotland,
Speaker 1: I think that sends out huge alarm bells. If you
Speaker 1: have a fully independent Scotland, then it's going to allow
Speaker 1: that kind of thing to happen again. But I'm wondering,
Speaker 1: when you make films like this which involved these causes,
Speaker 1: what does this do to you in the long term,
Speaker 1: meaning the golf course is there, the damage is done
Speaker 1: in the scenic beauty. Do you feel any compulsion to
Speaker 1: participate in this process now beyond you having cut the
Speaker 1: camera or do you just walk away from it now
Speaker 1: and you're not really engaged by what's coming on? I
Speaker 1: think it really does get under you still care. I
Speaker 1: think the thing is is that the story doesn't really
Speaker 1: leave you. I think in a way this as you say,
Speaker 1: the golf course is there, it could be reclaimed in
Speaker 1: hundreds of years. In fact, there's a Scottish singer songwriter
Speaker 1: called Kareem Poet. He has written a song inspired by
Speaker 1: the film where the Steve Fogg in Scotland, which is
Speaker 1: called the Heart reaps its quiet vengeance on the resort
Speaker 1: and eventually it really is reclaimed by nature. The tist
Speaker 1: of labs and flows where the Ethan meets the ocean,
Speaker 1: and not even God himself could stop the northern leads
Speaker 1: from blowing. You can tear these turns asunder bounders wondering
Speaker 1: to dust with your cruel hands and crooked hearts, laden
Speaker 1: with lost an expensive life. But the horror will stumble
Speaker 1: in to color your eyes. The heart will stumble. And
Speaker 1: how did you raise the money for? You've been trumped?
Speaker 1: Where the money come from? So we didn't have any money.
Speaker 1: The way it works now for filmmakers, as you go
Speaker 1: to a pitching forum often and you say, look, I've
Speaker 1: got this idea for this film I think is an
Speaker 1: important story. You make a trailer, you found that yourself.
Speaker 1: You then stand in front of a load of executives
Speaker 1: from around the world and you tell them why you
Speaker 1: think this story is really important as a documentary, and
Speaker 1: they then decide whether or not they're going to fund
Speaker 1: it or not. And so when I pitched this film
Speaker 1: at the Edinburgh International Film Festival and we were voted
Speaker 1: essentially the best pitch. However, one of the executives from
Speaker 1: PBS actually said to me, I hope you've got a
Speaker 1: good lawyer, because if you're going to take on Donald Trump,
Speaker 1: you're going to need one. And there was no money
Speaker 1: forthcoming from that pitching session, so I had to remortgage
Speaker 1: the house and we hit the internet and crowdfunded this.
Speaker 1: This is how many documentary filmmakers are making films now.
Speaker 1: They hit a website like Indiego Go or Kickstarter, they
Speaker 1: make a trailer and they ask people to contribute money.
Speaker 1: I mean, you're in the land of Robert Townsend in
Speaker 1: Hollywood Shuffle where you're putting it on your own credit
Speaker 1: card and bar You're just you're just doing whatever you can.
Speaker 1: It's the only way you can do it. What was
Speaker 1: the budget of the film. Finally, I'm terribly British when
Speaker 1: it comes to things like this. I talk about money.
Speaker 1: I'm asking because I think people find this interesting. Meaning,
Speaker 1: a guy on a zone found a way the couple together, X.
Speaker 1: Would you say it was north of five dollars? Oh gosh,
Speaker 1: if way south of that? I mean it was south
Speaker 1: of that, Okay, I mean i'd say I'd say in
Speaker 1: a way to be honest with you, Alec, if you
Speaker 1: have a camera and you have memory cards or tapes
Speaker 1: to put into the camera, you're really talking about your time.
Speaker 1: And the location was to drive away from your exactly.
Speaker 1: So I was able to drive up there, and that's
Speaker 1: really what was so important to me. I mean that,
Speaker 1: you know, and that's what documentary filmmaking for me is
Speaker 1: all about trying to get to the truth of something
Speaker 1: you find, well, is this real life? Is this really unfolding?
