WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.620 This episode is sponsored by Transcend, a veteran 00:00:02.620 --> 00:00:04.980 -owned and operated performance optimization 00:00:04.980 --> 00:00:08.039 company that I introduced recently as a sponsor 00:00:08.039 --> 00:00:10.820 on this show. Well, since then I have actually 00:00:10.820 --> 00:00:13.080 been using my products and I have had incredible 00:00:13.080 --> 00:00:15.939 success. There was initial blood work that was 00:00:15.939 --> 00:00:19.039 extremely detailed and based on that they offered 00:00:19.039 --> 00:00:23.559 supplementation. So I began taking DHEA. bpc 00:00:23.559 --> 00:00:26.539 157 for inflammation based on the fact that i've 00:00:26.539 --> 00:00:28.859 been a stuntman a martial artist and a firefighter 00:00:28.859 --> 00:00:31.980 my whole life lots of aches and pains dihexa 00:00:31.980 --> 00:00:34.759 to help cognition after multiple punches to the 00:00:34.759 --> 00:00:37.820 head and shift work and peptides four months 00:00:37.820 --> 00:00:40.119 later they did a detailed blood work again and 00:00:40.119 --> 00:00:43.140 i was actually able to taper off two of the peptides 00:00:43.140 --> 00:00:45.640 because my body had responded so well to just 00:00:45.640 --> 00:00:48.079 one of them that it was optimized at that point 00:00:48.570 --> 00:00:51.890 So I cannot speak highly enough of the immense 00:00:51.890 --> 00:00:54.390 range of supplementation that they offer, whether 00:00:54.390 --> 00:00:57.409 it's male health, female health, peptides to 00:00:57.409 --> 00:00:59.429 boost your own testosterone, which I would argue 00:00:59.429 --> 00:01:02.429 is needed by a lot of the fire service, or whether 00:01:02.429 --> 00:01:04.569 it's exogenous testosterone needed, especially 00:01:04.569 --> 00:01:08.019 after TBIs or advanced age. Now, as I mentioned 00:01:08.019 --> 00:01:10.400 before, the other side of this company is an 00:01:10.400 --> 00:01:12.900 altruistic arm called the Transcend Foundation, 00:01:13.420 --> 00:01:15.980 which is putting veterans and first responders 00:01:15.980 --> 00:01:19.099 through some of their protocols free of charge. 00:01:19.340 --> 00:01:22.079 Now, Transcend are also offering you, the audience, 00:01:22.260 --> 00:01:25.319 10 % off their protocols. And you can find that 00:01:25.319 --> 00:01:28.040 on jamesgearing .com under the Products tab. 00:01:28.359 --> 00:01:30.840 And if you want to hear more about Transcend 00:01:30.840 --> 00:01:34.560 and their story, listen to episode 808 with the 00:01:34.560 --> 00:01:38.930 founder, Ernie Colling. or go to transcendcompany 00:01:38.930 --> 00:01:42.709 .com. Welcome to the Behind the Shield podcast. 00:01:42.950 --> 00:01:44.670 As always, my name is James Gearing, and this 00:01:44.670 --> 00:01:46.650 week it is my absolute honor to welcome on the 00:01:46.650 --> 00:01:51.689 show British filmmaker Carl McKenzie. Now, in 00:01:51.689 --> 00:01:54.049 this conversation, we discuss a host of topics, 00:01:54.090 --> 00:01:56.890 from Carl's journey into the world of filmmaking, 00:01:57.409 --> 00:02:00.590 storytelling the struggles of our British veterans, 00:02:00.750 --> 00:02:05.150 the mental health crisis, knife crime, and so 00:02:05.150 --> 00:02:07.959 much more. Now, before we get to this incredible 00:02:07.959 --> 00:02:10.719 conversation, as I say every week, please just 00:02:10.719 --> 00:02:13.500 take a moment. Go to whichever app you listen 00:02:13.500 --> 00:02:17.000 to this on, subscribe to the show, leave feedback 00:02:17.000 --> 00:02:21.020 and leave a rating. Every single five -star rating 00:02:21.020 --> 00:02:24.300 truly does elevate this podcast, therefore making 00:02:24.300 --> 00:02:28.099 it easier for others to find. And this is a free 00:02:28.099 --> 00:02:32.979 library of well over 1 ,100 episodes now. So 00:02:32.979 --> 00:02:36.699 all I ask in return is that you help share these 00:02:36.699 --> 00:02:39.740 incredible men and women's stories so I can get 00:02:39.740 --> 00:02:42.719 them to every single person on planet Earth who 00:02:42.719 --> 00:02:45.659 needs to hear them. So with that being said, 00:02:45.840 --> 00:03:10.500 I introduce to you... Carl McKenzie. Enjoy. Well, 00:03:10.539 --> 00:03:13.080 Carl, I want to start by saying two things. Firstly, 00:03:13.280 --> 00:03:16.539 thank you to Stuart for connecting us. And secondly, 00:03:16.539 --> 00:03:18.659 I want to welcome you onto the Behind the Shield 00:03:18.659 --> 00:03:22.379 podcast today. Thank you. Great to be here. So 00:03:22.379 --> 00:03:24.939 where on planet Earth are we finding you my morning, 00:03:24.979 --> 00:03:29.439 your afternoon? My afternoon is in a town called 00:03:29.439 --> 00:03:32.860 Whittam, which is in Essex, just outside of London, 00:03:32.979 --> 00:03:37.460 in between Chelmsford and Colchester, if any 00:03:37.460 --> 00:03:40.159 of your listeners know those areas. I think that 00:03:40.159 --> 00:03:43.199 the only area of Essex I know well is Barking 00:03:43.199 --> 00:03:44.939 because I had a girlfriend there. And that's 00:03:44.939 --> 00:03:49.520 a very interesting town. Yeah. Yeah. Again, like 00:03:49.520 --> 00:03:53.669 all of these towns. They're very London overspill, 00:03:53.689 --> 00:03:57.870 which for any American listeners is basically 00:03:57.870 --> 00:04:01.050 around like sort of the 60s, 70s, 80s. They built 00:04:01.050 --> 00:04:04.430 up these towns to get the families out of London. 00:04:04.629 --> 00:04:06.789 So they're very industrial. They're very working 00:04:06.789 --> 00:04:09.610 class. But yeah, so that's where I am today. 00:04:10.229 --> 00:04:12.270 Brilliant. Well, let's start at the very beginning 00:04:12.270 --> 00:04:14.669 of your timeline then. So tell me where you were 00:04:14.669 --> 00:04:16.529 born and tell me a little bit about your family 00:04:16.529 --> 00:04:18.810 dynamic, what your parents did, how many siblings? 00:04:20.010 --> 00:04:25.670 So, yeah, I have one sibling. I grew up here 00:04:25.670 --> 00:04:30.930 in Whittam, in Essex. As I said a few minutes 00:04:30.930 --> 00:04:34.389 ago, the town is very working class, very London 00:04:34.389 --> 00:04:39.449 overspill. And, you know, I grew up like many 00:04:39.449 --> 00:04:43.709 people around here on a council estate and, yeah, 00:04:43.829 --> 00:04:48.610 knocking around. My dad was a mechanic. And my 00:04:48.610 --> 00:04:52.870 mum was a stay -at -home mother. So, yeah, it 00:04:52.870 --> 00:04:58.810 was fairly routine growing up. And the schooling 00:04:58.810 --> 00:05:05.329 round here probably, at that time, the options 00:05:05.329 --> 00:05:08.050 weren't available as they are now, if that makes 00:05:08.050 --> 00:05:10.449 sense. When I was growing up, it was very much, 00:05:10.509 --> 00:05:12.550 right, you're from a working -class town, you 00:05:12.550 --> 00:05:16.449 go into these careers. So I actually remember 00:05:16.449 --> 00:05:19.269 at school, saying you know i would like to be 00:05:19.269 --> 00:05:21.569 a filmmaker i'd like to be a writer it was pretty 00:05:21.569 --> 00:05:24.930 much laughed at and here's the recruiter from 00:05:24.930 --> 00:05:29.509 you know the local the army or the navy or anything 00:05:29.509 --> 00:05:33.009 like that um and yeah yeah they promote manual 00:05:33.009 --> 00:05:37.449 jobs and you know it's a working class town and 00:05:37.449 --> 00:05:40.589 uh and those are the options available to you 00:05:40.589 --> 00:05:44.939 as you grow up how old are you now I'm 46 now, 00:05:45.000 --> 00:05:48.699 which I hate saying out loud. I'm 51, so it's 00:05:48.699 --> 00:05:51.560 even worse. Yeah, well, I don't know about you. 00:05:51.680 --> 00:05:56.339 I don't think I aged past about 38 personally. 00:05:56.560 --> 00:06:01.620 I stopped counting after that. I measure it by 00:06:01.620 --> 00:06:04.319 the gym and jujitsu. Like if I'm just falling 00:06:04.319 --> 00:06:06.740 apart, then I'm going to feel 51. If I can kind 00:06:06.740 --> 00:06:09.819 of hang with the younger people. Helps me regress 00:06:09.819 --> 00:06:12.139 in my mind a little bit. Yeah, I did that. I 00:06:12.139 --> 00:06:14.199 run a marathon earlier in the year, the London 00:06:14.199 --> 00:06:17.100 Marathon, thinking, yeah, that'll keep me young. 00:06:18.060 --> 00:06:21.779 Yeah, so I've got a blown PCL told me otherwise 00:06:21.779 --> 00:06:27.019 at mile 20. So yeah, the mind's holding up at 00:06:27.019 --> 00:06:29.300 a young age, but the body not so much. Yeah, 00:06:29.360 --> 00:06:32.430 it definitely takes work. As far as me asking 00:06:32.430 --> 00:06:34.529 how old you were, when I was young, it was the 00:06:34.529 --> 00:06:36.930 same kind of thing. I went to a place called 00:06:36.930 --> 00:06:40.189 St. Mark's in Bath, and I remember the whole 00:06:40.189 --> 00:06:43.930 career thing. It was kind of right when computers 00:06:43.930 --> 00:06:45.750 were first coming in, so it was a personality 00:06:45.750 --> 00:06:48.730 test, and it was going to tell you what you should 00:06:48.730 --> 00:06:50.970 do. And I shit you not, I can't remember what 00:06:50.970 --> 00:06:52.949 it said now, but it was like, yeah, you could 00:06:52.949 --> 00:06:56.670 be a badger breeder in a pizza factory. And I 00:06:56.670 --> 00:06:59.389 was just like, God, this is... depressing as 00:06:59.389 --> 00:07:01.970 shit and also when a few years earlier when i'd 00:07:01.970 --> 00:07:04.069 had a color vision test during the annual medical 00:07:04.069 --> 00:07:06.550 and they'd taken a bunch of stuff off the table 00:07:06.550 --> 00:07:08.370 you can't be a pilot you can't be a firefighter 00:07:08.370 --> 00:07:11.670 which ironically i did in the end but and i look 00:07:11.670 --> 00:07:14.230 back and and think about our generation collectively 00:07:14.230 --> 00:07:17.589 there really wasn't that you can be anything 00:07:17.589 --> 00:07:20.029 mentality and it's a shame because that's the 00:07:20.029 --> 00:07:22.350 age where you should be lighting a fire up you 00:07:22.350 --> 00:07:24.269 know young people's asses and say look you might 00:07:24.269 --> 00:07:26.470 be you know, carpenter or plumber or whatever, 00:07:26.569 --> 00:07:28.569 but be the best, you know, be a craftsman, be 00:07:28.569 --> 00:07:31.709 a master, you know, of your class. But if you 00:07:31.709 --> 00:07:34.470 want to be a ballet dancer or a fighter pilot, 00:07:34.529 --> 00:07:37.329 whatever it is, you can do that too. And of course, 00:07:37.329 --> 00:07:39.509 there are limitations when it gets to the upper 00:07:39.509 --> 00:07:41.470 echelon, as far as if you have the potential 00:07:41.470 --> 00:07:44.709 to be that incredibly good. But I just remember 00:07:44.709 --> 00:07:47.670 it was such a kind of gray outlook when you left 00:07:47.670 --> 00:07:50.029 British schools back then and, you know, seeing 00:07:50.029 --> 00:07:53.170 your career opportunities. Yeah, well, we have 00:07:53.170 --> 00:07:56.170 obviously a lot of factories around here. And 00:07:56.170 --> 00:07:58.649 I don't know if it's still there, but there's 00:07:58.649 --> 00:08:02.629 a chicken factory down the road. And literally 00:08:02.629 --> 00:08:05.290 everyone has a story about their time when they 00:08:05.290 --> 00:08:07.250 worked at the chicken factory around here. So, 00:08:07.329 --> 00:08:09.850 you know, it's kind of, I mean, you get these 00:08:09.850 --> 00:08:13.350 towns in America, like these very blue collar 00:08:13.350 --> 00:08:19.189 towns. And yeah, it's, and I think that is the 00:08:19.189 --> 00:08:21.860 case. As I said, it's very different now. um 00:08:21.860 --> 00:08:24.620 like my nephews and that come home from school 00:08:24.620 --> 00:08:27.439 and you know they've got it laid out for them 00:08:27.439 --> 00:08:30.139 and everything and i'm not saying there wasn't 00:08:30.139 --> 00:08:33.179 people my age that didn't go to university and 00:08:33.179 --> 00:08:35.960 do very well but it just kind of wasn't promoted 00:08:35.960 --> 00:08:39.299 was it it was very um like right you've left 00:08:39.299 --> 00:08:44.139 school now go get a job that's it yeah yeah exactly 00:08:44.139 --> 00:08:45.980 well what about sports what were you playing 00:08:45.980 --> 00:08:49.779 back then So football, done a bit of boxing. 00:08:50.700 --> 00:08:54.679 And, you know, I love boxing. Not fighting as 00:08:54.679 --> 00:08:56.700 much, but the training and getting physically 00:08:56.700 --> 00:08:59.519 fit, I absolutely love. So that and football. 00:09:00.240 --> 00:09:04.240 Again, probably like yourself growing up. And 00:09:04.240 --> 00:09:07.779 I always look back on this quite like nostalgically, 00:09:07.799 --> 00:09:10.759 should we say. But when we were kids, was you 00:09:10.759 --> 00:09:12.740 a kid that was just like into everything? Like 00:09:12.740 --> 00:09:15.559 if you was inefficient, you weren't just like 00:09:15.559 --> 00:09:18.070 inefficient. You was obsessed with it. Yeah. 00:09:18.149 --> 00:09:21.330 And yeah, everything that came along each summer 00:09:21.330 --> 00:09:25.730 was that. So football was my main sport. And 00:09:25.730 --> 00:09:29.669 then, yeah, Thursday nights was a bit of boxing 00:09:29.669 --> 00:09:33.309 and then playing for the local side at the weekends. 00:09:33.610 --> 00:09:38.570 So, yeah, again, it sounds quite boring and very 00:09:38.570 --> 00:09:41.980 typical, but it's just kind of. you know your 00:09:41.980 --> 00:09:45.340 average uk council estate um you play football 00:09:45.340 --> 00:09:49.919 on concrete and uh you um yeah and then you find 00:09:49.919 --> 00:09:52.460 something local to do and it's usually fighting 00:09:52.460 --> 00:09:55.500 based it's funny because i got into the martial 00:09:55.500 --> 00:09:58.220 arts when i was young and so i had everything 00:09:58.220 --> 00:10:00.259 from a wing chun dummy that i never really got 00:10:00.259 --> 00:10:02.759 to learn how to use properly but i i would be 00:10:02.759 --> 00:10:05.750 drilling on punch bags for hours on end and you 00:10:05.750 --> 00:10:07.590 know my dad would get pissed off because every 00:10:07.590 --> 00:10:09.710 time i went past like a shed door i'd like fly 00:10:09.710 --> 00:10:12.769 and kick it and stuff so yeah bruce lee posters 00:10:12.769 --> 00:10:15.450 on my bedroom so yeah i was i was all in on that 00:10:15.450 --> 00:10:17.529 which again little foreign boy from bath you 00:10:17.529 --> 00:10:20.730 know i was completely removed to be this you 00:10:20.730 --> 00:10:24.309 know kung fu master from you know hong kong slash 00:10:24.309 --> 00:10:27.279 seattle by that point Yeah, well, that's funny. 00:10:27.559 --> 00:10:30.100 Actually, that's one of the big, big things, 00:10:30.159 --> 00:10:32.220 to be honest, that wasn't pushed for me at school. 