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0:35

Hold your ears, folks. It's

0:37

showtime. People

0:38

pay good money to see this movie. When

0:41

they go out to a theater, they want cold sodas,

0:43

hot popcorn, and no monsters in

0:46

the projection booth. Everyone pretend podcasting

0:48

isn't boring.

0:50

Turn it off. Turn

0:56

it off. Turn

1:01

it off. Follow

1:16

me down.

1:17

I've got something to show you. I

1:21

don't know where to

1:23

even begin with this story.

1:25

When

1:31

my grandpa passed away, we went to his

1:33

house and started clearing out his possessions.

1:36

And one of my aunts found a videotape.

1:40

Have you got your video set up? I'm

1:43

ready to play you some lovely pictures. Hi

1:46

there. Charles

1:51

Carson, two-man farm.

1:53

This farmer, Charles Carson,

1:56

a neighbor of my grandparents, made

1:58

this feature-length film.

1:59

with home movies. Hey, what are

2:02

you doing here? It is a truly special

2:04

work of art. I know that he did take

2:07

sort of quite bizarre photographs of things.

2:10

I'm multi-pithing really when you think

2:12

about it.

2:13

It is a little bit reminiscent of

2:16

the serial killer Ed Gein. I

2:18

can't tell if this guy is a genius or a second

2:20

man. It's

2:22

not just exactly how I remember it as

2:24

a kid. It's even

2:26

more insane. Here we come. Here

2:29

we go.

2:31

So all I can say is go away to the shops,

2:34

buy yourself some beef. It's

2:37

time to show us a lot of very weird,

2:39

rather than a carved, dark pictures.

2:42

It looks like a horror movie. And you

2:44

have a jolly good look and

2:46

a perception.

2:49

He'll go down in history.

2:54

There's more to it than that. I

2:56

can't watch it. I couldn't believe what I'd

2:58

seen. I mean, it is a twist. Yeah,

3:01

it totally is. I'm not expecting that at all.

3:04

Oh,

3:04

it's marvelous, isn't it? Hey,

3:12

folks. Welcome to a special episode of The Projecting Booth. I'm

3:14

your host, Mike White. On this episode,

3:16

I'm talking with Oscar Harding. He is the director

3:19

of the new documentary film, A

3:21

Life on the Farm. It is a documentary

3:25

about a very special video. It

3:27

is currently being distributed by Alamo

3:30

films out there in their

3:32

venues. It should be out

3:34

on streaming and physical media

3:37

a little bit later in the year. If you want

3:39

to find out more about where it's playing or when

3:41

it's coming to

3:41

streaming or physical media,

3:43

take a look at their website, Sonderbar

3:45

pictures. That's S-O-N-D-R-B-A-R.C-O.U-K.

3:50

Thank you so much, and I hope you enjoyed the interview.

3:53

So before we even start to talk about life

3:55

on the farm, I want to know more about you. Tell me

3:57

more about how you even got interested in the farm.

4:00

filmmaking. I'm one of those annoying

4:02

kids who I was four years old, mom

4:05

taught me to see Lady and the Tramp at the theatre,

4:07

and it was too late. I was sort of hooked. So

4:09

yeah, I've been trying to do this since then.

4:11

It only took about 25 years, but

4:14

we got there eventually. I didn't grow up in

4:17

Somerset where the film is based. I

4:19

grew up very, very close by in Bristol.

4:21

My mom is fully Irish, so I kind of hopped back and

4:23

forth between a town just

4:26

outside of Dublin and Bristol, like a yo-yo

4:28

as a kid. So yeah, fully half

4:31

English, half Irish, a little bit of both there really.

4:34

And yeah, I went to college in

4:36

Canterbury, and at the University of Kent in the

4:39

UK, where I met my two production partners, Dominet.

4:42

And yeah, we've been in business ever since. We'd

4:44

always planned to do more on the narrative side

4:46

of things. That's kind of our first loves.

4:49

And I love dogs, I really do, but I never saw

4:51

myself making one just because it's

4:53

a very particular skill set that you need

4:55

to tell those types of stories. And we didn't really

4:57

feel we had it. Then of course, this tape

4:59

comes along and we

5:01

would have been crazy not to have done anything

5:04

with it. And then yeah, a couple

5:06

of years before we discovered that, I did

5:08

an exchange here in Milwaukee

5:10

as a college student, met my now wife.