Speaker 1: And sometimes real life is stranger than fiction, and this
Speaker 1: is this is a classic example of that. I don't
Speaker 1: think your film is finished. There's a there is a
Speaker 1: part two. I think the thing is. What we've found
Speaker 1: is that, for example, we've been showing the film in
Speaker 1: Croatia recently, and we showed it in the town of Dobrovnik,
Speaker 1: which is under threat from you know, an alleged as
Speaker 1: Radia arms dealer who's building this golf court wants to
Speaker 1: build a golf course resort overlooking the sound the town
Speaker 1: of Dobrovnik, which is a UNISCO protected site, and the
Speaker 1: local villagers put the film on to try and bring
Speaker 1: home to people this is what the future could hold
Speaker 1: for us if we allow this kind of thing to happen.
Speaker 1: I mean, in Croatia, the government is supporting the building
Speaker 1: of a hundred golf resorts. You know, in a way
Speaker 1: the film where we've been screening it in America, there
Speaker 1: are people who come up to us and they say,
Speaker 1: you know, there's a similar kind of development being planned
Speaker 1: for here, and so you're right. It isn't over. What
Speaker 1: are you working on? Well, at the moment, I'm working
Speaker 1: on trying to get the film out to an audience.
Speaker 1: We think that this story is one that has to
Speaker 1: be told, is one that resonates with people here in America.
Speaker 1: But we're doing distribution now we don't have Why do
Speaker 1: you think you don't have distribution? Do you think that
Speaker 1: some people are overlook the film if you were in
Speaker 1: the distribution world, because what's new about spitting on Trump? Well?
Speaker 1: I think on the film shows Donald Trump. Has you
Speaker 1: never seen him before? I mean, because here you see
Speaker 1: him bullying and harassing local people and developing a unique
Speaker 1: wilderness area and destroying an environment. Store see, I happen
Speaker 1: to be a very truthful person. His property is terribly maintained.
Speaker 1: It's slum like, it's disgusting. He's got stuff thrown all
Speaker 1: over the place. He lives like a pig. And I
Speaker 1: did say that. And I'm an honest guy, and I
Speaker 1: speak honestly, and I think that's why some people like
Speaker 1: me and some people probably don't like me. But I
Speaker 1: think you do himself a great service if you fixed
Speaker 1: up this property, you do show it on camera. There's
Speaker 1: a thing that Trump does, which is the thing I
Speaker 1: loved most about the film. There is his Trump condemning
Speaker 1: these people and marginalizing these innocent people, these completely innocent people.
Speaker 1: We were surprised ourselves. I think about the impact it
Speaker 1: would have on audiences, but people in theaters when they
Speaker 1: see it, it's got a tremendous power, I think, because
Speaker 1: people feel very strongly about what's happened, and they feel
Speaker 1: very strongly for these people and for the environment. Donald
Speaker 1: Trump's golf course in Aberdeen, Scotland opened last month. Plans
Speaker 1: to build the hotel are on hold, pending a decision
Speaker 1: by the Scottish government to allow a wind farm to
Speaker 1: be built within view of the course. You've Been Trumped
Speaker 1: is playing at the Village East Cinema in New York.
Speaker 1: It opens in Los Angeles on August. My next guest,
Speaker 1: Dylan Avery, was an eighteen year old film student in
Speaker 1: upstate New York when he came up with an idea
Speaker 1: for a summer action movie about a vast nine eleven
Speaker 1: conspiracy while working as a waiter at Red Lobster. Avery
Speaker 1: combed through undreds of hours of eyewitness accounts, news footage,
Speaker 1: and official reports from nine eleven His fictional script gradually
Speaker 1: dissolved into an obsessively researched documentary called Loose Change, which
Speaker 1: alleged that nine eleven really was an inside job. Here's
Speaker 1: a clip of only seven ft long high, has a
Speaker 1: hundred and twenty ft wingspan and weighs almost one tons.