00:10:32.340 --> 00:10:36.000 I always remember that, you know, I was obsessed 00:10:36.000 --> 00:10:38.840 with film from a very young age, wanted to be 00:10:38.840 --> 00:10:41.320 this filmmaker, wanted to do this, tried writing 00:10:41.320 --> 00:10:46.220 on paper, you know, no laptop or anything. And 00:10:46.220 --> 00:10:49.659 it was always kind of discouraged. And you kind 00:10:49.659 --> 00:10:54.139 of got it into your... belief system and your 00:10:54.139 --> 00:10:58.059 psyche that this was for other people. And then 00:10:58.059 --> 00:11:00.600 I remember the actual film. It was probably around 00:11:00.600 --> 00:11:05.340 96. Shallow Grave came out, which was Danny Boyle's 00:11:05.340 --> 00:11:06.940 first film. It was a horror film, wasn't it? 00:11:07.460 --> 00:11:11.580 Yeah, but it's all in Scotland and it's all British 00:11:11.580 --> 00:11:15.539 crews and the language is very British. And then 00:11:15.539 --> 00:11:18.759 all of a sudden you're thinking, hold on, this 00:11:18.759 --> 00:11:21.220 isn't just for... people in america this isn't 00:11:21.220 --> 00:11:24.539 this like far away land there's actually something 00:11:24.539 --> 00:11:26.960 that can be done here and then yeah a few years 00:11:26.960 --> 00:11:28.679 later after that obviously train spotting came 00:11:28.679 --> 00:11:32.759 out and um um and in brit and in brit pop obviously 00:11:32.759 --> 00:11:35.799 was the music scene at the time and then all 00:11:35.799 --> 00:11:38.720 of a sudden you could do anything if you were 00:11:38.720 --> 00:11:41.659 british you know i mean it wasn't just for other 00:11:41.659 --> 00:11:44.559 countries and miles away this has been a real 00:11:44.559 --> 00:11:50.960 takeaway and i've You know, he's thinking of 00:11:50.960 --> 00:11:52.399 being a veterinary surgeon at the moment. And 00:11:52.399 --> 00:11:55.299 I'm like, well, that's your goal now. And you 00:11:55.299 --> 00:11:57.600 might go straight line all the way through in 00:11:57.600 --> 00:12:00.059 doing that. My father, his granddad was a vet. 00:12:00.500 --> 00:12:03.779 But I said, just keep your mind open. If that 00:12:03.779 --> 00:12:07.700 fire in your heart changes, don't be afraid to 00:12:07.700 --> 00:12:09.580 deviate. Because I wanted to be a stuntman when 00:12:09.580 --> 00:12:11.860 I was little. I ended up becoming a stuntman 00:12:11.860 --> 00:12:15.309 in America for, it's been 22 years now. But that 00:12:15.309 --> 00:12:17.549 line was not a straight line. It was all kinds 00:12:17.549 --> 00:12:19.450 of squiggles and left turns and immigration. 00:12:19.970 --> 00:12:22.789 But you just never know. But I think, again, 00:12:22.970 --> 00:12:26.269 when you can foster a belief in a young person 00:12:26.269 --> 00:12:30.190 that anything is possible, especially now, you 00:12:30.190 --> 00:12:31.970 can be a filmmaker. You can make something and 00:12:31.970 --> 00:12:34.389 put it on YouTube. I'm an author because of Amazon. 00:12:34.669 --> 00:12:37.509 If I had to rely on selling a story to a publisher, 00:12:37.750 --> 00:12:41.190 I may have never released a single book. So I 00:12:41.190 --> 00:12:43.669 think it's really exciting now. But even in the 00:12:43.669 --> 00:12:46.850 US, we're still missing that. You can be anything, 00:12:46.950 --> 00:12:49.250 encouraging these people, you know, these young 00:12:49.250 --> 00:12:51.370 people to have a dream, but also to understand 00:12:51.370 --> 00:12:53.110 that there's going to be a lot of work getting 00:12:53.110 --> 00:12:56.049 from A to B as well. Is that the same in the 00:12:56.049 --> 00:12:59.850 US? Because obviously the view from this side 00:12:59.850 --> 00:13:03.600 of the pond has always been that, you know. America 00:13:03.600 --> 00:13:07.919 is the land of dreams where you could be anything. 00:13:08.240 --> 00:13:11.379 And here, it's always been very much what you're 00:13:11.379 --> 00:13:15.460 exposed to here. So when I left school, I went 00:13:15.460 --> 00:13:18.500 to college to be a mechanic because my dad was 00:13:18.500 --> 00:13:21.559 a mechanic and my uncle was a mechanic. So that's 00:13:21.559 --> 00:13:25.899 the one that's... um, open to you. Um, and, um, 00:13:26.000 --> 00:13:28.659 yeah. And then I realized, you know, I had no 00:13:28.659 --> 00:13:31.720 love for cars or engines at all, which was a 00:13:31.720 --> 00:13:35.080 big sticking point. Um, and then, yeah, I think 00:13:35.080 --> 00:13:37.960 there was reinsurance straight after that. Um, 00:13:38.240 --> 00:13:43.059 and I put a short career in that, um, purely 00:13:43.059 --> 00:13:46.779 because again, um, um, Marsh McLennan, who you 00:13:46.779 --> 00:13:50.610 guys have over there was in this town. and you 00:13:50.610 --> 00:13:52.309 was exposed to it and there was the opportunity 00:13:52.309 --> 00:13:56.269 there it wasn't like okay i want to be this therefore 00:13:56.269 --> 00:13:58.649 i'll go out and reach that it was the only thing 00:13:58.649 --> 00:14:01.490 you was exposed to and yeah you're not exposed 00:14:01.490 --> 00:14:05.350 to anything else but as you said now thanks to 00:14:05.350 --> 00:14:08.909 the internet thanks to um the world being a bit 00:14:08.909 --> 00:14:12.009 of a smaller place uh kids are exposed to a little 00:14:12.009 --> 00:14:15.549 bit more but um but that belief still needs to 00:14:15.549 --> 00:14:18.070 be installed like you said that you can be anything 00:14:18.070 --> 00:14:21.519 but it takes work and no one's going to give 00:14:21.519 --> 00:14:24.120 it to you i think because you asked you know 00:14:24.120 --> 00:14:26.899 is it the same here and it's there's a deficit 00:14:26.899 --> 00:14:29.559 of that and i think what has replaced that you 00:14:29.559 --> 00:14:31.519 can be anything you know and then that has a 00:14:31.519 --> 00:14:34.519 good and a bad connotation if it's you can be 00:14:34.519 --> 00:14:37.460 anything and you can all earn all the money that's 00:14:37.460 --> 00:14:39.779 not a good message but you know you can be a 00:14:39.779 --> 00:14:42.340 value to society make a good living all those 00:14:42.340 --> 00:14:43.860 kind of things i think that's a beautiful message 00:14:43.860 --> 00:14:47.240 you can have a little you know corner of of the 00:14:47.240 --> 00:14:50.639 country and a home and you know, livestock and 00:14:50.639 --> 00:14:52.139 all that kind of thing and be self -sufficient. 00:14:52.200 --> 00:14:54.720 That's a beautiful dream too. But I think what's 00:14:54.720 --> 00:14:58.820 happened here is the extremism in the capitalistic 00:14:58.820 --> 00:15:01.360 side. Like I said, that chasing the monopoly 00:15:01.360 --> 00:15:04.659 and wanting to have all of the money is one thing. 00:15:04.860 --> 00:15:07.059 And then you have that very divisive rhetoric 00:15:07.059 --> 00:15:09.259 that we're having all over the place at the moment, 00:15:09.279 --> 00:15:13.059 where if you don't, you know. 100 rely on this 00:15:13.059 --> 00:15:16.279 political party or a vaccine or a mask or the 00:15:16.279 --> 00:15:18.399 police or whatever the thing is then those are 00:15:18.399 --> 00:15:20.759 your enemies over there so rather than lifting 00:15:20.759 --> 00:15:23.980 young people up they're being divided too the 00:15:23.980 --> 00:15:26.799 same way as the other generations are so i really 00:15:26.799 --> 00:15:29.379 hope that we're going to see i think i really 00:15:29.379 --> 00:15:31.399 do feel like we are now that the cracks in this 00:15:31.399 --> 00:15:35.360 kind of nastiness and this abuse of a population 00:15:35.360 --> 00:15:37.580 is starting to show through and i think the next 00:15:37.580 --> 00:15:39.740 the next chapter i hope is going to be going 00:15:39.740 --> 00:15:41.779 back to exactly that bringing people together 00:15:41.779 --> 00:15:45.259 and lifting people up well i think what we've 00:15:45.259 --> 00:15:48.019 seen here definitely and probably worldwide is 00:15:48.019 --> 00:15:51.460 um the kind of footballification of the world 00:15:51.460 --> 00:15:55.259 um and um again brits that means a little bit 00:15:55.259 --> 00:15:59.580 more too but in um in in the uk you support the 00:15:59.580 --> 00:16:02.080 football team the soccer team sorry uh that your 00:16:02.080 --> 00:16:05.720 dad supported And everything your team does is 00:16:05.720 --> 00:16:08.279 perfect and brilliant. And everything the other 00:16:08.279 --> 00:16:12.799 team does is bad, rubbish. That player is no 00:16:12.799 --> 00:16:14.980 good and all of that. And the world's kind of 00:16:14.980 --> 00:16:17.500 been, especially politics, has kind of been put 00:16:17.500 --> 00:16:21.159 into that world, isn't it? That everything one 00:16:21.159 --> 00:16:24.539 side does, you know, I support this team, you 00:16:24.539 --> 00:16:27.320 support that team, therefore, you know. As you 00:16:27.320 --> 00:16:29.419 said, you're the enemy, you're over on the other 00:16:29.419 --> 00:16:32.059 stand and I can't think anything you do is right 00:16:32.059 --> 00:16:34.820 and you can't think anything I do is right. And 00:16:34.820 --> 00:16:39.159 yeah, it's not good. But as I said, I do think 00:16:39.159 --> 00:16:45.340 there is some hope because I do think hopefully 00:16:45.340 --> 00:16:47.179 people are starting to see through this a little 00:16:47.179 --> 00:16:50.850 bit now. Someone made a... a comment this is 00:16:50.850 --> 00:16:52.509 about a couple years ago now on here and they 00:16:52.509 --> 00:16:54.610 were talking about exactly that you know say 00:16:54.610 --> 00:16:57.470 you're a man city fan and this other person is 00:16:57.470 --> 00:16:59.750 a man united fan and they they hate each other 00:16:59.750 --> 00:17:02.110 but they don't know each other now they meet 00:17:02.110 --> 00:17:05.990 in ibiza and they start going oh you're english 00:17:05.990 --> 00:17:08.230 oh yeah yeah now where are you from manchester 00:17:08.230 --> 00:17:10.470 i'm from manchester and all of a sudden there's 00:17:10.470 --> 00:17:12.710 these commonalities and it's the same you know 00:17:12.710 --> 00:17:14.309 again if you've got these two teams that hate 00:17:14.309 --> 00:17:16.710 each other and then we go to the world cup now 00:17:16.710 --> 00:17:18.869 all of a sudden they're england fans And it makes 00:17:18.869 --> 00:17:22.549 you realize the ridiculousness of this pigeonholing. 00:17:22.769 --> 00:17:24.390 Tribalism can be very positive and there's a 00:17:24.390 --> 00:17:26.329 lot of beautiful things about football. And I 00:17:26.329 --> 00:17:28.029 do call it football, by the way, because we use 00:17:28.029 --> 00:17:32.589 our feet. But when it, like you said, when it 00:17:32.589 --> 00:17:35.089 becomes black and white and everything they do 00:17:35.089 --> 00:17:37.029 is wrong and everything we do is right, that's 00:17:37.029 --> 00:17:39.789 when you lose that commonality rather than we're 00:17:39.789 --> 00:17:42.690 both two groups that love the game of football. 00:17:43.210 --> 00:17:44.750 And I'm going to cheer on my side and you're 00:17:44.750 --> 00:17:46.710 going to cheer on your side. When that becomes 00:17:46.710 --> 00:17:48.869 hateful, like when we were young and people were 00:17:48.869 --> 00:17:51.750 literally dying at football games, that's where 00:17:51.750 --> 00:17:55.390 there's the problem. Yeah. And I think what you 00:17:55.390 --> 00:17:58.029 just said there was when they meet up in Ibiza, 00:17:58.069 --> 00:18:00.789 that's the other trouble with the world is most 00:18:00.789 --> 00:18:04.990 of the world is now online. So these argue, like 00:18:04.990 --> 00:18:08.069 if we were in the same room and we had different... 00:18:08.980 --> 00:18:14.900 So I grew up with a guy called Ben. Politically, 00:18:14.960 --> 00:18:19.180 we couldn't be more different. But when we meet 00:18:19.180 --> 00:18:22.099 up, it never comes up. You know what I mean? 00:18:22.140 --> 00:18:24.660 We never talk about that. Because in reality, 00:18:24.839 --> 00:18:28.799 you don't go around going, hello, fancy a beer? 00:18:29.160 --> 00:18:33.140 What do you believe about abortion? No one talks 00:18:33.140 --> 00:18:36.720 like that. You mingle. But because most of the 00:18:36.720 --> 00:18:39.619 world is online, that's that's where it is these 00:18:39.619 --> 00:18:42.359 people aren't meeting up so it's only about people's 00:18:42.359 --> 00:18:45.200 opinions and everyone's opinion is better than 00:18:45.200 --> 00:18:49.900 the next yeah absolutely well you mentioned before 00:18:49.900 --> 00:18:52.359 we hit record actually about you know one of 00:18:52.359 --> 00:18:55.160 the big options in a working class town is the 00:18:55.160 --> 00:18:56.779 military and obviously it's the same here as 00:18:56.779 --> 00:18:59.920 well talk to me about that paul was you know 00:18:59.920 --> 00:19:02.200 with some of your school friends and then um 00:19:02.200 --> 00:19:05.380 how were you able to actually stay on the path 00:19:05.380 --> 00:19:08.720 to filmmaking yourself well yeah i mean i mean 00:19:08.720 --> 00:19:11.940 it probably wasn't one or the other it's um as 00:19:11.940 --> 00:19:16.279 i said so you know i was at college learning 00:19:16.279 --> 00:19:19.759 to be a mechanic um and then it was like okay 00:19:19.759 --> 00:19:21.759 don't want to do this and then it was at that 00:19:21.759 --> 00:19:25.480 point i did flirt with the military um but the 00:19:25.480 --> 00:19:28.519 thing is so um just just to give again another 00:19:28.519 --> 00:19:33.460 um bit of a idea of the area um in colchester 00:19:33.460 --> 00:19:38.099 uh which is 15 miles down the road. It's a military 00:19:38.099 --> 00:19:41.539 town. It's a huge barracks. It's got a military 00:19:41.539 --> 00:19:44.900 prison there. The Gurkhas always stay there when 00:19:44.900 --> 00:19:48.359 they come over. So it's always on your doorstep. 00:19:48.480 --> 00:19:51.579 Yeah. And then the other way, if you go in the 00:19:51.579 --> 00:19:53.980 other direction where Chelmsford is, along the 00:19:53.980 --> 00:19:55.920 high street, there's all recruitment centers. 00:19:56.279 --> 00:20:00.240 So again, it's very much on your doorstep. And 00:20:00.240 --> 00:20:03.119 as I said, when you leave school, it's a genuine 00:20:03.119 --> 00:20:07.259 career option. You know what I mean? And that's 00:20:07.259 --> 00:20:08.819 funny enough what I was actually going to bring 00:20:08.819 --> 00:20:12.559 up with you, actually. I think what seems to 00:20:12.559 --> 00:20:16.299 be missed here is when people actually do get 00:20:16.299 --> 00:20:20.920 pulled into one of these jobs, be it a firefighter, 00:20:20.920 --> 00:20:23.619 be it a nurse, be it a doctor, be it, you know, 00:20:23.619 --> 00:20:27.140 in the military, people always seem to forget 00:20:27.140 --> 00:20:31.009 about the job aspect of it. yeah and a lot of 00:20:31.009 --> 00:20:33.970 people join from working class towns to military 00:20:33.970 --> 00:20:37.910 because they want to do a job and they want to 00:20:37.910 --> 00:20:40.690 do something that matters yeah and that is all 00:20:40.690 --> 00:20:45.470 the um commercials now are um you know a guy 00:20:45.470 --> 00:20:48.390 working in a pub bored of his town but then he 00:20:48.390 --> 00:20:50.849 was made in the royal navy and he's traveling 00:20:50.849 --> 00:20:54.069 you know all in the arctic and all of that but 00:20:54.069 --> 00:20:58.619 it is that escape with another job Yeah. And 00:20:58.619 --> 00:21:03.039 what we seem to forget, we seem to be very big 00:21:03.039 --> 00:21:06.680 in this country about promoting being a firefighter 00:21:06.680 --> 00:21:09.200 or a nurse. It's a calling. They're not doing 00:21:09.200 --> 00:21:11.140 it for the money. They're not doing it as a job. 00:21:11.240 --> 00:21:13.779 They're doing it because it was the only thing 00:21:13.779 --> 00:21:17.400 that they were born to do. And that sounds positive. 