5:13

We did a long distance through a long time, but no, I've been living

5:15

in Milwaukee the last four years now. How

5:18

did the tape come into your life? And I know you talked

5:20

a little bit about this in A Life on the Farm,

5:23

just for the folks listening at home. Tell a little

5:25

bit of the origin story here. Sure.

5:28

So it's a story of two parts. So

5:30

first of all, my grandfather passed away in 2006. Family

5:34

goes down to the house to clear out the possessions.

5:36

My dad and my aunts, and one of my aunts finds this

5:39

video tape. And she and my

5:41

dad and my other, they had this vague recollection

5:43

of their dad showing it to them.

5:46

And she happened to digitize

5:49

it and then gave every

5:51

sibling a copy.

5:52

And dad just thought it'd

5:54

be interesting for us to watch it.

5:56

He mentioned that my mother, my grandmother

5:58

was on the tape. And then he switched it off our

6:01

way through. And then I kind of,

6:03

all these images seared into my brain for

6:05

the longest time.

6:06

And when you're a kid, I imagine you see things

6:09

and then your imagination takes hold and it

6:11

seems something grand than it actually

6:13

is. And then when you're an adult, you see it and

6:16

it just seems very underwhelming. And then we

6:18

moved house and lost a copy of the tape. And

6:20

in theory, that's where the story ends. So

6:22

then we cut forward to 2017, 2018, and my partner, Dong and his girlfriend

6:25

and my

6:27

family, they go down to the West country

6:30

and they stay in a B and B and he calls me up and

6:32

he gets out of the trip and he says, I

6:34

didn't think I was going to make it out alive, but

6:36

like sending out the Texas chainsaw massacre.

6:38

And it immediately just clicks through my

6:41

brain. And I told him, it's funny you mentioned

6:43

that dot, dot, dot. And it bring

6:45

up this tape. And then he starts

6:47

saying, Oh my God, have you got the tape? Obviously we didn't.

6:50

I happened to bring it up in conversation with my aunt

6:53

and she says, well, I don't know why you didn't ask me years ago.

6:55

I've got it stashed away in the attic.

6:57

And then I got the tape back from her and the rest

6:59

is history. What is the process

7:02

though, for you to go from here's

7:04

this really bizarro tape

7:07

that's been kind of passed around and things

7:09

to, I'm going to make a movie about this, I'm going to track

7:11

down all of these people that are involved in this

7:14

and make this, you know, hour and a half documentary

7:16

about this

7:18

just bizarro character

7:20

and all these things in his orbit.

7:22

You take one look at that footage and you have

7:25

so many questions.

7:26

I was just naturally curious and the

7:29

fact that my grandparents are

7:31

both in it. There was a family

7:33

and a personal connection for me. It wasn't the only reason

7:35

we'd sides of make the film, but everyone I

7:37

showed it to was just absolutely

7:39

an all. And I thought, I feel that we

7:41

need to find out this something that could be

7:43

done with this, even if it's just finding

7:46

a way to show people this tape because

7:48

it's remarkable. And then we just started

7:50

asking round locals in the area.

7:52

I so had personal connections down there with people.

7:55

And the more we found out about this guy, it became

7:58

that much more fascinating. than

8:00

the footage itself.

8:01

It was originally going to be a short film.

8:03

So then we start shooting here and there,

8:06

doing a lot of detective work. It took a long

8:08

time to get the cameras rolling just because we had so

8:10

much research to do. And we're starting from,

8:13

you know, ground zero. We don't know anyone

8:15

involved with him. My parents don't know anyone.

8:17

So yeah, we start rolling the cameras

8:19

around 2019 and we're doing detective

8:22

work and we're trying to find people who

8:24

know him. And as that story

8:27

becomes far more interesting, it takes on a life of its

8:29

own.

8:29

It was originally a short and I got

8:32

this job in Milwaukee, told my partners, I'll

8:34

come back summer 2020. We'll finish

8:36

this little short film off. And we all know how that

8:38

went.

8:39

But pre-COVID, I'm going to stop

8:41

there and I'm not able to shoot. And I

8:43

find out there's this found footage subculture

8:46

and it just so happens that a whole bunch of them are doing

8:48

shows in Milwaukee. So I reach out to them,

8:50

including Nickajoke Found Footage Festival, show

8:52

them that footage

8:54

and it just escalated from there. Kind of

8:56

noble. They were absolutely fascinated.