Speaker 1: Are we supposed to believe that it disappeared into this
Speaker 1: hole without leaving any wreckage on the outside? Why is
Speaker 1: there no damage from where the wings, or the vertical
Speaker 1: stabilizer or the engines would have slammed into the building.
Speaker 1: Avery's film became an online sensation after being posted on
Speaker 1: the Internet. Loose Change spawned a truth or movement composed
Speaker 1: of people that believe the government orchestrated nine eleven and
Speaker 1: then covered it up. And as with all conspiracy theories,
Speaker 1: talking about them in public can get you into trouble.
Speaker 1: That hasn't stopped Dylan Avery. The nine eleven Commission was
Speaker 1: a cover up, and the only question is what it
Speaker 1: was covering up. What do you think it was covering up?
Speaker 1: Easily the the complete abundance of warnings that it appeared
Speaker 1: the government received. When you have John Ashcroft flying private
Speaker 1: jets in July two thousand one. When you have massive
Speaker 1: put options placed on American United Airlines leading up to
Speaker 1: the events, that is suspicious, to say the least, when
Speaker 1: you take those facts because this is a game. Obviously
Speaker 1: I shouldn't say game, but this is an exercise that
Speaker 1: a lot of people have toyed with. One thing you
Speaker 1: do sing in the film, which is the one I
Speaker 1: can't let go of, is the destruction of the entire
Speaker 1: Rolls Royce engine system and the entire fuselage of the
Speaker 1: plane that goes into the Pentagon. Shanksville is more glaring
Speaker 1: the Pentagon, because I mean, I've seen news footage taken
Speaker 1: immediately after, I've seen photographs taken that day, days after
Speaker 1: the fact, and there is just nothing there. There's a
Speaker 1: hole in the ground, there's no fusilize, there's no engine,
Speaker 1: there's no tail, there's no What did the eleven Commission
Speaker 1: say about that? They simply said that the plane crashed
Speaker 1: going at a very high rate of speed. There are
Speaker 1: websites dedicated specifically to airplane crashes and to the debris leftover,
Speaker 1: and you can go to any jumbo jet crash ever,
Speaker 1: and you will see something some kind of trace. I mean,
Speaker 1: the eyewitnesses that showed up to the site said themselves,
Speaker 1: I didn't even know if I was in the right place.
Speaker 1: I didn't see a plane. What happened to the people
Speaker 1: that were on the plane that that plane took off?
Speaker 1: What have people postulated to you has happened? Oh man,
Speaker 1: there's that makes sense to you. There's a lot of
Speaker 1: theories out there, but I and that's the one thing
Speaker 1: that I've tried to avoid talking about in the past
Speaker 1: couple of years is theories because it's just dangerous territory
Speaker 1: and you start talking about things that may or may
Speaker 1: not have happened to the extent without endorsing or even
Speaker 1: discussing any theory. Are there any that addressed that, for example,
Speaker 1: that have made any sense to you at all? I
Speaker 1: mean that there's all kinds that the four original planes
Speaker 1: were herded to an Air Force space and then the
Speaker 1: path messengers because all four of the planes on the
Speaker 1: morning of nine eleven averaged about capacity. I don't know
Speaker 1: how often you fly ALEC, but even back in two
Speaker 1: thousand one on a weekday morning, it was hard to
Speaker 1: get four planes that empty. One of the theories is
Speaker 1: that the four planes were shepherded into an air Force space.
Speaker 1: The people were taken off of that plane put onto
Speaker 1: a fifth plane, and then that plane shot down again.
Speaker 1: Just a theory. I'm not saying that's what I believe.
Speaker 1: But but let me just finish this school. We could
Speaker 1: go on and on and you can take all the
Speaker 1: truth movement, and you can take all that information and
Speaker 1: set it aside, because what's daunting is you never will know.
Speaker 1: So we go down there now and what do we have.