00:21:18.280 --> 00:21:22.380 But what that ends up doing is when people come 00:21:22.380 --> 00:21:24.440 saying, oh, it is a job and I'm glad you think 00:21:24.440 --> 00:21:26.980 I'm a hero. Can I have some support? Can I have 00:21:26.980 --> 00:21:29.440 some more money? Then it becomes, oh, no, they 00:21:29.440 --> 00:21:31.660 don't do it for the money. They do it for the 00:21:31.660 --> 00:21:34.740 calling. And, you know, we had prime ministers 00:21:34.740 --> 00:21:37.900 here during COVID standing out the front of number 00:21:37.900 --> 00:21:41.880 10, clapping nurses. As soon as they wanted more 00:21:41.880 --> 00:21:46.430 money. and more support than it was, ah, no, 00:21:46.430 --> 00:21:49.009 we don't want to do that. It's a calling for 00:21:49.009 --> 00:21:51.509 them. And for the military, I think it's really 00:21:51.509 --> 00:21:54.130 bad because obviously they get built up to be 00:21:54.130 --> 00:21:59.150 this hero so much and it's a calling. You don't 00:21:59.150 --> 00:22:00.529 really need to give them the support when they 00:22:00.529 --> 00:22:02.690 come home because, you know, it's a calling. 00:22:03.309 --> 00:22:05.410 They've done it for more than that and all of 00:22:05.410 --> 00:22:09.960 that. That is something that seems to be always 00:22:09.960 --> 00:22:12.980 missed, the job aspect of it. And as much as 00:22:12.980 --> 00:22:15.400 I like holding these people up in high regard, 00:22:15.559 --> 00:22:19.240 as they should be, removing the job aspect always 00:22:19.240 --> 00:22:22.799 makes it harder, easier, should I say, to give 00:22:22.799 --> 00:22:25.819 them less, give them more what they need. But 00:22:25.819 --> 00:22:27.619 sorry, back to the original question anyway. 00:22:27.779 --> 00:22:32.359 But yeah, so it was a valid job option when I 00:22:32.359 --> 00:22:37.059 left school. And, I mean, you've seen the film. 00:22:38.259 --> 00:22:41.619 There's the scene in the bar where they're all 00:22:41.619 --> 00:22:44.500 chatting and messing around. All the guys who 00:22:44.500 --> 00:22:47.319 are not actors, should we say, are real -life 00:22:47.319 --> 00:22:50.799 veterans. And one of the veterans I did go to 00:22:50.799 --> 00:22:53.380 school with, funnily enough, who's sitting in 00:22:53.380 --> 00:22:57.039 the bar. So, yeah. But, again, he joined later. 00:22:59.359 --> 00:23:03.559 It was for the need of a job. That's what it 00:23:03.559 --> 00:23:07.920 was. But for myself, you know, it weren't a path 00:23:07.920 --> 00:23:11.440 I went down. I got into reinsurance and still 00:23:11.440 --> 00:23:14.500 thinking at that time that people like me and 00:23:14.500 --> 00:23:16.759 people from my background don't become filmmakers. 00:23:17.900 --> 00:23:22.720 And that was it. And then me and my wife were 00:23:22.720 --> 00:23:26.190 traveling around the world. And it was kind of, 00:23:26.190 --> 00:23:28.609 I kind of kept bumping into people who were actual 00:23:28.609 --> 00:23:32.190 filmmakers and started noticing a lot of their 00:23:32.190 --> 00:23:34.849 backgrounds weren't what I expected. And then 00:23:34.849 --> 00:23:37.990 it becomes apparent that, okay, that option wasn't 00:23:37.990 --> 00:23:41.309 open to me as a kid, but now I'm an adult, the 00:23:41.309 --> 00:23:47.470 only person holding me back is now me. And, you 00:23:47.470 --> 00:23:50.049 know, at that point it flipped. It was like, 00:23:50.170 --> 00:23:53.910 okay, wasn't exposed to it, but... that's in 00:23:53.910 --> 00:23:56.670 the past now the only person not pursuing it 00:23:56.670 --> 00:23:59.930 is me so it's my fault now and it's me who needs 00:23:59.930 --> 00:24:04.150 to crack on um so so yeah so that kind of epiphany 00:24:04.150 --> 00:24:08.150 came when I was traveling and um then when we 00:24:08.150 --> 00:24:12.950 was traveling we we went into Sydney and um I 00:24:12.950 --> 00:24:16.670 I'm always going to remember this um I uh was 00:24:16.670 --> 00:24:19.869 in the kitchen in a hostel. We was getting our 00:24:19.869 --> 00:24:23.950 food ready. And there was a guy, like an absolute 00:24:23.950 --> 00:24:27.309 monster of a guy. And he was shadowboxing in 00:24:27.309 --> 00:24:29.269 the kitchen while he was waiting for his food. 00:24:30.569 --> 00:24:34.210 American guy started chatting to him. And he 00:24:34.210 --> 00:24:36.250 ended up becoming a really close friend of mine. 00:24:36.289 --> 00:24:40.250 His name was Brian Collins. And he was stationed 00:24:40.250 --> 00:24:42.730 in Korea. And he had literally just taken some 00:24:42.730 --> 00:24:45.410 leave and come to Sydney. got a lot of house 00:24:45.410 --> 00:24:47.890 on fire and become really really close friends 00:24:47.890 --> 00:24:50.750 but uh yeah he was in the us military army rangers 00:24:50.750 --> 00:24:59.250 and um yeah so uh a lot of uh our um uh history 00:24:59.250 --> 00:25:02.309 and when he left and experiences and all of that 00:25:02.309 --> 00:25:05.069 uh sort of came apparent and and were through 00:25:05.069 --> 00:25:07.390 him and a lot of the american soldiers i know 00:25:07.390 --> 00:25:10.710 now that helped with the film um was also uh 00:25:10.710 --> 00:25:14.069 through brian um originally so um so yeah so 00:25:14.490 --> 00:25:17.410 filmmaking and the link to the military kind 00:25:17.410 --> 00:25:21.230 of come from my travels and then when i came 00:25:21.230 --> 00:25:24.230 home back to london we was living in london and 00:25:24.230 --> 00:25:28.769 then yeah it was um okay what how am i gonna 00:25:29.119 --> 00:25:32.640 become a filmmaker and what ended up happening 00:25:32.640 --> 00:25:37.000 was um we we made some really rubbish short films 00:25:37.000 --> 00:25:39.519 which the people will never see in the light 00:25:39.519 --> 00:25:42.680 of day and um the next one was a bit better next 00:25:42.680 --> 00:25:45.720 one was a bit better than that and it was um 00:25:45.720 --> 00:25:48.519 yeah and then eventually you start realizing 00:25:48.519 --> 00:25:51.940 especially in london and the help of the you 00:25:51.940 --> 00:25:55.059 know facebook and you know the online world you 00:25:55.059 --> 00:25:57.430 start building a filmmaking community in london 00:25:57.430 --> 00:26:00.589 and you start learning learning learning and 00:26:00.589 --> 00:26:03.210 yeah and that's how it kind of snowballed really 00:26:03.210 --> 00:26:07.210 um and uh yeah and then before you know you wake 00:26:07.210 --> 00:26:09.650 up one day and you're making stuff that's actually 00:26:09.650 --> 00:26:13.329 pretty good and um you know and and you're you're 00:26:13.329 --> 00:26:17.170 happy to get out into the world two things firstly 00:26:17.170 --> 00:26:19.250 is funny when when i was traveling around the 00:26:19.250 --> 00:26:22.380 world it was sydney where i got my audition to 00:26:22.380 --> 00:26:24.779 be a stuntman at universal studios so that was 00:26:24.779 --> 00:26:26.640 actually a pivotal point in my life too yeah 00:26:26.640 --> 00:26:31.259 um going back though to the job element of first 00:26:31.259 --> 00:26:34.799 responders you know military etc that is a really 00:26:34.799 --> 00:26:38.000 interesting point because i see that same And 00:26:38.000 --> 00:26:40.240 there's less kind of hero worship in the UK when 00:26:40.240 --> 00:26:43.180 it comes to fire and paramedics and nurses than 00:26:43.180 --> 00:26:46.200 there is here in America. And obviously, 9 -11 00:26:46.200 --> 00:26:48.940 was a big part of that, too. But, you know, we 00:26:48.940 --> 00:26:52.000 do have volunteers in the fire service and in 00:26:52.000 --> 00:26:53.339 the States. And I've had a lot of conversations 00:26:53.339 --> 00:26:56.799 with people recently where there are volunteer 00:26:56.799 --> 00:27:01.799 fire stations in suburban areas with thousands 00:27:01.799 --> 00:27:05.079 and thousands of people, massive tax bases. But 00:27:05.079 --> 00:27:06.660 it's exactly what you're saying. Well, that's 00:27:06.660 --> 00:27:08.400 their calling. They love to do it. So we don't 00:27:08.400 --> 00:27:10.380 need to start paying them. Now, don't get me 00:27:10.380 --> 00:27:12.539 wrong. You're out in the middle of nowhere. Now 00:27:12.539 --> 00:27:14.779 that's where a volunteer fire station still has 00:27:14.779 --> 00:27:17.500 a place. No question. You know, a town of 300 00:27:17.500 --> 00:27:19.960 people, you can't have a full -time, you know, 00:27:19.960 --> 00:27:23.900 fire service there. But yeah, so, but that's 00:27:23.900 --> 00:27:27.319 exactly what it is. It's the calling, you know, 00:27:27.339 --> 00:27:29.319 you want that kind of person in that role. But 00:27:29.319 --> 00:27:31.539 I think we're now going to take a dive into the 00:27:31.539 --> 00:27:34.500 mental health side. What I've learned over this 00:27:34.500 --> 00:27:39.160 nine years and 1 ,100 conversations is that a 00:27:39.160 --> 00:27:41.519 lot of us are called into the first responder, 00:27:41.640 --> 00:27:44.480 the military, et cetera, because of things that 00:27:44.480 --> 00:27:46.460 happened when we were young. Now, that doesn't 00:27:46.460 --> 00:27:48.660 mean that we're broken. It doesn't mean that 00:27:48.660 --> 00:27:52.500 we're a liability when we walk in. But if you 00:27:52.500 --> 00:27:54.220 did have struggles when you were a child, and 00:27:54.220 --> 00:27:56.980 there's a spectrum of struggles from sexual abuse 00:27:56.980 --> 00:28:01.339 to simply feeling unloved by a parent, now you're 00:28:01.339 --> 00:28:04.119 driven. to be the protector you're kind of building 00:28:04.119 --> 00:28:06.259 an armor around yourself you know you want to 00:28:06.259 --> 00:28:07.900 be there when other people are having their worst 00:28:07.900 --> 00:28:09.779 day you don't want people to feel the pain that 00:28:09.779 --> 00:28:13.640 you felt so it's a noble calling to take you 00:28:13.640 --> 00:28:16.740 in there but if at the front door you aren't 00:28:16.740 --> 00:28:19.660 addressing those things so they become strengths 00:28:19.660 --> 00:28:23.480 now they're pushed down and this is why some 00:28:23.480 --> 00:28:25.900 of these you know young soldiers young firefighters 00:28:25.900 --> 00:28:28.019 they're like what happened they were only you 00:28:28.019 --> 00:28:30.430 know on for a year Well, because we haven't talked 00:28:30.430 --> 00:28:33.430 about the other 19 years of their life, you know, 00:28:33.430 --> 00:28:34.910 and not to mention the fact that we're bringing, 00:28:35.069 --> 00:28:38.390 you know, in the military, especially like 18 00:28:38.390 --> 00:28:40.690 year olds that then go off to the Middle East 00:28:40.690 --> 00:28:42.309 and fight, you know, these are children still. 00:28:42.849 --> 00:28:46.450 So 100 % is a calling. But firstly, we've got 00:28:46.450 --> 00:28:49.109 to understand why is that calling there and have 00:28:49.109 --> 00:28:51.250 these, you know, the counseling and the mental 00:28:51.250 --> 00:28:53.069 health tools right at the beginning, not when 00:28:53.069 --> 00:28:55.869 they're falling apart. And then secondly, like 00:28:55.869 --> 00:28:59.579 you said. because that's a certain kind of person 00:28:59.579 --> 00:29:02.819 that will put the uniform on, we need to envelop 00:29:02.819 --> 00:29:05.000 them. Because no one else wants to do that. No 00:29:05.000 --> 00:29:06.839 one else wants to go to Iraq. No one else wants 00:29:06.839 --> 00:29:09.880 to cut these teenagers out of a car. There's 00:29:09.880 --> 00:29:12.210 only a small... Section of society is willing 00:29:12.210 --> 00:29:15.529 to do that. So we need to kind of flip the pyramid 00:29:15.529 --> 00:29:17.410 and make sure that we take care of the people 00:29:17.410 --> 00:29:19.789 when everyone else is at home, whether it's COVID 00:29:19.789 --> 00:29:22.970 or whatever the thing is, that are holding the 00:29:22.970 --> 00:29:25.630 line. Because watching people clap for nurses 00:29:25.630 --> 00:29:29.210 when they had no PPE, staffing or beds was disgusting. 00:29:30.109 --> 00:29:33.109 Yeah. But again, they got the clap, right? So 00:29:33.109 --> 00:29:37.569 everyone cheered and that's enough. And yeah, 00:29:37.750 --> 00:29:41.109 it does feel... I mean, I felt that at the time. 00:29:41.109 --> 00:29:44.089 It was just like when the current government 00:29:44.089 --> 00:29:47.930 were outside clapping, you're like, okay, but 00:29:47.930 --> 00:29:52.450 you're giving them nothing else. It's, you know, 00:29:52.569 --> 00:29:55.769 a clapping each night is not going to help them, 00:29:55.829 --> 00:29:59.569 to be honest. And that's a strange thing. And 00:29:59.569 --> 00:30:01.049 what you were just saying there, though, about 00:30:01.049 --> 00:30:05.069 people when they join. Yeah, I was kind of conflicted 00:30:05.069 --> 00:30:09.549 on that because my view on it. was always that, 00:30:09.609 --> 00:30:12.569 you know, they should maybe do a mental health 00:30:12.569 --> 00:30:16.190 check before people join the military. And if 00:30:16.190 --> 00:30:18.750 they're not going to be the person to hold it, 00:30:18.829 --> 00:30:21.329 then they maybe shouldn't be going into the military. 00:30:21.710 --> 00:30:25.569 And I was talking to a doctor about this at Combat 00:30:25.569 --> 00:30:29.750 Stress, and he did actually throw up a little 00:30:29.750 --> 00:30:32.549 bit of a counter argument there. And he said, 00:30:32.650 --> 00:30:34.430 well, you've got to remember a lot of the people 00:30:34.430 --> 00:30:37.539 who... do join the military in the UK, do come 00:30:37.539 --> 00:30:40.099 from bad backgrounds and they're using it to 00:30:40.099 --> 00:30:44.720 escape that environment. And many of them go 00:30:44.720 --> 00:30:47.619 on to be very, very good soldiers and very, very 00:30:47.619 --> 00:30:51.900 good careers. So, yeah, as I think we've said 00:30:51.900 --> 00:30:54.940 this time and time again, there's no, I think 00:30:54.940 --> 00:30:58.039 we've got to stop this, looking at this as one 00:30:58.039 --> 00:31:02.319 size fits all. And really find a way, as you 00:31:02.319 --> 00:31:07.460 said, to assess people, to not block them or 00:31:07.460 --> 00:31:10.240 any opportunities of blocking them, but make 00:31:10.240 --> 00:31:12.880 sure that they address whatever's, you know, 00:31:12.880 --> 00:31:16.779 could come up later on. And the other thing I 00:31:16.779 --> 00:31:18.359 was just going to pick up on what you were saying 00:31:18.359 --> 00:31:24.069 about young people. And I'll say this now. One 00:31:24.069 --> 00:31:26.769 of the reasons I made the film was the guy I 00:31:26.769 --> 00:31:29.250 mentioned, Brian Collins, isn't with us anymore. 