8:58

We discover more footage and as

9:00

more of his story becomes clear, we all take this hard

9:02

look at ourselves and realize this

9:05

kind of has to be a feature. A very, very

9:07

short feature, but there's enough here to

9:09

tell that kind of story at that kind of length.

9:12

Had this tape been passed around, was

9:14

this kind of like a Winnebago man

9:16

or shut up little man jerky boys type of

9:18

thing, or was it a pretty small

9:20

subsect that we're familiar with a life on

9:23

the farm?

9:23

Well, it was Winnebago man if Jack Rebney

9:25

had been the one to pass out the tapes himself.

9:28

When we start doing this, we're thinking

9:31

ethically, is this the right thing to do?

9:34

Did he ever mean for this to be circulated?

9:37

Then we find out that the copy of

9:39

the tape I have with my grandparents

9:42

is a custom edit. And it turns

9:44

out that he's in this farmhouse in the middle of nowhere.

9:46

He's in his 60s, 70s. He learns video

9:49

to video technology, which isn't easy for anyone,

9:51

let alone someone like that who's just learning

9:53

from scratch at that age.

9:55

He creates custom edits of the same feature

9:57

length home movie

9:58

for every villager. With footage

10:01

of each of them and he goes to

10:03

their houses with these two three hour

10:05

tapes Gives it to them comes

10:07

back a week later to quiz them to

10:10

make sure they've watched him paid attention to the details

10:12

If they haven't he gives them another week to hold on

10:15

to it and then he'll be back to quiz them

10:17

again And that's very clearly

10:19

someone who wants their footage to be seen That's

10:22

before we even go down the rabbit hole of

10:24

where he was sending it outside

10:26

of the village He was sending it off to national

10:28

TV programs This is a guy who clearly

10:31

wants his stuff to be seen

10:32

so you're finally making his dream come true all

10:35

these years later Yeah, we just had

10:37

our first screening in Hollywood last night. I

10:39

I'd give anything for him to be here We get such a

10:41

kick out of it.

10:42

We played all seven consonants at this point We did

10:44

Antarctica about a month back. That

10:47

was not easy to arrange. I Really

10:49

hope he'd be proud I hope we've done him proud and

10:52

I really don't think he would have imagined he'd play all

10:55

Seven consonants close to 30 countries

10:57

at this point his stuff So

10:59

reminds me of there was somebody on a

11:02

public access where I grew up and

11:04

very much like narrating Family

11:07

photos and family stories, but

11:09

I don't remember it being as

11:12

Possibly morbid as I don't

11:14

want to talk too much about the contents of this

11:16

movie because I want everybody to see it It's

11:19

tricky without getting into spoiler territory But

11:21

I mean you make a really good point and

11:23

this is one of the points we're trying to make in the film

11:25

There's a Charles Carson in every village

11:28

and every public access station He's

11:30

not alone in

11:32

what he's doing

11:34

and I think sometimes we overlook these people

11:36

I think sometimes we laugh at

11:38

them and miss the real kind of depth

11:40

and substance that they have to offer with their work

11:43

You know including your public access guy

11:46

being a detective is not easy So

11:48

we're some of those pitfalls for you, you

11:50

know, the detective stuff wasn't too much

11:53

of a chore Just because

11:55

I used to work in film research. So

11:58

we kind of had that background. So being a little bit

12:00

of a detective just comes to second nature. What

12:02

became tricky was production, because

12:05

at least half of what you see on screen,

12:07

I wasn't physically present to

12:09

direct, which is a horrible, horrible

12:12

way to make a movie, because we shot the vast

12:14

majority of this in between

12:16

lockdowns in the UK and doing that

12:18

height of the pandemic as its own challenge. And

12:21

then I'm going out to the U.P. in Michigan.

12:24

I'm going to displace just outside of Chicago.

12:27

I'm in Milwaukee. We shoot in New York

12:29

and L.A. and I couldn't even fly out for that.

12:32

And we're doing all this over FaceTime. And my

12:34

D.P. and my assistant director

12:37

are a bad Wi-Fi connection and an ocean

12:39

away.

12:40

It only really works when you've got

12:42

a team that you trust and everyone is

12:45

on the same page in terms of the vision of this thing.

12:47

How do you even find backing for this, or

12:50

is this all self-funded? Well, there was a little

12:52

bit of self-financing at the beginning. And

12:54

then when we met Nick and Joe, they said,

12:56

do you have a proof of concept trailer, which we did?