Speaker 1: What do you think about what's been what's happening at
Speaker 1: the site of the World Trade Center now, at the
Speaker 1: site itself. Uh, it would be nice for everything to
Speaker 1: have been built and for they're not to have been
Speaker 1: this long drawn out battle of the memorial. It would
Speaker 1: have been nice for the tenure anniversary for everything to
Speaker 1: have been I don't want to see it back to normal, um,
Speaker 1: because you know, how are things ever going to get
Speaker 1: back to normal in this country. It just it seemed
Speaker 1: like something wasn't complete. Um. It was a very surreal
Speaker 1: day for me because you know, it's ten years after
Speaker 1: the fact. You know, a lot has happened in the
Speaker 1: past decade, A lot has happened with the movement with
Speaker 1: the country. I mean Ground zero was a madhouse. It
Speaker 1: was just amaze. You know. We all felt like we
Speaker 1: were just kind of being corralled through these gates and
Speaker 1: fences and eventually made our way to the free speech
Speaker 1: zone where the truth movement was assembled. Essentially, when you say,
Speaker 1: quote unquote the truth movement was assembled, is it a
Speaker 1: desperate bunch of people from different distinct groups. Who's part
Speaker 1: of that umbrella? You know, it's tricky. I suppose it
Speaker 1: is a giant umbrella at this point, because you know,
Speaker 1: when you you tell somebody you want the truth about
Speaker 1: nine eleven, they they probably already have many preconceived notions
Speaker 1: about what it is you're asking, just because they've seen
Speaker 1: so many different aspects of this movement over the past decade.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of it propelled by your film, A
Speaker 1: good percentage of it the wind of the truth movement. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and you know, unintentionally, so you know it was never
Speaker 1: yeah it was it was never a goal of your Yeah,
Speaker 1: it was just, hey, let's make this movie to express
Speaker 1: these things. You say. You're there. Are you treated like
Speaker 1: a deity among those people? Do they kind of like
Speaker 1: you're you know, I actually I don't like being idolized,
Speaker 1: and I don't like being put up on a pedestal
Speaker 1: and having attention drawn to you. Yeah, because it's just
Speaker 1: I'm just a filmmaker. That's all. That's all it's ever
Speaker 1: come from. So when when you first get into this
Speaker 1: and when you first kind of start to open your
Speaker 1: eyes to this information, it's very easy to get sucked in,
Speaker 1: and it's very easy to feel overwhelmed and like almost
Speaker 1: anything could be true more or less. But you have
Speaker 1: to kind of reach that point where you take a
Speaker 1: step back and you start to analyze things and just like,
Speaker 1: all right, well, what what's good for the movement? You know,
Speaker 1: what's good for the cause, and what are the things
Speaker 1: that truly matter? You just said the movement. Do you
Speaker 1: believe that you're a filmmaker who's making films and you're
Speaker 1: pointing in casting a lightem what you think is a
Speaker 1: set of facts or do you think you're part of
Speaker 1: a movement or both or neither? Which is it? Primarily
Speaker 1: I'm a filmmaker, and that's that's the whole reason loose
Speaker 1: change exists. But and then I wrong to assume that
Speaker 1: you've kind of gotten out of the movement business. The
Speaker 1: last couple of years. That's well, it's tough to say,
Speaker 1: I mean, because I'm still involved. I was still there
Speaker 1: at Ground zero and the tenth anniversary. I still talk
Speaker 1: to all the people that are actively Why did you go?
Speaker 1: I went mostly to pay my respects and to see
Speaker 1: how construction had come along, and also to see the
Speaker 1: people that I hadn't seen since two thousand and six.
Speaker 1: I think you cared about. Yeah, this is a movement,
Speaker 1: and these are people that I care about and that
Speaker 1: I know you know, And I went down to Ground
Speaker 1: zero mostly just to be there. So tell us how
Speaker 1: does Loose Change begin? Um? The original Loose Change feature
Speaker 1: film script was ambitious. If I had to pick one work,
Speaker 1: it had card chases, It had people assembling at the
Speaker 1: White House on the end, It had this, It had
Speaker 1: that I did. I wrote a script without any care
Speaker 1: to budget or how I would actually film it. So
Speaker 1: when the time came around to actually start and plan
Speaker 1: out this film, that's the thing that I had spent
Speaker 1: a year two years writing. It was kind of a
Speaker 1: slow realization that the film that I wanted to make
Speaker 1: was not possible. So it was especially after Corey came back.