00:31:29.910 --> 00:31:37.950 And he committed suicide in 2012. And I went 00:31:37.950 --> 00:31:40.950 to his funeral in Philadelphia. And I'll always 00:31:40.950 --> 00:31:46.509 remember this. Some guys from his regiment came 00:31:46.509 --> 00:31:50.269 and done a gun salute and everything. It was 00:31:50.269 --> 00:31:54.230 really nice. And I went over and I was chatting 00:31:54.230 --> 00:31:58.009 to the guys who, who done it. They're gun salute. 00:31:58.230 --> 00:32:00.990 They are really nice guys. I said, look, I'm 00:32:00.990 --> 00:32:04.269 going to buy you a round of drinks. That was 00:32:04.269 --> 00:32:07.930 really beautiful. What you guys did. And I mean, 00:32:07.930 --> 00:32:09.490 there was talking about their deployments and 00:32:09.490 --> 00:32:12.970 all of that, but then they said that they couldn't 00:32:12.970 --> 00:32:15.009 accept a drink from me because there wasn't 21. 00:32:15.769 --> 00:32:19.569 And that really came home to me. And I was like, 00:32:19.880 --> 00:32:23.279 Yeah. Okay. So we can send you to, we can trust 00:32:23.279 --> 00:32:28.599 you to go out and die for your country. But you're 00:32:28.599 --> 00:32:31.480 not allowed to drink in public, you know? And 00:32:31.480 --> 00:32:34.099 that's when you realize how young these guys 00:32:34.099 --> 00:32:36.160 are. I mean, in this country, you can join the 00:32:36.160 --> 00:32:40.579 military. I think it's 16. So you can be deployed, 00:32:40.740 --> 00:32:43.460 but you can't, you can't vote. You can't drive. 00:32:43.680 --> 00:32:46.019 You can't drink. You know what I mean? So you 00:32:46.019 --> 00:32:48.240 can fight in a war, but you can't vote for the 00:32:48.240 --> 00:32:55.059 government. that sends you yeah mad yeah no it's 00:32:55.059 --> 00:32:58.079 crazy and then you look again at the deliberate 00:32:58.079 --> 00:33:00.599 use of people so young because if we're talking 00:33:00.599 --> 00:33:04.299 about trauma and you know physiology the brain 00:33:04.299 --> 00:33:06.940 isn't developed at that age and this is why you 00:33:06.940 --> 00:33:09.599 know now in america we're having a recruitment 00:33:09.599 --> 00:33:12.640 crisis which again completely avoidable but what's 00:33:12.640 --> 00:33:14.480 happened is they've just worked them into the 00:33:14.480 --> 00:33:17.220 ground and so young people are seeing the detriment 00:33:17.220 --> 00:33:19.299 of being in the fire service now, and they're 00:33:19.299 --> 00:33:22.079 not wanting to do this. And I don't blame them 00:33:22.079 --> 00:33:24.480 at all until it's fixed. So now you've got these 00:33:24.480 --> 00:33:26.319 departments that are trying to get high school 00:33:26.319 --> 00:33:29.799 kids, 18 year olds. And, you know, you, you know, 00:33:29.819 --> 00:33:32.839 most fire departments, there is no, you know, 00:33:32.839 --> 00:33:34.680 in the, in the military, you're going to have 00:33:34.680 --> 00:33:36.579 obviously the, you know, the infantry and the 00:33:36.579 --> 00:33:38.079 people that are out there on the front line, 00:33:38.099 --> 00:33:39.559 but there's a lot of, you know, the military 00:33:39.559 --> 00:33:41.940 that you might be mechanic or something, and 00:33:41.940 --> 00:33:44.390 you're not seeing horrible shit every day. In 00:33:44.390 --> 00:33:46.650 the fire service you are, it's very rare that 00:33:46.650 --> 00:33:48.430 you're in an area where you don't run very many 00:33:48.430 --> 00:33:52.410 calls. So 18 -year -old right into almost daily 00:33:52.410 --> 00:33:55.609 gruesome calls and heartbreaking screams and 00:33:55.609 --> 00:33:59.569 all that stuff. And it's irresponsible. But when 00:33:59.569 --> 00:34:02.029 you look at the military, there's a deliberate 00:34:02.029 --> 00:34:05.450 selection of that age because they're not going 00:34:05.450 --> 00:34:07.579 to question it. And then this is why I think 00:34:07.579 --> 00:34:10.340 so many veterans struggle later on because now 00:34:10.340 --> 00:34:12.719 they're old enough and wise enough to reflect 00:34:12.719 --> 00:34:15.599 back and go, well, wait a second. Why were we 00:34:15.599 --> 00:34:18.199 in Iraq? This is supposed to be a response to 00:34:18.199 --> 00:34:20.780 9 -11. I was a completely different group of 00:34:20.780 --> 00:34:22.059 people. Then you tell us that there's weapons 00:34:22.059 --> 00:34:24.519 of mass destruction and they were never found, 00:34:24.659 --> 00:34:26.639 you know, but it's and then you have that moral 00:34:26.639 --> 00:34:28.960 injury as well. But you've got these kids that, 00:34:28.980 --> 00:34:32.280 you know, just blindly loyal at that point. And 00:34:32.280 --> 00:34:34.619 then you add an event like 9 -11 and now they're 00:34:34.619 --> 00:34:37.590 just all fired up. and you can steer that group 00:34:37.590 --> 00:34:40.750 any way that you want. And then, you know, that's 00:34:40.750 --> 00:34:43.170 the term disposable heroes. And then when they're 00:34:43.170 --> 00:34:45.690 done, oh, well, all right, see you. Thanks for 00:34:45.690 --> 00:34:49.230 your service. But it was their calling, so why 00:34:49.230 --> 00:34:50.989 should we help them now? You know what I mean? 00:34:51.030 --> 00:34:56.230 And it's this constant cycle all the time. And, 00:34:56.230 --> 00:35:00.849 yeah, and as I said, we've got here junior doctors 00:35:00.849 --> 00:35:05.690 protesting for more pay. It used to be that, 00:35:05.690 --> 00:35:07.550 you know, people would either support them or 00:35:07.550 --> 00:35:11.389 not. But now the hate they get from social media 00:35:11.389 --> 00:35:16.489 for wanting just more help, more money, it's 00:35:16.489 --> 00:35:21.730 crazy. It really is. But it goes back to this 00:35:21.730 --> 00:35:23.969 footballification of the world that we spoke 00:35:23.969 --> 00:35:27.789 about earlier. But, yeah, but on young lads, 00:35:27.809 --> 00:35:32.579 it is that. If you go, oh, you know. At 19, you're 00:35:32.579 --> 00:35:35.880 a man, you're the ultimate hero. Look how much 00:35:35.880 --> 00:35:37.340 everyone loves you. Look how much everyone's 00:35:37.340 --> 00:35:40.179 proud of you. Then, you know, you're not going 00:35:40.179 --> 00:35:43.800 to question it, are you? Because, you know, you've 00:35:43.800 --> 00:35:47.039 grown up to be the ultimate warrior, should we 00:35:47.039 --> 00:35:52.139 say. And what a bloke, you know, the manliest 00:35:52.139 --> 00:35:57.079 of the man. And, yeah, it's hard for them to 00:35:57.079 --> 00:36:00.760 then speak up later. Speaking of young doctors, 00:36:01.000 --> 00:36:05.420 there's so many areas where certain countries 00:36:05.420 --> 00:36:08.199 do things really well. Norway's prisons, Finland's 00:36:08.199 --> 00:36:10.480 education system, Portugal's decriminalization 00:36:10.480 --> 00:36:13.300 of drugs. I mean, really good system that have 00:36:13.300 --> 00:36:15.820 revolutionized their countries. And I've always 00:36:15.820 --> 00:36:19.800 stood by the fact that the NHS is the best healthcare 00:36:19.800 --> 00:36:23.519 system out there when fully funded and supported, 00:36:23.800 --> 00:36:26.670 which was when I was young. And I grew up and 00:36:26.670 --> 00:36:29.150 I tell people this, Bupa, that private health 00:36:29.150 --> 00:36:31.769 insurance in England, my grandparents had their 00:36:31.769 --> 00:36:35.090 whole life and they got into their 90s and they 00:36:35.090 --> 00:36:37.010 were priced out where they just couldn't even 00:36:37.010 --> 00:36:38.909 afford the premiums anymore. So they paid for 00:36:38.909 --> 00:36:40.550 decades and decades and decades. And then the 00:36:40.550 --> 00:36:42.289 insurance company was like, well, thanks for 00:36:42.289 --> 00:36:44.690 all the money, but you can't afford us anymore. 00:36:44.809 --> 00:36:48.530 So we're not covering you anymore. And so my 00:36:48.530 --> 00:36:51.389 granddad at 99 years old had cancer and he was 00:36:51.389 --> 00:36:53.710 still so young physiologically that it went through 00:36:53.710 --> 00:36:57.769 him like a young person. And I saw the most amazing 00:36:57.769 --> 00:37:00.469 care, doctor's home visits, nurse home visits, 00:37:00.550 --> 00:37:03.309 hospice care, you know, I mean, all these things. 00:37:03.329 --> 00:37:05.269 And then they visited my grandmother for a couple 00:37:05.269 --> 00:37:08.130 of weeks after he passed away. Phenomenal care. 00:37:08.889 --> 00:37:12.570 And what breaks my heart, because at its core, 00:37:12.570 --> 00:37:14.670 it is by far the best system around the planet. 00:37:14.690 --> 00:37:17.750 But this privatization and this, you know, picking 00:37:17.750 --> 00:37:21.510 apart of that. This has resulted in the obesity 00:37:21.510 --> 00:37:24.750 crisis in the UK, because if you have a tax based 00:37:24.750 --> 00:37:27.369 system, this altruistic that says all the British 00:37:27.369 --> 00:37:29.889 people, people in the UK, we're going to chip 00:37:29.889 --> 00:37:33.630 in and take care of the elderly, the young, you 00:37:33.630 --> 00:37:36.389 know, the pregnant, the people with cancer, the 00:37:36.389 --> 00:37:38.489 people with, you know, car accidents and the 00:37:38.489 --> 00:37:40.349 rest of us will take care of you. And one day 00:37:40.349 --> 00:37:43.389 maybe we'll need that care. And if it's a tax 00:37:43.389 --> 00:37:45.650 based system, then the push is for the rest of 00:37:45.650 --> 00:37:48.090 us. Let's make the British as healthy as possible. 00:37:48.679 --> 00:37:50.920 so that we're not dipping into that tax. Well, 00:37:50.960 --> 00:37:53.360 now you switch it where you've got this pseudo 00:37:53.360 --> 00:37:55.980 -American model, you know, muscling its way in. 00:37:56.239 --> 00:37:59.480 And now there's money in the sick. So, and you 00:37:59.480 --> 00:38:01.980 see it reflected in the UK. You know, if it was 00:38:01.980 --> 00:38:05.019 truly supported of the NHS, the British people 00:38:05.019 --> 00:38:07.159 would still be really, really healthy because 00:38:07.159 --> 00:38:10.780 it would be economically favorable. And you'd 00:38:10.780 --> 00:38:13.559 probably have no freaking, you know, young doctors 00:38:13.559 --> 00:38:16.480 and nurses picketing because they would be supported 00:38:16.480 --> 00:38:20.420 and well -paid. you know have the kind of recruitment 00:38:20.420 --> 00:38:22.119 where they're not struggling and having to work 00:38:22.119 --> 00:38:25.099 extra shifts but I've watched the system that 00:38:25.099 --> 00:38:27.840 I grew up with just be picked apart and then 00:38:27.840 --> 00:38:31.019 there's a linear relationship between that and 00:38:31.019 --> 00:38:33.219 the health of the people in the UK and it's and 00:38:33.219 --> 00:38:36.659 it's heartbreaking yeah no 100 % agree with that 00:38:36.659 --> 00:38:40.039 I mean I'll be honest every time I've needed 00:38:40.039 --> 00:38:42.929 the NHS nhs or any of my family have needed the 00:38:42.929 --> 00:38:46.789 nhs it's only ever been positive but um and just 00:38:46.789 --> 00:38:49.809 bringing it back to football um the the thing 00:38:49.809 --> 00:38:52.090 is is uh you know if a goalkeeper makes a mistake 00:38:52.090 --> 00:38:56.489 um it usually leads to a goal right and if somebody 00:38:56.489 --> 00:39:01.150 in the nhs is tired or overworked or you know 00:39:01.150 --> 00:39:05.670 going on you know 19 20 hour shifts that mistake's 00:39:05.670 --> 00:39:08.809 going to be crucial and but as you said that 00:39:08.809 --> 00:39:14.030 the health of the country um unemployment if 00:39:14.030 --> 00:39:17.369 if the country's sicker unemployment less people 00:39:17.369 --> 00:39:18.829 are going to be out of work which means more 00:39:18.829 --> 00:39:22.130 benefit and you know these all feed each other 00:39:22.130 --> 00:39:25.909 and um yeah it starts with a healthy nation would 00:39:25.909 --> 00:39:29.599 be would be best for everyone but um If we run 00:39:29.599 --> 00:39:32.559 the world, eh, James? Well, I mean, going back 00:39:32.559 --> 00:39:34.920 to it, though, I think, you know, writing and 00:39:34.920 --> 00:39:38.920 filmmaking, I think this is needed more so now 00:39:38.920 --> 00:39:42.340 than ever because we've had so many barriers 00:39:42.340 --> 00:39:45.119 put up to communication and even social media, 00:39:45.260 --> 00:39:47.519 you know, these algorithms. You try and put good 00:39:47.519 --> 00:39:50.119 things into the world, you're not even close 00:39:50.119 --> 00:39:52.599 to as successful as if you put something nasty 00:39:52.599 --> 00:39:55.550 or divisive or extremist. I've said this the 00:39:55.550 --> 00:39:58.449 last few years, the most silenced voice is the 00:39:58.449 --> 00:40:02.110 middle ground, the common sense. They don't want 00:40:02.110 --> 00:40:04.590 to hear it. So I think this is where podcasts, 00:40:04.889 --> 00:40:08.010 books, documentaries, films that actually have 00:40:08.010 --> 00:40:10.809 some clout are really getting the people because 00:40:10.809 --> 00:40:13.469 you're circumnavigating all these barriers that 00:40:13.469 --> 00:40:15.429 people are putting up deliberately to try and 00:40:15.429 --> 00:40:17.650 stop people critically thinking and asking questions. 00:40:18.420 --> 00:40:21.460 Yeah, no, definitely. I 100 % agree with that. 00:40:22.500 --> 00:40:25.300 You know, obviously there's always that argument, 00:40:25.420 --> 00:40:28.480 isn't it? Should art be political and all of 00:40:28.480 --> 00:40:30.980 that? And I think, well, all art is political 00:40:30.980 --> 00:40:33.139 because all art should have something to say. 00:40:33.980 --> 00:40:37.800 But, yeah, I'm hoping that's what we're going 00:40:37.800 --> 00:40:39.739 to do with the film. I hope we're going to open 00:40:39.739 --> 00:40:43.719 some eyes and get people talking about it. So, 00:40:43.719 --> 00:40:47.539 yeah, we're hopefully doing the right thing with 00:40:47.539 --> 00:40:51.000 it. So walk me through some of the films prior 00:40:51.000 --> 00:40:56.139 to Unseen Scar. Sorry, I had to check for a second 00:40:56.139 --> 00:40:59.219 there. That kind of led you towards telling this 00:40:59.219 --> 00:41:02.860 story specifically. Well, as I said, so we'd 00:41:02.860 --> 00:41:08.019 made a few TV pilots and we'd been in a few feature 00:41:08.019 --> 00:41:13.239 films in different levels. And then, yeah, but 00:41:13.239 --> 00:41:17.829 what actually ended up happening is... As I said, 00:41:17.829 --> 00:41:21.210 my friend took his own life in 2012. It hit me 00:41:21.210 --> 00:41:23.889 a bit hard. And then I started looking into, 00:41:24.010 --> 00:41:28.889 you know, veterans and what their issues are 00:41:28.889 --> 00:41:32.389 from no other reason than to help friends that 00:41:32.389 --> 00:41:35.590 I still had at that time. Just wanted to understand 00:41:35.590 --> 00:41:38.349 it a little bit more and take it in a bit more 00:41:38.349 --> 00:41:42.210 and let people know who were still with us that, 00:41:42.210 --> 00:41:44.969 you know, if they wanted to chat. I was here, 00:41:45.090 --> 00:41:47.050 you know what I mean? No, no judgment, nothing. 