12:59

And it was still a short film at this point. And

13:01

then as soon as we realized

13:04

there's a feature in this,

13:05

we go to Kickstarter

13:07

and, you know, we got very,

13:09

very fortunate to get it fully funded

13:11

by backers. The budget

13:13

is low, really, really low. It's a miracle

13:16

we got it made on the budget that we did. But

13:18

again, no private investment, really.

13:20

It was mostly Kickstarter and a little bit of a seed

13:23

fund from Nick and Joe. Did

13:25

you end up having to get permission from

13:27

his family or anything for

13:29

this video? We first and

13:32

foremost, when I wanted to set out

13:34

to make this, I wanted family

13:36

involvement, not even just from an ethical standpoint,

13:38

which is common sense,

13:40

but also I thought it would make for stronger storytelling

13:42

because before he's a filmmaker

13:45

and before he's a farmer, he is

13:47

a father, he's a husband,

13:49

he's a son. And that family element

13:52

is really, really important. So we start to reach out

13:54

to family members and we

13:56

got his first cousin, Charlie, who's in the film.

13:58

And he's the one who got him into film. making and

14:01

from what we can ascertain was his best friend.

14:03

They'd be up late nights looking at Charles'

14:05

films together. And yeah, we reached out

14:07

to the kids and they're aware that the

14:09

film was being made and we've sent

14:11

them a copy of the film. I certainly hope they

14:13

like it,

14:14

but you know, I respect their privacy. They didn't

14:17

really want to be involved. I'm just really glad

14:19

that we had Charlie who had so

14:21

many insights into him.

14:22

And then, you know, we only really

14:25

show the footage in it that needs

14:27

to be shown. There is some stuff that's on the cutting

14:29

room floor

14:30

and a lot of that relates more to sort of family history.

14:33

And for the average viewer who doesn't know,

14:35

it's not quite as interesting. And also

14:38

at

14:38

the end of the day, you're making a feature film, you've got

14:40

to keep the pacing going. So

14:43

there is a little bit on the cutting room floor. So

14:45

you didn't show up at the kids house a week later

14:48

and then quiz them about the movie?

14:50

No, no, it crossed my mind,

14:52

but no. So

14:54

when did the film have its premiere? We

14:57

premiered at the Milwaukee Film Festival last

14:59

April. So by the time we wrapping

15:02

up our theatrical run with draft test films,

15:04

it would have been about a year, which is kind

15:06

of a nice little ribbon on it. Are

15:09

you doing a physical release for

15:11

this as well? Yeah, we release

15:13

on DVD and Blu-ray, possibly VHS

15:16

on July 18th. I believe we

15:18

hit VOD on May 9th

15:20

and we're in theaters right now across America

15:22

and Canada and Australia and New Zealand. When

15:25

that DVD or Blu-ray or VHS tape

15:27

comes out, will it have the original

15:30

video on there as well?

15:31

It won't. And in part, it's just because

15:34

of the length. It's partially because,

15:36

you know, all the best stuff

15:38

is already in the film.

15:41

And also, I completely get

15:43

the interest in it, but

15:46

it's partially the quality is a particularly

15:48

good. That was one of the big technical challenges.

15:51

We did not scare with AI or anything like that, but

15:54

when you're ripping off of a DVD that's

15:56

already ripped off of VHS, it's

15:58

kind of a nightmare. I mean, the. the post-production

16:01

for this was such a headache in

16:03

large part because of the archive footage. So

16:05

it's just not going to hold up visually

16:08

for all two hours on

16:10

the DVD. ALICE Yeah, I think you make a mention

16:12

at some point about another copy surfacing

16:14

that was better. JUSTIN Oh, well, that's additional

16:17

footage. And it's tricky. We're getting

16:19

into spoiler territory there

16:20

to give away the big reveal, but it's

16:23

a lot of fun and there's a reason there was

16:25

another tape discovered that kind of really

16:27

opens up his story more. It's amazing

16:29

that this documentary has

16:31

so many twists and turns to it,

16:34

and I think that's really a credit of

16:36

trusting your instincts and figuring out, oh,

16:38

this is a feature, this does have

16:41

enough to sustain us and to make

16:43

this what could be a pretty dry

16:46

subject manner just so compelling

16:49

to watch. ALICE I put that all down

16:51

to one person and one person alone, and that's

16:53

our editor, Hannah Christensen,

16:55

and she is just the absolute unsung

16:57

hero of this movie.