Speaker 1: My best friend Corey who signed up to the army,
Speaker 1: and he signed up after nine eleven. He signed up
Speaker 1: before his first day of basic training was on September eleventh,
Speaker 1: because he signed up in August two thousand and one.
Speaker 1: It was kind of a running joke at the time.
Speaker 1: It was, well, you know, we're we're not in a war.
Speaker 1: There's not gonna be a war anytime soon, so we
Speaker 1: don't have to worry about you. You know, it'll be fine.
Speaker 1: And then the timing couldn't have been creepier. Um So
Speaker 1: I would send him DVDs of the movie as it
Speaker 1: was over to Iraq. Yeah, so while he was over
Speaker 1: in Iraq fighting the Iraq War. Um So, while your
Speaker 1: best friend was over in the Iraq fighting the Iraq War,
Speaker 1: you were sending him the basic elements of your nine
Speaker 1: eleven conspiracy theory film. Well, yeah, I don't. I'm hesitant
Speaker 1: to use conspiracy theory, but whatever, whatever, whatever you want
Speaker 1: to call it, you know, but I would prefer to
Speaker 1: at least have some common language with you, which the
Speaker 1: phrase you would rather use. I suppose the nine eleven
Speaker 1: Truth film. You're sending your friend the elements, the raw
Speaker 1: elements of your nine eleven Truth film. While he's fighting
Speaker 1: a war that is founded upon the events of not
Speaker 1: eleven essentially, So yeah, it's it was a very interesting
Speaker 1: time to be alive. And then he comes back and
Speaker 1: what happened. So when he got back, we tried shooting
Speaker 1: a couple of scenes, and you know, in hindsight, for
Speaker 1: like my first time directing with a little mini DV
Speaker 1: camera and no experience whatsoever. I mean, some of the
Speaker 1: scenes didn't turn out too bad, but it became apparent
Speaker 1: after I started cutting it together or attempting to cut
Speaker 1: it together, I realized the film just wasn't gonna happen,
Speaker 1: not the way that I envisioned it. When you crossed
Speaker 1: the line from the narrative film to the documentary film
Speaker 1: with a fact similar, the facts were definitely similar in
Speaker 1: a lot of the basic premises. But the really interesting
Speaker 1: thing about it is that the Loose Change screenplay predicated
Speaker 1: the actual events of what happened after Loose Change occurred
Speaker 1: or after Loose Change went viral. Because in this script,
Speaker 1: these three characters see these problems with the official story
Speaker 1: and with what their government is doing, and slowly take
Speaker 1: steps to educate the public, and then those steps go
Speaker 1: essentially viral around the world, and suddenly they're held up
Speaker 1: to be this thing that they wanted to accomplish, but
Speaker 1: didn't expect the actual the whole world to actually listen
Speaker 1: to them. So it was very interesting when Loose Change,
Speaker 1: the documentary was released and it went viral around the
Speaker 1: world and back and gave people some confidence to question
Speaker 1: the official story, and the popularity of the war was
Speaker 1: waning as well, and the popular the war was waning.
Speaker 1: So you not only had this increased flow of information
Speaker 1: about nine eleven and what had happened, but you also
Speaker 1: had this increased distrust of the government, and you had
Speaker 1: this climate where it seemed like almost anything was possible.
Speaker 1: So it for a lot of people you think a
Speaker 1: little bit, yeah, but did you see that leap now
Speaker 1: differently than you did back then, that that's a bit
Speaker 1: of a leap. Well, to some people, that maybe, but
Speaker 1: then you you look back, you look at the pretenses
Speaker 1: that have been used for war and things like the
Speaker 1: Gulf of Tonkin. While although three thousand people were not
Speaker 1: killed in broad daylight and the Gulf of Tonkin incident,
Speaker 1: you see these events which later turn out to not
Speaker 1: be everything they were cracked up to. Be. What was
Speaker 1: this like for you in terms of your own personal life?