00:41:47.110 --> 00:41:49.489 Just, just even if they just wanted a mouth off, 00:41:49.530 --> 00:41:52.650 have a beer, whatever it be. So, so that was 00:41:52.650 --> 00:41:54.489 kind of the turning point from that point of 00:41:54.489 --> 00:41:58.670 view. And that, and the filmmaking at that time 00:41:58.670 --> 00:42:02.329 wasn't really connected to be honest. This was 00:42:02.329 --> 00:42:06.010 just obviously one part of my life where, you 00:42:06.010 --> 00:42:09.279 know, a lot of friends who are veterans. may 00:42:09.279 --> 00:42:12.260 or may not have needed help and a sympathetic 00:42:12.260 --> 00:42:16.539 ear. And then there was the filmmaking. All my 00:42:16.539 --> 00:42:19.280 films that I've made up to this date have always 00:42:19.280 --> 00:42:23.139 had something to say, have had always a bit of 00:42:23.139 --> 00:42:25.960 a social commentary about them. That's just what 00:42:25.960 --> 00:42:30.320 interests me. It goes back to what I was saying 00:42:30.320 --> 00:42:31.800 when you were a kid. If you're going to be a 00:42:31.800 --> 00:42:34.760 kid and you're going to be into something, be 00:42:34.760 --> 00:42:37.639 really into it and make what you want to make. 00:42:37.760 --> 00:42:43.119 And, you know, don't waver from that line. Just 00:42:43.119 --> 00:42:46.460 make sure it's important to you. So all the films 00:42:46.460 --> 00:42:49.380 I've made have that social commentary and there's 00:42:49.380 --> 00:42:52.219 something that I find interesting in it. And 00:42:52.219 --> 00:42:54.619 then I'm just trying to remember what year. It 00:42:54.619 --> 00:42:58.039 was just before COVID, funnily enough. I met 00:42:58.039 --> 00:43:00.860 up with the producer of this film, which is Dr. 00:43:01.039 --> 00:43:04.300 Kasia Wilk. She wasn't in the film industry, 00:43:04.420 --> 00:43:09.019 but she's a psychologist and a therapist. And 00:43:09.019 --> 00:43:11.900 she wanted to go back to what you were just saying, 00:43:11.980 --> 00:43:14.719 funnily enough. She wanted to make... films to 00:43:14.719 --> 00:43:17.579 reach people and those films were going to be 00:43:17.579 --> 00:43:20.380 about choice and the choices we make to help 00:43:20.380 --> 00:43:24.380 us recover from whatever it may be and you know 00:43:24.380 --> 00:43:27.199 whatever trauma it may have happened in our lives 00:43:27.199 --> 00:43:31.360 so we started speaking myself and kasha she she 00:43:31.360 --> 00:43:33.260 she called her company choice point productions 00:43:33.260 --> 00:43:36.820 um and you know she explained what she wanted 00:43:36.820 --> 00:43:40.239 to make films about i then said you know, that 00:43:40.239 --> 00:43:43.019 I would be interested in making a film about 00:43:43.019 --> 00:43:46.159 veterans and the choices they make. But it was 00:43:46.159 --> 00:43:48.320 quite important at that time, as I said to her, 00:43:48.400 --> 00:43:51.539 that we didn't want to make a film, which was, 00:43:51.760 --> 00:43:57.039 how can I put it? It needed to be about the aftermath 00:43:57.039 --> 00:43:59.280 and coming home and the mental health side of 00:43:59.280 --> 00:44:01.980 it. I didn't really want to focus too much on 00:44:01.980 --> 00:44:05.199 what had happened, be it in Iraq or Afghanistan 00:44:05.199 --> 00:44:09.170 or wherever they had been. And so that, completely 00:44:09.170 --> 00:44:11.690 aligned with what Cashel wanted to do. So we 00:44:11.690 --> 00:44:13.969 got together, we started building the team and 00:44:13.969 --> 00:44:16.590 we thought, okay, right, this is good. We've 00:44:16.590 --> 00:44:20.469 got the feature film ready to go and we will 00:44:20.469 --> 00:44:24.449 start making it probably towards the end of 2019, 00:44:24.750 --> 00:44:29.150 2020, let's go. And then that became an impossibility 00:44:29.150 --> 00:44:32.670 because the whole world shut down and we was 00:44:32.670 --> 00:44:35.090 like, right, okay. So we decided to spend that 00:44:35.090 --> 00:44:38.019 time developing. the project a little bit more 00:44:38.019 --> 00:44:42.500 let's so restart and um that eventually led to 00:44:42.500 --> 00:44:45.239 us making the proof of concept and making the 00:44:45.239 --> 00:44:47.840 film kind of a bit bigger and a few more strands 00:44:47.840 --> 00:44:51.840 um so so that led us to the proof of concept 00:44:51.840 --> 00:44:54.880 short film which um which is what we've been 00:44:54.880 --> 00:44:59.239 making now and and so and just released so the 00:44:59.239 --> 00:45:02.420 the first thing to do with that was um literally 00:45:02.420 --> 00:45:05.840 spoke to every veteran i knew um their families 00:45:05.840 --> 00:45:09.260 their friends them and didn't have like nice 00:45:09.260 --> 00:45:12.320 conversations with them to be honest uh you know 00:45:12.320 --> 00:45:15.760 it was it was very you know harsh truths very 00:45:15.760 --> 00:45:20.840 very real very unfiltered and you know i can 00:45:20.840 --> 00:45:22.900 only thank all the veterans i know for that um 00:45:22.900 --> 00:45:24.500 i mean i won't mention their names because um 00:45:24.500 --> 00:45:26.539 you know i haven't spoke to them about this beforehand 00:45:26.539 --> 00:45:30.840 but um you know very thankful to them for um 00:45:30.840 --> 00:45:33.480 being that open and that is what helped us write 00:45:33.480 --> 00:45:37.159 the script the way it was and how will it could 00:45:37.159 --> 00:45:40.559 be um and then yeah and then we went on from 00:45:40.559 --> 00:45:45.239 there um and we filmed over two blocks um so 00:45:45.239 --> 00:45:49.019 it was yeah nearly a year um nearly took a whole 00:45:49.019 --> 00:45:52.639 year just to to make in in these two blocks and 00:45:52.639 --> 00:45:54.920 uh yeah and then it was finally ready for release 00:45:54.920 --> 00:45:59.199 and um combat stress have been great in helping 00:45:59.199 --> 00:46:03.980 us. You know, many others have been good in helping 00:46:03.980 --> 00:46:06.480 us as well. And funnily enough, that's where 00:46:06.480 --> 00:46:11.360 I was at the NHS for veterans talking about the 00:46:11.360 --> 00:46:15.860 film. It was a group that's in North London, 00:46:15.920 --> 00:46:20.000 which is where I met Stu and who eventually put 00:46:20.000 --> 00:46:23.059 me onto yourself. And yeah, that's how we got 00:46:23.059 --> 00:46:26.019 here. So the film's out and about now. It's doing 00:46:26.019 --> 00:46:30.099 its festival run. we've had our premiere in London, 00:46:30.179 --> 00:46:34.280 which turned into something quite nice. We done 00:46:34.280 --> 00:46:37.480 a Q &A at the end of it and we prepared for all 00:46:37.480 --> 00:46:39.739 of our questions about, you know, camera lenses 00:46:39.739 --> 00:46:42.059 and, you know, what did you think it was in that 00:46:42.059 --> 00:46:43.880 shot? But it actually didn't end up like that. 00:46:44.440 --> 00:46:47.000 Rather than questions, many of the veterans in 00:46:47.000 --> 00:46:50.500 the audience wanted to just make statements and 00:46:50.500 --> 00:46:55.039 talk about how they felt about the film and how... 00:46:55.239 --> 00:46:58.079 related to them and speak very positively about 00:46:58.079 --> 00:47:01.820 the film and their own experiences. And it suddenly 00:47:01.820 --> 00:47:04.380 becomes something that we didn't expect, which 00:47:04.380 --> 00:47:07.920 was a lot better than your standard Q &A. Because 00:47:07.920 --> 00:47:10.480 we were hearing from those people, the real people. 00:47:10.639 --> 00:47:14.860 And yeah, it was quite a nice moment. I hosted 00:47:14.860 --> 00:47:18.940 a showing for Kevin Hines' documentary. He's 00:47:18.940 --> 00:47:21.000 one of the guys that jumped off the Golden Gate 00:47:21.000 --> 00:47:24.099 Bridge and survived. And he's become this incredible 00:47:24.099 --> 00:47:26.719 advocate for mental health. And it was one of 00:47:26.719 --> 00:47:28.179 those ones where you could basically, if you 00:47:28.179 --> 00:47:30.900 sold enough tickets to the local cinema, you 00:47:30.900 --> 00:47:33.280 would actually be able to host a showing. And 00:47:33.280 --> 00:47:36.460 so we did that. And then same thing when the 00:47:36.460 --> 00:47:38.500 film was done. It wasn't my film. I was just 00:47:38.500 --> 00:47:42.400 trying to, again, spark conversation and hopefully 00:47:42.400 --> 00:47:47.389 sow some hope in some people. And my God. Like 00:47:47.389 --> 00:47:49.829 you said, it wasn't really Q &A. It was people 00:47:49.829 --> 00:47:52.030 starting to share their stories and people were 00:47:52.030 --> 00:47:54.090 in tears and they were hugging each other. And 00:47:54.090 --> 00:47:56.610 this is the superpower, whether you're just being 00:47:56.610 --> 00:47:59.829 vulnerable at a firehouse kitchen table and allowing 00:47:59.829 --> 00:48:02.730 your story to hopefully help other people open 00:48:02.730 --> 00:48:05.170 up or whether it's a film like this or whether 00:48:05.170 --> 00:48:07.469 it's my show, because I hope this is the same 00:48:07.469 --> 00:48:08.989 thing that's going to happen with that as well. 00:48:09.969 --> 00:48:13.219 It's not that you brought all the answers. it's 00:48:13.219 --> 00:48:15.039 just that you've opened the door for someone 00:48:15.039 --> 00:48:17.840 else to come out and say, I thought, I thought 00:48:17.840 --> 00:48:19.739 everyone else was all right. I thought I was 00:48:19.739 --> 00:48:21.739 the only one that was a pussy. You know what 00:48:21.739 --> 00:48:23.559 I mean? And you've debunked that whole thing 00:48:23.559 --> 00:48:26.019 and you realize, you know, I won't give too much 00:48:26.019 --> 00:48:27.679 away, but you know, some of the people that you 00:48:27.679 --> 00:48:29.500 thought were struggling weren't and vice versa. 00:48:29.679 --> 00:48:32.340 And, you know, but when you actually put it all 00:48:32.340 --> 00:48:34.679 out, you know, in front of you and you get rid 00:48:34.679 --> 00:48:37.599 of that fake machismo bollocks that we were raised, 00:48:37.679 --> 00:48:41.000 you know, as young people, it's amazing how. 00:48:41.530 --> 00:48:44.869 that vulnerability is such a relief you know 00:48:44.869 --> 00:48:47.530 people are finally i can actually say yeah i've 00:48:47.530 --> 00:48:50.010 been struggling you know and then as your film 00:48:50.010 --> 00:48:52.090 alludes to in one of the you know the statements 00:48:52.090 --> 00:48:54.750 that the psychologist says you know it's not 00:48:54.750 --> 00:48:58.250 normal no human is is you know wired to deal 00:48:58.250 --> 00:49:00.750 with war or what we see in the fire service or 00:49:00.750 --> 00:49:04.429 paramedicine or the er you know this is an and 00:49:04.429 --> 00:49:06.329 we've taken all the horrible shit and we've given 00:49:06.329 --> 00:49:08.349 it to one percent of the population to deal with 00:49:08.349 --> 00:49:11.889 so you know i think it's it's so important it 00:49:11.889 --> 00:49:13.570 doesn't surprise me at all the moment you said 00:49:13.570 --> 00:49:15.329 there was a q a immediately i knew what you were 00:49:15.329 --> 00:49:17.909 going to say because i've seen it so many times 00:49:17.909 --> 00:49:19.829 and i've heard it from so many people that have 00:49:19.829 --> 00:49:22.690 been on their healing journey had the courage 00:49:22.690 --> 00:49:24.769 to then share their story and then at the end 00:49:24.769 --> 00:49:27.190 there's a line of people trying to you know talk 00:49:27.190 --> 00:49:30.090 to them yeah and it's nice because as i said 00:49:30.090 --> 00:49:33.960 it's it's when you realize that um Many filmmakers 00:49:33.960 --> 00:49:37.699 say this. Once you put a film out there, it doesn't 00:49:37.699 --> 00:49:41.940 belong to you anymore. It's for the world. And 00:49:41.940 --> 00:49:47.639 when these conversations were going on, I've 00:49:47.639 --> 00:49:50.820 had my part in something that's bigger than me, 00:49:50.960 --> 00:49:53.960 and now it belongs to everyone else, and it sparked 00:49:53.960 --> 00:49:56.460 a conversation, as you said. And it's a real 00:49:56.460 --> 00:50:00.079 sort of nice moment that you go, okay, this is... 00:50:00.409 --> 00:50:02.789 this made everything worthwhile of why we were 00:50:02.789 --> 00:50:05.750 making it. So the sleepless nights, the issues 00:50:05.750 --> 00:50:09.769 we had going backwards and forwards. But, yeah, 00:50:09.929 --> 00:50:14.449 it's a real nice moment. So one thing I didn't 00:50:14.449 --> 00:50:17.449 actually say about making the film is everybody 00:50:17.449 --> 00:50:22.570 involved in the film was so into it, which was 00:50:22.570 --> 00:50:25.369 really good. Everybody felt it was an important 00:50:25.369 --> 00:50:28.769 film to make and everybody brought their own 00:50:28.769 --> 00:50:31.750 little... own little bit to it and works beyond 00:50:31.750 --> 00:50:35.650 and look this is this is a short film um proof 00:50:35.650 --> 00:50:39.909 of concept um paid for by whatever money we could 00:50:39.909 --> 00:50:43.010 scrap to get together so to speak no one was 00:50:43.010 --> 00:50:46.389 earning big on this we'll say that um and still 00:50:46.389 --> 00:50:50.010 everybody turned up and you'd hit it out the 00:50:50.010 --> 00:50:54.449 park um so so it was so nice and um mike mckell 00:50:54.449 --> 00:50:58.510 who plays the therapist um in in the film funnily 00:50:58.510 --> 00:51:01.929 enough he he said to me um as soon as he read 00:51:01.929 --> 00:51:05.409 the line um and you know the listeners won't 00:51:05.409 --> 00:51:08.429 have seen it yet but um there's a line in there 00:51:08.429 --> 00:51:11.730 when he says it's scary what a smile can hide 00:51:11.730 --> 00:51:15.489 and he said as soon as he read the that line 00:51:15.489 --> 00:51:18.190 that's that's the one he wanted to get on set 00:51:18.190 --> 00:51:21.989 and deliver and um and as i said this is a lot 00:51:21.989 --> 00:51:24.750 of the script has come from Talking to therapists, 00:51:24.889 --> 00:51:27.869 talking to veterans, you know, really sort of... 00:51:27.869 --> 00:51:31.530 So, you know, yes, I wrote it, but this has come 00:51:31.530 --> 00:51:35.050 from most people's experiences and most, you 00:51:35.050 --> 00:51:39.929 