16:59

We very intentionally try to

17:01

edit this so that the audience goes

17:03

on the exact same journey that we did.

17:06

And

17:06

I get when you're editing, you've got to cut

17:09

for the benefit of the audience, paste it in a

17:11

certain way to keep people interested, and

17:13

sometimes you've got to manufacture twists and

17:16

turns.

17:17

But this is exactly how we went

17:19

about it. It's exactly how we

17:21

discovered the tape. It's exactly the revelations

17:24

when we discovered them during production,

17:27

right down to there's that moment

17:30

in his footage where everything gets

17:32

turned on its head. ALICE I imagine

17:34

that the audience reaction to this is just

17:36

has to be palatable to be in

17:38

that theater and to watch

17:41

the rest of the audience go on that same journey

17:43

that you took. ALICE

17:44

It's been wonderful, and what's been this huge

17:46

relief is that people got it. Because

17:49

we very intentionally at the start lean

17:52

into

17:53

this concept, I think people have upon first

17:55

viewing, of laughing at him.

17:57

And we set this thing up as though it's going

17:59

to be...

17:59

like one in a million generic Netflix

18:02

true crime docs. I mean, we have

18:04

the queen of true crime, Karen Kogarova, my

18:06

favorite murder in there, comparing

18:08

him to Ed Gein.

18:09

And we've got to lean into that

18:12

to subvert expectations and to make

18:14

you ultimately

18:16

empathize with him. I've been in live

18:18

screenings

18:19

and you see people laughing at him at

18:21

the beginning, which is completely understandable when you

18:23

have no context. That was all of us at the start.

18:26

And then by the end of it, not only are they laughing

18:28

with him,

18:29

but it's immensely satisfying knowing we did our

18:31

job right when I've got people coming up to me in tears

18:34

saying, I love this man.

18:36

Basically everyone who's seen it is completely,

18:38

they've got him

18:40

and they've got what we've tried to do.

18:42

And they understand that this is a celebration

18:44

of this guy. I think you'd have to be a

18:46

particular kind of person to spend four, five

18:49

years of your life

18:50

to make a feature length film with other people's money

18:52

in multiple countries,

18:54

just to laugh at someone and to mock

18:56

them and exploit them.

18:57

Now, even if I wanted to have done that,

19:00

when you show that man's footage, it's

19:02

impossible not to get what he's doing

19:04

and not to fall in love with him. That footage shines

19:07

through.

19:08

Do you now have the documentary bug?

19:10

Is that you're, you're in now world.

19:13

We did shoot another doc about child

19:15

refugees in World War II, because there was

19:17

a personal connection for one of my production partners

19:20

and that's hopefully it in the festival circuit soon. And

19:22

we're in the middle of shooting one in Milwaukee

19:24

that

19:25

is a really interesting story and I can't give

19:28

away too much,

19:29

but it's about a king in exile.

19:31

Have I got the documentary bug? One or two

19:33

stories fell into our lap. Same way

19:35

the life on the farm did.

19:37

You know, genre is our first love, narrative is

19:39

our first love.

19:40

Just right now we're riding the wave of this thing and having

19:42

a lot of fun. We've got one or two other things

19:44

in development. So we'll say, where can people

19:47

keep up with you and all your production news? Well,

19:49

one of those annoying people where every social

19:51

media hand was slightly different, but I mean, if you just Google

19:54

a life on the farm or Sondabar

19:56

pictures, S-O-N-D-E-R-B-A-R,

19:59

then you'll see what we're up to. too. Again,

20:01

life on the farm is amazing. Thank you

20:03

so much for making it and I really

20:05

look forward to seeing what else you do.

20:07

Thanks for having me on.

20:09

They call and step

20:11

out you Down

20:14

on the farm Miss

21:03

you so much that time

21:06

is all we can do.

21:09

Miss you so much. You

22:44

can dance so

22:47

awesome And

22:50

I'm back and couldn't carry

22:52

a dream That I might

22:54

be from the woods But those hours

22:57

won't sound so good But you

22:59

didn't ever hear a long room

23:03

Say it ain't true, it ain't true,

23:05

in the loop It

23:08

ain't true, in

23:10

the loop It

23:13

ain't true, it ain't true, in

23:15

the loop Say

23:18

it ain't true,

23:20

in the loop You