Speaker 1: What was the cost for you of doing this Where
Speaker 1: you were saying in the middle of a war, the
Speaker 1: government's fingerprints are on this, Potentially the cost wasn't terribly drastic.
Speaker 1: I didn't. I had a couple of friends that, while
Speaker 1: they didn't necessarily distance themselves or disappear from my life entirely,
Speaker 1: they certainly didn't agree with it. What about their parents, parents?
Speaker 1: Not a lot of interaction. I didn't really interact a
Speaker 1: lot with my friends parents on the topic, because, again,
Speaker 1: I was aware that it was a very about your
Speaker 1: own family. My mom supportive from day one. You know,
Speaker 1: I'm I'm her shining star and she will do anything
Speaker 1: to support me. My father no idea. He's not really
Speaker 1: been in my life. So um my grandmother staunch Bush
Speaker 1: voting Republican. UH, thought it would be better if I
Speaker 1: focused on my cartooning as opposed as opposed to my filmmaking.
Speaker 1: So I see any conversations with her about that, they're
Speaker 1: they're brief, but it's I mean, and she's she saw
Speaker 1: like early early editions of it, you're making a movie.
Speaker 1: Now I'm working on a couple of things. I'm wrapping
Speaker 1: up a short film. I have a couple of film
Speaker 1: about what it's about. A guy who wakes up in
Speaker 1: a hotel room, has no recollection of how he got there.
Speaker 1: He's dressed in a three piece suit. There's a gun
Speaker 1: on the bedside table. He gets a call on his
Speaker 1: cell phone and before he knows that he's beating someone
Speaker 1: to death, and of course immediately realizes what he's doing
Speaker 1: and stops. Um it's called Olsen and it's it has
Speaker 1: shades of some real events that happened back in the fifties,
Speaker 1: but the script has become its own entity. Now you're
Speaker 1: making a film about coffee that I made that last year.
Speaker 1: That was a documentary made when I was living down
Speaker 1: an ocean beach. What's that film called buzz Kill? That
Speaker 1: was just pretty much a fun project that me and
Speaker 1: Wes Davis my buddy made. Um My, my buddy West
Speaker 1: goes twenty one days without drinking coffee. I know, I
Speaker 1: go from nine eleven to no coffee. Um, But it
Speaker 1: was just a fun project. Like he we were hanging
Speaker 1: out at the buddy's house and he mentioned it and
Speaker 1: sounded funny. Did you feel that you needed that though,
Speaker 1: because like in my work, if I find that scessory,
Speaker 1: you can go from doing King Lear and the next
Speaker 1: thing you want to do is like The Sunshine Boys
Speaker 1: or something. Yeah, it was nice. It was nice to
Speaker 1: do a documentary and to go into somewhere and be
Speaker 1: like to take a break. Yeah, to take a break.
Speaker 1: Do you find that sometimes was suffocating? It was suffocating.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah. Even to this day, I still can't get
Speaker 1: jobs because people were like, oh, I want to direct
Speaker 1: a feature film, and I was like, okay, what didn't
Speaker 1: you make that nine eleven documentary? No thanks. It's it's
Speaker 1: tricky because lose change happened because I wanted to make
Speaker 1: a film. It came. It was born out of the
Speaker 1: passion of being a filmmaker, and then lose change took
Speaker 1: over my life. And now it's almost like like like
Speaker 1: filmmaking is completely out of the equation now. But do
Speaker 1: you feel for you personally? That's one of the greatest
Speaker 1: impacts of the loss for you of you as a filmmaker. Well,
Speaker 1: that's exactly as I get compliments on the film and
Speaker 1: how it's made, but no one's ever like, here's some money,
Speaker 1: let's make something. You know, No all I've ever had
Speaker 1: is really just broken promises and phones that don't get answered.