know, most real -life events. So, yeah, all the 00:51:39.929 --> 00:51:42.269 actors, as I said, Andrew Lee Potts put in a 00:51:42.269 --> 00:51:44.309 great performance, Luke Mabley put in a great 00:51:44.309 --> 00:51:47.929 performance, Mike McHale, as I said, and even 00:51:47.929 --> 00:51:51.690 people who were just there for the odd day decided 00:51:51.690 --> 00:51:56.460 to... putting a performance that we couldn't 00:51:56.460 --> 00:51:59.559 have expected to be as good. And I think that's 00:51:59.559 --> 00:52:03.139 what really makes the film work, that everybody 00:52:03.139 --> 00:52:05.619 who's worked on it turned up and said, right, 00:52:05.679 --> 00:52:08.280 I'm going to give my best work because we feel 00:52:08.280 --> 00:52:12.360 this subject's important. What are you hearing 00:52:12.360 --> 00:52:18.159 as far as the ease with which they can find mental 00:52:18.159 --> 00:52:22.420 health tools? And then the efficacy of the ones 00:52:22.420 --> 00:52:26.440 that they are finding. That's been pretty mixed, 00:52:26.539 --> 00:52:30.480 to be honest. I mean, as you know, we put it 00:52:30.480 --> 00:52:32.539 at the end of our film and on our website, we 00:52:32.539 --> 00:52:37.179 do have links to try and make those resources 00:52:37.179 --> 00:52:41.239 a little bit easier. So, you know, people can 00:52:41.239 --> 00:52:43.099 leave the film, just remember the title of the 00:52:43.099 --> 00:52:45.559 film and then go find resources that way if they 00:52:45.559 --> 00:52:50.219 haven't. There is... But it's very mixed. Some 00:52:50.219 --> 00:52:54.179 people talk about certain charities or NHS help 00:52:54.179 --> 00:52:57.579 and say how great it's been. Others say that 00:52:57.579 --> 00:53:00.639 it's been useless and there's no help at all. 00:53:02.599 --> 00:53:07.880 And vice versa with any MPs that are in the Office 00:53:07.880 --> 00:53:12.500 of Ministers of Veterans. Yeah, some I've talked 00:53:12.500 --> 00:53:15.239 about very highly. Others talk about very... 00:53:15.550 --> 00:53:18.909 you know, frustrating. And, um, yeah, so it has 00:53:18.909 --> 00:53:23.289 been very mixed. Um, I will be honest until you 00:53:23.289 --> 00:53:29.170 mentioned the therapies, um, uh, going down in, 00:53:29.190 --> 00:53:31.510 was it, uh, Bristol, the professor you had on 00:53:31.510 --> 00:53:34.269 the podcast? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. The MDMA led therapies 00:53:34.269 --> 00:53:36.530 and the psilocybin and all these other things. 00:53:36.710 --> 00:53:39.389 So obviously I'm not a veteran. So, and, um, 00:53:39.530 --> 00:53:43.010 so I, I don't know how much resource they get. 00:53:43.239 --> 00:53:45.980 But where I've been looking into it, there's 00:53:45.980 --> 00:53:48.300 stuff that, unless I'd met up with yourself, 00:53:48.599 --> 00:53:50.780 that I wouldn't have known about or even heard 00:53:50.780 --> 00:53:54.820 about. So there's a lot of stuff that isn't really, 00:53:54.960 --> 00:53:57.260 again, it probably goes back to what we were 00:53:57.260 --> 00:53:59.539 saying about careers as kids. There's a lot of 00:53:59.539 --> 00:54:02.639 stuff you just aren't exposed to. And when you 00:54:02.639 --> 00:54:04.659 come out of the military, who helps? Okay, you've 00:54:04.659 --> 00:54:08.079 got your GP, you've got combat stress, and you've 00:54:08.079 --> 00:54:11.050 got help for heroes or whatever. because you've 00:54:11.050 --> 00:54:16.210 seen them on the tv um and yeah but i'm not seeing 00:54:16.210 --> 00:54:20.469 a real focal point of you should do this you 00:54:20.469 --> 00:54:22.670 should go this route you should go that route 00:54:22.670 --> 00:54:28.929 um again um from only the issues i've had probably 00:54:28.929 --> 00:54:32.329 you know with my own mental health um i found 00:54:32.329 --> 00:54:36.059 the nhs to be great but that that hasn't been 00:54:36.059 --> 00:54:39.940 for everybody. You know what I mean? So yeah, 00:54:40.099 --> 00:54:44.639 it does feel like it needs more focus, but again, 00:54:44.760 --> 00:54:47.820 it probably also needs, if you want the data 00:54:47.820 --> 00:54:50.539 to come forward of how to help people, you need 00:54:50.539 --> 00:54:53.719 to make it more acceptable for people to talk 00:54:53.719 --> 00:54:57.199 about this and to come forward. And by saying 00:54:57.199 --> 00:55:00.500 no, and you know, it's all coming back and say, 00:55:00.559 --> 00:55:02.860 we were doing a full loop here, but by saying, 00:55:02.920 --> 00:55:06.599 no, you're a hero. You don't need help. You know, 00:55:06.639 --> 00:55:10.340 I mean, you can get through this, you know, because 00:55:10.340 --> 00:55:14.000 we're putting you up on this pedestal. And to 00:55:14.000 --> 00:55:20.119 talk is seen as probably shattering this image 00:55:20.119 --> 00:55:23.079 that you've been created by society and by yourself. 00:55:23.900 --> 00:55:28.949 Then it's not going to be easy. um yes we need 00:55:28.949 --> 00:55:30.769 to do that we need we need to make sure that 00:55:30.769 --> 00:55:33.230 it's easier to come forward and the other thing 00:55:33.230 --> 00:55:35.829 that we we touch on in the film funnily enough 00:55:35.829 --> 00:55:38.829 and where there seems to be very little help 00:55:38.829 --> 00:55:44.090 is um we try we try and show the effects it has 00:55:44.090 --> 00:55:48.329 on friends it has on siblings it has on um the 00:55:48.329 --> 00:55:50.829 the main character's wife and these relationships 00:55:50.829 --> 00:55:54.110 there and that's funny enough some of the feedback 00:55:54.110 --> 00:55:58.400 we got at the premiere that um uh people veterans 00:55:58.400 --> 00:56:01.679 whose wives were there were saying yeah we're 00:56:01.679 --> 00:56:04.800 finally someone's actually put that forward um 00:56:04.800 --> 00:56:08.639 but it seems to be no help for you know um uh 00:56:08.639 --> 00:56:12.539 partners at all and living with someone with 00:56:12.539 --> 00:56:16.400 mental health can be just as hard as the person 00:56:16.400 --> 00:56:19.440 actually with the mental health issues um so 00:56:19.440 --> 00:56:23.659 again it seems to be forgotten that This affects 00:56:23.659 --> 00:56:28.760 everyone. I did notice recently that Combat Stress 00:56:28.760 --> 00:56:34.920 were pushing something about how this person 00:56:34.920 --> 00:56:38.539 is suffering with PTSD. And as the advert goes 00:56:38.539 --> 00:56:41.699 on, you realize that it's actually a small child 00:56:41.699 --> 00:56:45.139 who they're talking about. Even though they've 00:56:45.139 --> 00:56:46.659 never been to war, even though they've never 00:56:46.659 --> 00:56:48.780 been part of the military, they are the person 00:56:48.780 --> 00:56:52.780 who's really being affected by this. by a parent 00:56:52.780 --> 00:56:58.860 being distant or no longer with them. So it is 00:56:58.860 --> 00:57:03.679 starting to be noticed. But again, I'll be honest, 00:57:03.820 --> 00:57:05.980 until I made this film, I would have been aware 00:57:05.980 --> 00:57:11.659 of none of it. And veterans I've spoke to are 00:57:11.659 --> 00:57:14.659 not always aware of this help that they can get. 00:57:15.980 --> 00:57:18.300 Well, that's, again, the kind of theme of my 00:57:18.300 --> 00:57:20.639 book that will be the show is that multi -generational 00:57:20.639 --> 00:57:23.820 trauma. And this is, as we alluded to, the upbringing 00:57:23.820 --> 00:57:26.300 of our soldiers, our firefighters, all these 00:57:26.300 --> 00:57:30.059 careers. There's dominoes already falling. And 00:57:30.059 --> 00:57:31.780 you look at their parents' upbringing and their 00:57:31.780 --> 00:57:33.739 grandparents' upbringing. I mean, it was two 00:57:33.739 --> 00:57:36.059 generations ago that our men and women were going 00:57:36.059 --> 00:57:39.500 to World War II, going to fight the Nazis and 00:57:39.500 --> 00:57:42.300 the Japanese. coming back with all those moral 00:57:42.300 --> 00:57:44.920 injuries and ptsd and all the other things and 00:57:44.920 --> 00:57:47.420 then that you know manifests everything from 00:57:47.420 --> 00:57:49.980 you know some people are able to process it healthy 00:57:49.980 --> 00:57:52.199 but i would argue they're probably the minority 00:57:52.199 --> 00:57:54.260 and then you had a lot there was alcoholism and 00:57:54.260 --> 00:57:56.800 domestic abuse and infidelity and you know all 00:57:56.800 --> 00:57:58.699 these things and now these young people have 00:57:58.699 --> 00:58:00.440 grown up in that now you've got another generation 00:58:00.440 --> 00:58:03.400 another generation so it's important that we 00:58:03.400 --> 00:58:05.539 talk about the kind of ripple effect you've got 00:58:05.539 --> 00:58:07.920 your veteran you've got your firefighter you 00:58:07.920 --> 00:58:10.480 know but then that those ripples go out always, 00:58:10.679 --> 00:58:12.699 you know, in a positive way or a negative way, 00:58:12.739 --> 00:58:15.320 depending on if they've been able to find a therapy. 00:58:15.420 --> 00:58:18.039 And I think this is why it's so important to 00:58:18.039 --> 00:58:20.260 talk about all of the things that are available 00:58:20.260 --> 00:58:23.079 is there's a lot of people that will sit in front 00:58:23.079 --> 00:58:25.980 of a counselor and it just doesn't help. Some 00:58:25.980 --> 00:58:28.159 people don't want to revisit their shit in that 00:58:28.159 --> 00:58:30.260 state, in that anxious state, in that depressed 00:58:30.260 --> 00:58:32.820 state, whatever it is. And this is a superpower 00:58:32.820 --> 00:58:35.719 of some of these other therapies. You know, MDMA, 00:58:35.920 --> 00:58:39.440 you know, is a... big part of ecstasy we used 00:58:39.440 --> 00:58:41.719 to call it the love drug you know it was actually 00:58:41.719 --> 00:58:45.019 a a marriage counseling drug that's what it was 00:58:45.019 --> 00:58:47.179 originally developed for to bring really bring 00:58:47.179 --> 00:58:50.159 couples together yeah so what it does is it drops 00:58:50.159 --> 00:58:53.320 down all that kind of fear response and now they 00:58:53.320 --> 00:58:55.179 feel safe and then they're led through a counseling 00:58:55.179 --> 00:58:56.980 session they're not given it and then they leave 00:58:56.980 --> 00:59:00.599 the the clinic it's an in -clinic treatment three 00:59:00.599 --> 00:59:03.840 sessions over about six weeks And they then go 00:59:03.840 --> 00:59:05.940 through a counseling session and start accessing 00:59:05.940 --> 00:59:08.260 some things they couldn't before. Then you go 00:59:08.260 --> 00:59:10.340 a little deeper. Now you've got ayahuasca and 00:59:10.340 --> 00:59:12.559 ibogaine, some of these things that are, you 00:59:12.559 --> 00:59:14.739 know, the kind of plant medicine side. And now 00:59:14.739 --> 00:59:17.239 they're, you know, even more, you know, a deeper 00:59:17.239 --> 00:59:20.559 experience. And then you've got the 5 -MeO DMT, 00:59:20.639 --> 00:59:23.440 which kind of is this, you know, removal of the 00:59:23.440 --> 00:59:27.219 ego. But just knowing that they're all there 00:59:27.219 --> 00:59:29.480 is the most important thing. It might simply 00:59:29.480 --> 00:59:32.960 be. you know canine therapy that's the the thing 00:59:32.960 --> 00:59:34.880 that helps you turn a corner or you might need 00:59:34.880 --> 00:59:39.239 to go and do a full -on ayahuasca session but 00:59:39.239 --> 00:59:42.199 if all you think is available is sitting down 00:59:42.199 --> 00:59:43.960 with the counselor that you were told to go see 00:59:43.960 --> 00:59:47.980 or psychiatric meds how many men and women have 00:59:47.980 --> 00:59:50.340 we lost because they had the courage to ask for 00:59:50.340 --> 00:59:53.199 help that was what they were given it didn't 00:59:53.199 --> 00:59:55.340 work because you know i've had so many people 00:59:55.340 --> 00:59:57.139 on the show that said their counselor said look 00:59:57.139 --> 01:00:00.039 i can't help you sorry Well, imagine what that 01:00:00.039 --> 01:00:02.400 does to someone at the end of their rope. So 01:00:02.400 --> 01:00:04.440 how many have we lost because they were told 01:00:04.440 --> 01:00:06.980 that's all that's available to you? So educating 01:00:06.980 --> 01:00:10.079 people on this vast spectrum is so important 01:00:10.079 --> 01:00:12.460 because then it gives hope. Okay, that wasn't 01:00:12.460 --> 01:00:14.840 the right fit. I'm going to go and try this. 01:00:14.920 --> 01:00:18.239 And I think that needs to be the next step is 01:00:18.239 --> 01:00:20.840 that understanding that your pain is everything 01:00:20.840 --> 01:00:24.440 from childbirth all the way through to where 01:00:24.440 --> 01:00:26.599 you are now, including war, fire, et cetera. 01:00:27.119 --> 01:00:31.219 But then... realizing that to unpack it you might 01:00:31.219 --> 01:00:34.159 not you might need to do more than just you know 01:00:34.159 --> 01:00:36.039 sitting in a chair talking to someone for 60 01:00:36.039 --> 01:00:39.920 minutes yeah i think what you you said um when 01:00:39.920 --> 01:00:43.219 we spoke originally when um you said if it can 01:00:43.219 --> 01:00:46.719 be framed uh because as we said especially with 01:00:46.719 --> 01:00:50.360 military guys and girls their whole life has 01:00:50.360 --> 01:00:53.559 been right you've got to be the uh the optimum 01:00:53.559 --> 01:00:56.949 fitness so just for you to operate and if it 01:00:56.949 --> 01:00:59.949 could be reframed that you know that includes 01:00:59.949 --> 01:01:02.869 mentally yeah and they come out and say right 01:01:02.869 --> 01:01:06.929 okay stay fit you know but stay mentally fit 01:01:06.929 --> 01:01:09.570 as well if it could be reframed that way that 01:01:09.570 --> 01:01:12.489 it is helping themselves to like that then then 01:01:12.489 --> 01:01:15.369 that would be a better thing but yeah it's um 01:01:15.369 --> 01:01:19.190 but but again as you said like all these uh you 01:01:19.190 --> 01:01:22.630 know mdma drugs or anything like that um it goes 01:01:22.630 --> 01:01:24.429 back to what we said at the start of this one 01:01:24.429 --> 01:01:28.429 size don't fit all and um and yeah but we do 01:01:28.429 --> 01:01:31.250 need to drop that barrier well again and you 01:01:31.250 --> 01:01:33.849 know i don't sort of talk your audience through 01:01:33.849 --> 01:01:36.650 the whole film but um you know we we did try 01:01:36.650 --> 01:01:38.809 and capture that in the bar scene when they talk 01:01:38.809 --> 01:01:42.650 about going to therapy and um the actors absolutely 01:01:42.650 --> 01:01:47.039 nailed it because it feels awkward um two two 01:01:47.039 --> 01:01:50.199 men talking about going to therapy and talking 01:01:50.199 --> 01:01:53.079 about your problems it should feel awkward because 01:01:53.079 --> 01:01:56.159 the two characters are feeling awkward even talking 01:01:56.159 --> 01:01:58.400 about it and they move off it as quickly as possible 01:01:58.400 --> 01:02:01.360 because it's embarrassing and that's what we 01:02:01.360 --> 01:02:04.960 need to get past you're 100 right and um make 01:02:04.960 --> 01:02:08.039 it so if you can get your your mind sharp and 01:02:08.039 --> 01:02:12.039 fit uh it's just like going down the gym um it's 01:02:12.039 --> 01:02:17.000 the same One area that struck me as well is he's 01:02:17.000 --> 01:02:20.380 talking about the DUI. And again, I won't go 01:02:20.380 --> 01:02:25.440 too deep into it, but there's this kind of line 01:02:25.440 --> 01:02:27.079 that he has. And basically that, you know, I 01:02:27.079 --> 01:02:30.400 serve my country and now you're judging me. And 01:02:30.400 --> 01:02:32.340 it kind of struck because this is the other side 01:02:32.340 --> 01:02:34.719 that's really under discussed. And even in my 01:02:34.719 --> 01:02:36.659 profession, there was a lot of shame and guilt, 01:02:36.760 --> 01:02:38.699 anyone that got caught with DUI. And don't get 01:02:38.699 --> 01:02:41.539 me wrong, drink driving, you know, potentially 01:02:41.539 --> 01:02:45.599 is fatal. completely innocent people so i'm not 01:02:45.599 --> 01:02:48.159 excusing that but also addressing the addiction 01:02:48.159 --> 01:02:50.920 side we talk about the suicide and that's that's 01:02:50.920 --> 01:02:53.579 the the big kind of bullseye at the moment but 01:02:53.579 --> 01:02:56.019 you know the overdoses and the the duis and those 01:02:56.019 --> 01:02:58.000 things that's all part of the same exact conversation 01:02:58.000 --> 01:03:00.760 but you're gonna send a young person off to war 01:03:00.760 --> 01:03:03.039 and then they come back and then they you know 01:03:03.039 --> 01:03:05.599 lean into alcohol and then they get locked up 01:03:05.599 --> 01:03:09.320 for you know bar fights or you know dui or whatever 01:03:09.320 --> 01:03:12.510 it is And what does that do to that person? Now, 01:03:12.590 --> 01:03:14.989 of course, again, doesn't make it right. But 01:03:14.989 --> 01:03:17.469 how can we nip that in the bud as well? It's 01:03:17.469 --> 01:03:19.630 all part of the same conversation. You know, 01:03:19.670 --> 01:03:21.949 if you're able to give someone the healing tools 01:03:21.949 --> 01:03:24.590 to start processing what they have been through, 01:03:24.630 --> 01:03:27.329 not just war, but prior to that as well, you 01:03:27.329 --> 01:03:30.389 know, you're going to greatly diminish the alcohol 01:03:30.389 --> 01:03:33.250 related incidents as well. But you've got a veteran 01:03:33.250 --> 01:03:36.429 and now they have the audacity to lean into alcoholism, 01:03:36.429 --> 01:03:39.449 you know, then. Now they're locked up and now, 01:03:39.510 --> 01:03:41.150 you know, some of them are homeless and you've 01:03:41.150 --> 01:03:43.809 just got this downward spiral from an 18 -year 01:03:43.809 --> 01:03:46.550 -old that you put in a uniform and sent to fight 01:03:46.550 --> 01:03:49.530 your wars for you. Yeah, and I think that is 01:03:49.530 --> 01:03:54.070 probably worse in the UK. I mean, you may say 01:03:54.070 --> 01:03:58.570 differently. But in the UK, we have a weird obsession 01:03:58.570 --> 01:04:04.090 with alcohol. It's, you know, whatever the occasion, 01:04:04.409 --> 01:04:06.730 you know, you've got to have a... You've got 01:04:06.730 --> 01:04:10.369 to have a beer with it. You know, if it's a wedding, 01:04:10.530 --> 01:04:14.409 a funeral, if it's a bath, whatever it be, if 01:04:14.409 --> 01:04:17.730 it's Friday, you know what I mean? The sun's 01:04:17.730 --> 01:04:21.469 out. If it's too dark out to do anything, we 01:04:21.469 --> 01:04:23.489 go for our goal. And I do remember an American 01:04:23.489 --> 01:04:27.789 friend, he was struggling when he came back from 01:04:27.789 --> 01:04:33.269 war as well and left the military. And when I 01:04:33.269 --> 01:04:35.639 was with him, he had quite a few – drinks in 01:04:35.639 --> 01:04:39.039 front of him um and it was other american friends 01:04:39.039 --> 01:04:42.440 that said he drinks a lot i'll be honest i didn't 01:04:42.440 --> 01:04:47.039 notice because having a couple lined up in you 01:04:47.039 --> 01:04:50.400 know for a brit isn't that um that that weird 01:04:50.400 --> 01:04:54.920 um so we do have a really weird um relationship 01:04:54.920 --> 01:05:00.039 with alcohol in in the uk and it is very easy 01:05:00.039 --> 01:05:03.619 to go unnoticed should we say if you're drinking 01:05:03.619 --> 01:05:07.250 too much Because the society as a whole has that 01:05:07.250 --> 01:05:11.769 obsession. So, yeah. And as you just said, you 01:05:11.769 --> 01:05:14.230 know, there's other drugs that can be used for 01:05:14.230 --> 01:05:19.349 good. Alcohol can't really, to be honest. And 01:05:19.349 --> 01:05:23.349 it's the one that's very legal and very, as I 01:05:23.349 --> 01:05:26.590 said, that obsession with it. So, yeah, I would 01:05:26.590 --> 01:05:29.730 say it was easier to hide through alcohol in 01:05:29.730 --> 01:05:34.119 this country than... than many others. I'm not 01:05:34.119 --> 01:05:36.000 saying it's easier for other countries, but it 01:05:36.000 --> 01:05:39.280 is definitely easier to hide. You know what's 01:05:39.280 --> 01:05:41.059 interesting? I've had this conversation with 01:05:41.059 --> 01:05:44.480 quite a few people. When I first moved here, 01:05:44.519 --> 01:05:47.360 I had a similar experience as far as the Americans 01:05:47.360 --> 01:05:50.380 not being able to drink, where I went to a summer 01:05:50.380 --> 01:05:52.599 camp. I worked six years in upstate New York, 01:05:52.679 --> 01:05:55.880 and the first year I was 20. And, you know, I'd 01:05:55.880 --> 01:05:57.900 been drinking for, you know, since I was got 01:05:57.900 --> 01:05:59.960 a kid and again, not drinking, drinking, but, 01:06:00.039 --> 01:06:01.860 you know, you allowed a glass of wine with, you 01:06:01.860 --> 01:06:04.199 know, Sunday roasts and that kind of thing. And 01:06:04.199 --> 01:06:06.940 so it was weird. And I actually ended up circumnavigating 01:06:06.940 --> 01:06:08.739 it. I had a good time with everyone the first 01:06:08.739 --> 01:06:10.519 night and they forgot to ask for my ID the rest 01:06:10.519 --> 01:06:12.039 of the time and say we were out in the sticks. 01:06:12.079 --> 01:06:14.920 So they didn't even care that much. But what 01:06:14.920 --> 01:06:17.739 I, you know, when I started moving here, there 01:06:17.739 --> 01:06:20.219 was this culture here where it's like beer pong 01:06:20.219 --> 01:06:23.559 and keg stands and funnels and all this stuff. 01:06:24.320 --> 01:06:26.159 And I was reflecting back and like, we never 01:06:26.159 --> 01:06:29.059 did that in the UK. And I think it was because 01:06:29.059 --> 01:06:32.260 it wasn't stigmatized when you were young. And 01:06:32.260 --> 01:06:33.699 don't get me wrong. There's a lot of people that 01:06:33.699 --> 01:06:36.199 drink way too young, you know, way too much. 01:06:36.199 --> 01:06:38.920 And it's absolutely detrimental, but it wasn't 01:06:38.920 --> 01:06:41.179 like that pulling back of the bow until you're 01:06:41.179 --> 01:06:44.079 21 and then letting go because you end up with 01:06:44.079 --> 01:06:46.340 this extremism, you know, people just getting 01:06:46.340 --> 01:06:49.239 absolutely shit face. Whereas I remember a drinking 01:06:49.239 --> 01:06:51.519 culture in the UK is definitely a thing. And, 01:06:51.539 --> 01:06:53.760 you know, every. no matter how small the village 01:06:53.760 --> 01:06:55.920 you got a post office a church and a pub you 01:06:55.920 --> 01:06:59.500 know at minimum but there wasn't that immediately 01:06:59.500 --> 01:07:02.880 let's just get shit face let's do shots you know 01:07:02.880 --> 01:07:05.619 it was it was you know fear and conversation 01:07:05.619 --> 01:07:09.679 so even though like you said that can escalate 01:07:09.679 --> 01:07:11.380 to where you're not noticing that there's you 01:07:11.380 --> 01:07:15.059 know two or three pints lined up contrasting 01:07:15.059 --> 01:07:17.880 those two i mean you know the the common denominator 01:07:17.880 --> 01:07:20.380 is alcohol just doesn't do any good full stop 01:07:20.380 --> 01:07:23.260 let's be completely honest but withholding it 01:07:23.260 --> 01:07:27.119 and making it illegal till 21 has its detriment 01:07:27.119 --> 01:07:30.780 but then like you said that slow you know death 01:07:30.780 --> 01:07:33.840 by a thousand cuts of of you know as you progress 01:07:33.840 --> 01:07:36.000 through the drinking age drink you more and more 01:07:36.000 --> 01:07:39.639 and more that is kind of um it's a really interesting 01:07:39.639 --> 01:07:41.960 point it's something that you don't notice because 01:07:41.960 --> 01:07:46.059 it's so slow yeah i suppose yeah i suppose in 01:07:46.059 --> 01:07:52.349 in america um it's it is that college party side 01:07:52.349 --> 01:07:55.230 of it, isn't it? Where, as you said, it's just 01:07:55.230 --> 01:07:58.269 a death by a thousand cuts here that we don't 01:07:58.269 --> 01:08:01.070 go wild like that, but it's constant drinking, 01:08:01.170 --> 01:08:03.510 drinking, drinking. And then in the rest of Europe, 01:08:03.750 --> 01:08:08.090 you know, their kids drink a lot younger than 01:08:08.090 --> 01:08:10.630 probably us, but they don't have that obsession 01:08:10.630 --> 01:08:15.090 with binge drinking as much as probably the English 01:08:15.090 --> 01:08:17.890 speaking world does. Or I suppose Germany have 01:08:17.890 --> 01:08:22.579 a, a kind of obsession with it as well. But yeah, 01:08:22.720 --> 01:08:25.640 the, the Australia's the, the America, Canada 01:08:25.640 --> 01:08:29.180 will, and Britain, we, we have this binge drinking 01:08:29.180 --> 01:08:32.960 situation, which is where our obsession sort 01:08:32.960 --> 01:08:35.859 of grows, I suppose in and manifests in different 01:08:35.859 --> 01:08:39.319 ways. But yeah, it is definitely, I think that's 01:08:39.319 --> 01:08:44.180 the trouble here. Veterans hitting the beer or 01:08:44.180 --> 01:08:47.079 people with trauma hitting, hitting the booze. 01:08:47.529 --> 01:08:51.130 it is a it does take a long time to notice because 01:08:51.130 --> 01:08:55.369 you know people don't see it as an issue um so 01:08:55.369 --> 01:08:58.289 so yeah so that is as you just said alcohol does 01:08:58.289 --> 01:09:01.369 no good at all um especially when you think of 01:09:01.369 --> 01:09:03.430 the stuff that's illegal in this country and 01:09:03.430 --> 01:09:07.789 in america and the good that can do but what 01:09:07.789 --> 01:09:10.510 does booze do for you just gets you in trouble 01:09:10.510 --> 01:09:13.630 so yeah exactly and that's the thing i mean you 01:09:13.630 --> 01:09:15.529 know a lot of these treatments like ibogaine 01:09:15.529 --> 01:09:17.989 for example you know, they go for this weekend, 01:09:18.149 --> 01:09:20.090 they do it. And then I think one of the missing 01:09:20.090 --> 01:09:22.810 pieces is then doing the work after. So, you 01:09:22.810 --> 01:09:25.109 know, you're still unpacking everything from 01:09:25.109 --> 01:09:27.970 your past and you're working on, you know, healthier 01:09:27.970 --> 01:09:30.409 outlets, whether it's exercise and, you know, 01:09:30.409 --> 01:09:32.510 better food and hydration and sleep and all the 01:09:32.510 --> 01:09:36.550 things. But Ibogaine has been shown to like literally 01:09:36.550 --> 01:09:40.060 nip addiction in the bud, opioids, alcohol. So 01:09:40.060 --> 01:09:41.739 there are treatments that are incredibly effective. 01:09:41.920 --> 01:09:44.439 And in the States now, there's a movement to 01:09:44.439 --> 01:09:47.159 legalize that treatment. And in Texas, I know 01:09:47.159 --> 01:09:48.859 they're really pushing forward. So hopefully, 01:09:48.960 --> 01:09:51.819 eventually, in a positive way, some of the American 01:09:51.819 --> 01:09:55.359 influence will reach the UK there. But I mean, 01:09:55.380 --> 01:09:57.819 again, how many veterans are we going to lose 01:09:57.819 --> 01:10:00.680 in the process while this drags its feet because 01:10:00.680 --> 01:10:02.800 there's so much opposition from drug companies 01:10:02.800 --> 01:10:04.779 that are like, well, hold on a second. If you 01:10:04.779 --> 01:10:06.319 heal people from addiction, then we're not going 01:10:06.319 --> 01:10:08.590 to be able to sell our psych meds anymore. So, 01:10:08.590 --> 01:10:11.310 you know, whether it's CBD or MDMA led therapy, 01:10:11.470 --> 01:10:15.090 the FDA is just hammering them because they're 01:10:15.090 --> 01:10:17.029 getting paid behind, you know, behind closed 01:10:17.029 --> 01:10:19.810 doors to put as many roadblocks as possible for 01:10:19.810 --> 01:10:23.569 these holistic healing modalities. Just to call 01:10:23.569 --> 01:10:26.409 back on something you said earlier about and 01:10:26.409 --> 01:10:29.090 picking up what you said there as well about 01:10:29.090 --> 01:10:32.210 how, you know, art can kind of educate and film 01:10:32.210 --> 01:10:36.319 can kind of educate. In the UK, we have. little 01:10:36.319 --> 01:10:41.539 to no relationship with opioids. Yeah. And, you 01:10:41.539 --> 01:10:44.800 know, we hear Oxy mentioned on films and all 01:10:44.800 --> 01:10:48.159 of that, but obviously it wasn't a crisis that 01:10:48.159 --> 01:10:51.520 really hit here at all. And I think we spoke 01:10:51.520 --> 01:10:56.180 about it when we first met, the show Dope Sick. 01:10:57.119 --> 01:11:01.500 That educated a lot of people here on what the 01:11:01.500 --> 01:11:05.020 opioid crisis actually was. in the states um 01:11:05.020 --> 01:11:08.800 and um since then there's been a couple of shows 01:11:08.800 --> 01:11:12.079 about it and yeah and and as you said it if you 01:11:12.079 --> 01:11:14.760 it can be it can be a good thing it's entertainment 01:11:14.760 --> 01:11:19.800 yes it's slightly fictionized yes but by pulling 01:11:19.800 --> 01:11:23.140 on those those stories and educating people it 01:11:23.140 --> 01:11:25.899 can just give um people a little bit more um 01:11:25.899 --> 01:11:28.819 yeah highlights it a little bit better for people 01:11:28.819 --> 01:11:31.800 well it's crazy because i saw it firsthand so 01:11:31.800 --> 01:11:35.810 i was in florida In Broward County, when the 01:11:35.810 --> 01:11:38.890 opioid crisis really blew up, so we're talking 01:11:38.890 --> 01:11:42.050 about the OxyContin, the prescription painkillers, 01:11:42.050 --> 01:11:45.550 and I would be in a doctor's office. I remember 01:11:45.550 --> 01:11:48.569 one time I had some sort of sinus infection that 01:11:48.569 --> 01:11:51.310 wouldn't go away. When I was working then, the 01:11:51.310 --> 01:11:53.350 fire station probably had black mold. I'm thinking 01:11:53.350 --> 01:11:56.470 about it now. It was a disgusting place. And 01:11:56.470 --> 01:11:59.310 just waiting for like an hour and a half and 01:11:59.310 --> 01:12:02.909 all these pretty -looking women. rolling their 01:12:02.909 --> 01:12:05.109 little suitcase full of samples would go in and 01:12:05.109 --> 01:12:07.050 see this doctor. I'd be sitting there going, 01:12:07.109 --> 01:12:09.170 what the hell is going on? You know, I mean, 01:12:09.170 --> 01:12:11.470 none of us have gone in yet. And this is a room 01:12:11.470 --> 01:12:14.289 full of people waiting. And then my wife at the 01:12:14.289 --> 01:12:17.689 time, she was working for this physician who, 01:12:17.770 --> 01:12:20.510 thank God, she had a bad feeling about it and 01:12:20.510 --> 01:12:23.069 got out. But he was one of the pill mill physicians, 01:12:23.189 --> 01:12:24.510 right? In prescription. She said, yeah, we keep 01:12:24.510 --> 01:12:27.010 getting these people from New York and, you know, 01:12:27.010 --> 01:12:29.880 all these other states coming in. to see him. 01:12:29.899 --> 01:12:31.520 And then I have to mail these prescriptions out 01:12:31.520 --> 01:12:33.920 because at that point, no one thought that, you 01:12:33.920 --> 01:12:35.899 know, the doctors would be part of some fricking 01:12:35.899 --> 01:12:39.140 prescription drug ring. So, you know, watching 01:12:39.140 --> 01:12:41.319 dope sick, I mean, parts of it I've witnessed 01:12:41.319 --> 01:12:44.180 literally with my own eyes, but that's so good 01:12:44.180 --> 01:12:46.380 to hear about the UK, but what's the difference? 