Speaker 1: And I've tried, and I've tried, and I've tried reaching.
Speaker 1: Uh what funding right? It was? It was the cost
Speaker 1: of gas. Food. So do you find that's the kind
Speaker 1: of movie you're forced to make? Now? You have to
Speaker 1: do films that are very very yeah, I mean even
Speaker 1: my short. I mean, I just it's been like a
Speaker 1: couple of hundred bucks and that's mostly just food and
Speaker 1: you know, taking care of everybody, which is fine, I mean,
Speaker 1: everybody has to get their start doing that. But to
Speaker 1: be at this place where I have, I mean, Vanity
Speaker 1: Ferret called it the first Internet blockbuster. You really don't
Speaker 1: get much more of a glaring review than that, at
Speaker 1: least at the time. I mean, the Vanity Fair article
Speaker 1: in two thousand and six came, it's such a great
Speaker 1: time and it was such a positive piece. Have you
Speaker 1: wanted to pull adult in Trombo? Have you ever been
Speaker 1: ahead anybody that was willing to hire you and you
Speaker 1: just didn't put your name on the film and you
Speaker 1: use a different name. Note not even that you wouldn't
Speaker 1: even know, You wouldn't do that, You wouldn't accept that.
Speaker 1: I don't know at this point. I mean it depends
Speaker 1: on the paycheck. What do you love about making film?
Speaker 1: You're creating these little universes, and you know, you're you're
Speaker 1: inviting people into them for an hour or two at
Speaker 1: a time. And you had this, you had this legitimate
Speaker 1: opportunity to take people away for an hour or two
Speaker 1: and to just suck them out of whatever's going on
Speaker 1: in their life. And you're you're giving them escape, You're
Speaker 1: giving them a vacation for an hour or two. And
Speaker 1: directing right now is like in a superpower to me
Speaker 1: that I'm slowly working my way up to, because it's
Speaker 1: just like when you can get on a set and
Speaker 1: when you can get these performances out of these people
Speaker 1: that just go down in history. I mean, that's that's
Speaker 1: art right there. And who were some filmmakers that you admire?
Speaker 1: I hate to be cliche, but Kubrick, I mean Stanley Kubrick.
Speaker 1: I mean that that man commanded such power with his films,
Speaker 1: and he had most powerful He had such a way
Speaker 1: with what he did, just the way his films came
Speaker 1: together and the way he approached it. But also maybe
Speaker 1: kind of a minor point for some people, but his
Speaker 1: penchant for natural lighting. I Yeah, Kubrick to me was
Speaker 1: someone who was who occupied his own zip code, so
Speaker 1: to speak, in terms of films, in terms of a tone,
Speaker 1: in a mood. And it doesn't surprise me that Kubrick
Speaker 1: is your favorite director, one of your favorite directors, because Kubrick,
Speaker 1: to me, is the ultimate truth or filmmaker. His films
Speaker 1: are disturbingly truthful the way people behave, what they do,
Speaker 1: the nakedness of their ambitions and their intentions. Yeah, if
Speaker 1: Loose Change hadn't gone in the direction it went, if
Speaker 1: it hadn't put you where you are now, what do
Speaker 1: you think you'd be doing right now? That's a very
Speaker 1: good question. Maybe I would be directing feature films, you know.
Speaker 1: Maybe I would have a career. Maybe I have all
Speaker 1: the things that I dream of right now. Or maybe
Speaker 1: I wouldn't. Maybe I would still be an oneana trying
Speaker 1: to figure my life out and trying to figure out
Speaker 1: how to break through. It's tough to say, it really is. Um.
Speaker 1: I do have those moments a lot where I think
Speaker 1: about what if. M H. Dylan Avery still lives in
Speaker 1: Los Angeles, writing scripts and working towards his dream of
Speaker 1: directing feature films. Loose Change is still available on the
Speaker 1: Internet as well as Netflix. This is Alec Baldwin and
Speaker 1: you're listening to Here's the Thing.