01:12:46.479 --> 01:12:49.539 The UK is not a profit -based system where their 01:12:49.539 --> 01:12:52.640 doctors are peddling pills, where there's commercials 01:12:52.640 --> 01:12:55.199 on the television saying, ask your doctor for. 01:12:56.180 --> 01:12:59.100 And this is a really important part of the whole 01:12:59.100 --> 01:13:00.579 conversation. You're talking about the working 01:13:00.579 --> 01:13:03.619 class town. You've got towns in America that 01:13:03.619 --> 01:13:05.760 had mining, that had the steel industry, that 01:13:05.760 --> 01:13:08.720 had cars, that then went overseas and left a 01:13:08.720 --> 01:13:12.579 massive void in those parts of the states. Now 01:13:12.579 --> 01:13:16.340 you've got poverty. You've got fragmented relationships. 01:13:16.579 --> 01:13:19.020 You've got mental health struggles. Then this 01:13:19.020 --> 01:13:21.819 legal painkiller comes in. Then the pill mills 01:13:21.819 --> 01:13:24.880 are shut down. Now, you know, the cartels are 01:13:24.880 --> 01:13:27.600 bringing in the black tar heroin. And that's, 01:13:27.600 --> 01:13:29.300 you know, how you end up with this crisis. But 01:13:29.300 --> 01:13:32.239 it was all initiated deliberately because that 01:13:32.239 --> 01:13:34.119 story was true. I mean, all the things about, 01:13:34.119 --> 01:13:36.279 you know, the people that were in the government 01:13:36.279 --> 01:13:38.800 that went, you know, then worked for Purdue Pharma. 01:13:39.039 --> 01:13:41.739 You know, they were deliberately targeting these 01:13:41.739 --> 01:13:44.180 doctors and pushing these strengths higher and 01:13:44.180 --> 01:13:47.430 higher and higher. hiding the fact that it was 01:13:47.430 --> 01:13:50.729 highly addictive. And I've pulled sheets over 01:13:50.729 --> 01:13:54.510 so many people from opioid overdose in my career 01:13:54.510 --> 01:13:57.470 as a firefighter paramedic. So I get to see that 01:13:57.470 --> 01:14:00.590 from different lenses. And yeah, that's, again, 01:14:00.729 --> 01:14:06.109 a small group of people profiting from the masses. 01:14:06.430 --> 01:14:09.569 And the fact that people can sleep at night knowing 01:14:09.569 --> 01:14:11.710 their products have killed millions of people 01:14:11.710 --> 01:14:14.909 now shows the mental health crisis in those positions. 01:14:15.430 --> 01:14:18.930 prime ministers presidents you know ceos that's 01:14:18.930 --> 01:14:20.949 why you're like this person seems great because 01:14:20.949 --> 01:14:23.569 they fucking are crazy how could you sleep at 01:14:23.569 --> 01:14:25.810 night knowing that you lied about weapons of 01:14:25.810 --> 01:14:27.409 mass destruction knowing that you turned your 01:14:27.409 --> 01:14:29.710 head to what's going on in gaza whether you know 01:14:29.710 --> 01:14:32.270 that your tobacco is killing eight million people 01:14:32.270 --> 01:14:36.350 around the planet so this you know the fact that 01:14:36.350 --> 01:14:39.930 the uk doesn't have it just illustrates how predatory 01:14:39.930 --> 01:14:43.170 it was here in the u .s Yeah, yeah, definitely. 01:14:43.409 --> 01:14:47.409 And, you know, obviously, as you said, we get 01:14:47.409 --> 01:14:51.310 protected because we do have a NHS system, which 01:14:51.310 --> 01:14:55.250 does work differently. But, you know, my dad's 01:14:55.250 --> 01:14:59.210 registered disabled. If that had come here, he's 01:14:59.210 --> 01:15:01.949 tried every painkiller. I have no doubt that 01:15:01.949 --> 01:15:05.819 he probably would have tried. oxy or if that 01:15:05.819 --> 01:15:08.199 had come here but as i said luckily we do have 01:15:08.199 --> 01:15:11.159 those systems i did actually see a um i think 01:15:11.159 --> 01:15:15.680 it was a a podcast or a twitch where um um um 01:15:15.680 --> 01:15:21.720 the uh oec aoc uh alexander what's the uh oh 01:15:21.720 --> 01:15:25.350 that that news new york woman the senator Yeah, 01:15:25.430 --> 01:15:29.609 I see her talking to some English people and 01:15:29.609 --> 01:15:32.250 they were explaining how prescriptions work here 01:15:32.250 --> 01:15:36.010 and how you can just go see a doctor. And it 01:15:36.010 --> 01:15:38.550 did look like it was blowing her mind that we 01:15:38.550 --> 01:15:42.029 have that system where everybody can just go 01:15:42.029 --> 01:15:45.590 see a GP. You know, if you need the drugs and 01:15:45.590 --> 01:15:47.869 you can't afford them, you don't have to pay 01:15:47.869 --> 01:15:50.789 for prescriptions and stuff like that. And it 01:15:50.789 --> 01:15:53.149 does make you a bit proud when you feel it. But 01:15:53.149 --> 01:15:55.699 again, as we said. it can't be allowed to fall 01:15:55.699 --> 01:16:00.880 um which uh yeah which governments do seem to 01:16:00.880 --> 01:16:03.000 make it harder and harder for it not to unfortunately 01:16:03.000 --> 01:16:06.720 well i truly believe that with this awakening 01:16:06.720 --> 01:16:10.880 that's happening you know that we are gonna initiate 01:16:10.880 --> 01:16:14.180 the the beginning of the turn because it is in 01:16:14.180 --> 01:16:16.939 that situation it is an incredible Incredible 01:16:16.939 --> 01:16:19.140 system. And if you look, I think it was the Times 01:16:19.140 --> 01:16:22.340 put out a side -by -side comparison a few years 01:16:22.340 --> 01:16:24.699 ago because the Americans are like, oh, well, 01:16:24.720 --> 01:16:29.640 the tax is crazy in the UK. And if you look at 01:16:29.640 --> 01:16:31.939 side -by -side, it's even worse now. Like here, 01:16:32.039 --> 01:16:35.159 no one has insurance where you just pay a $10 01:16:35.159 --> 01:16:37.340 copay anymore like we used to 20 years ago. Now 01:16:37.340 --> 01:16:39.060 you have what's called high deductible where 01:16:39.060 --> 01:16:42.500 you don't get any coverage until you reach like 01:16:42.500 --> 01:16:45.520 $8 ,000 and then they'll start paying some of 01:16:45.520 --> 01:16:49.069 it. But side by side, you know, it's a lot cheaper 01:16:49.069 --> 01:16:52.430 in the UK. Yes, it comes out in taxes. But my 01:16:52.430 --> 01:16:54.890 dad was in the hospital a little while ago. He 01:16:54.890 --> 01:16:57.369 threw a clot after a knee surgery and was in 01:16:57.369 --> 01:16:59.869 there for days. And then they were like, all 01:16:59.869 --> 01:17:02.989 right, here's your pills. Bye. That's it. That 01:17:02.989 --> 01:17:05.390 same stay and surgery and all those things in 01:17:05.390 --> 01:17:08.210 America would have left him with tens, if not 01:17:08.210 --> 01:17:10.649 hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt. Yeah. 01:17:10.750 --> 01:17:13.979 It's insane. As I don't know the stats, obviously, 01:17:14.279 --> 01:17:17.680 but we hear stuff here that more people are made 01:17:17.680 --> 01:17:23.899 bankrupt in the States by getting cancer or any 01:17:23.899 --> 01:17:27.699 other sort of long -term illness. And it's just 01:17:27.699 --> 01:17:30.779 a thing you don't have to think of here. If you 01:17:30.779 --> 01:17:34.439 get cancer, your view here is to try and overcome 01:17:34.439 --> 01:17:37.579 it, not am I going to get kicked out of my house. 01:17:38.520 --> 01:17:42.180 Which is not very good for healing. Yeah. So, 01:17:42.260 --> 01:17:46.279 yeah, I mean, and, you know, it's an incredibly 01:17:46.279 --> 01:17:49.680 privileged position we have in the UK and other 01:17:49.680 --> 01:17:53.939 areas of Europe to have that. But, yeah, maybe 01:17:53.939 --> 01:17:55.819 it isn't appreciated as much as it should be 01:17:55.819 --> 01:17:58.479 a lot of the time. Yeah. But it's just, again, 01:17:58.600 --> 01:18:00.199 it's that support. If you're going to have that 01:18:00.199 --> 01:18:04.260 system, you've got to have, you know, a government 01:18:04.260 --> 01:18:06.399 that's going to forge health in the country. 01:18:06.779 --> 01:18:08.739 And it's the same then. If you've got all these 01:18:08.739 --> 01:18:10.760 veterans that need mental health counseling and 01:18:10.760 --> 01:18:12.800 you've got all these other people that are suffering 01:18:12.800 --> 01:18:15.479 because nothing is done in the civilian population, 01:18:15.739 --> 01:18:17.819 then you've got obesity, which is now magnifying 01:18:17.819 --> 01:18:19.880 mental health challenges because now people are 01:18:19.880 --> 01:18:22.220 depressed and anxious because of their nutrition. 01:18:23.060 --> 01:18:25.039 It's spiraling downwards the same way as the 01:18:25.039 --> 01:18:26.840 fire service here with this recruitment crisis. 01:18:27.460 --> 01:18:30.760 And in Florida now, people have... turned it 01:18:30.760 --> 01:18:32.739 around. There's a very progressive work week. 01:18:32.880 --> 01:18:34.920 People are taking the money that was being wasted 01:18:34.920 --> 01:18:37.779 downstream and investing it in more employees. 01:18:38.119 --> 01:18:40.619 And now you've watched a complete 180 starting 01:18:40.619 --> 01:18:43.199 to happen here in these progressive Florida departments. 01:18:43.579 --> 01:18:47.079 It's the same in the UK. You take back... the 01:18:47.079 --> 01:18:49.979 privatization. You just invest back in the NHS 01:18:49.979 --> 01:18:52.699 and you start making these initiatives where 01:18:52.699 --> 01:18:55.720 there's PE in schools and real food being served 01:18:55.720 --> 01:18:59.319 and pedestrianized downtowns and get the British 01:18:59.319 --> 01:19:01.479 people who were healthy for so long. This is 01:19:01.479 --> 01:19:04.100 a blip, this recent thing. We were a very healthy 01:19:04.100 --> 01:19:07.539 nation and turn that around, that frees up resources. 01:19:07.899 --> 01:19:10.130 The healthy people go back to work. Now you've 01:19:10.130 --> 01:19:12.390 got more beds for doctors and nurses. You've 01:19:12.390 --> 01:19:14.470 got more counseling sessions for veterans and 01:19:14.470 --> 01:19:16.890 firefighters and everyone else that needs it. 01:19:16.970 --> 01:19:19.729 But the healthier the nation, the less of a strain 01:19:19.729 --> 01:19:21.630 there is on the healthcare system. It's that 01:19:21.630 --> 01:19:26.350 simple. Yeah. And as we said, the benefits, everything, 01:19:28.130 --> 01:19:30.289 if more people are working, more money goes into 01:19:30.289 --> 01:19:33.710 roads, public transport, everything. So yeah, 01:19:33.789 --> 01:19:37.930 as you said, it does all come full cycle. But 01:19:37.930 --> 01:19:41.569 yeah, I was going to sort of just pick up on 01:19:41.569 --> 01:19:45.130 something else you said there about being healthier 01:19:45.130 --> 01:19:48.109 and obesity and all of that. I think it'll be 01:19:48.109 --> 01:19:50.890 something you'd like, actually. When I run the 01:19:50.890 --> 01:19:53.550 marathon earlier in the year, year i run it for 01:19:53.550 --> 01:19:58.069 a charity called ability bow um and um they're 01:19:58.069 --> 01:20:02.869 a charity that um it's a small gym yeah that's 01:20:02.869 --> 01:20:07.630 all it is for disabled people um and it was when 01:20:07.630 --> 01:20:10.590 i was chatting to them that you know like obviously 01:20:10.590 --> 01:20:13.989 gyms can be quite daunting places yeah so if 01:20:13.989 --> 01:20:16.340 you're disabled it would be even more daunting. 01:20:16.659 --> 01:20:21.399 And the machines are set up for people in wheelchairs. 01:20:21.420 --> 01:20:25.539 It's set up for people with ability issues of 01:20:25.539 --> 01:20:27.300 all sorts. And it's a really nice thing, but 01:20:27.300 --> 01:20:29.300 I thought you'd like that, to be honest. It's 01:20:29.300 --> 01:20:34.819 really catered for an area of society where you 01:20:34.819 --> 01:20:37.300 don't even think how hard it would be for disabled 01:20:37.300 --> 01:20:41.439 people in the gym. I had Javino, I'm forgetting 01:20:41.439 --> 01:20:44.239 his last name now. He's that gym owner in Manchester. 01:20:44.520 --> 01:20:45.899 I don't know if you've ever seen him on social 01:20:45.899 --> 01:20:49.359 media, but he works. He's free workouts for anyone 01:20:49.359 --> 01:20:52.159 that's from the special needs community. So people 01:20:52.159 --> 01:20:55.800 have had strokes, autism, spinal injuries, all 01:20:55.800 --> 01:20:57.859 these things. And he's just really, really fun 01:20:57.859 --> 01:21:01.100 the way he trains people. But this is what's 01:21:01.100 --> 01:21:04.100 so beautiful. When we were young, you might have 01:21:04.100 --> 01:21:06.920 seen... some interesting you know special needs 01:21:06.920 --> 01:21:08.640 people that were doing some cool stuff on blue 01:21:08.640 --> 01:21:12.119 peter maybe but now and i think sadly war has 01:21:12.119 --> 01:21:14.500 got you know we got to thank war for this the 01:21:14.500 --> 01:21:16.800 adaptive community of all our veterans that came 01:21:16.800 --> 01:21:20.220 missing limbs and you know get like mark ormrod 01:21:20.220 --> 01:21:22.800 you know and then doing the invictus games that 01:21:22.800 --> 01:21:26.279 group of men and women and children now is viewed 01:21:26.279 --> 01:21:29.119 completely different than it was 40 years ago 01:21:29.730 --> 01:21:33.130 So if you can have these amputees and these people 01:21:33.130 --> 01:21:35.729 with cerebral palsy that are deadlifting and 01:21:35.729 --> 01:21:39.789 rowing and doing all these crazy things, this 01:21:39.789 --> 01:21:42.890 should be an easier time to inspire the nation, 01:21:43.029 --> 01:21:45.529 more so than ever. Because, I mean, how can you 01:21:45.529 --> 01:21:49.670 say, oh, I can't go to the gym when Mark has 01:21:49.670 --> 01:21:53.430 got, I think he's a triple amputee. So he's swimming, 01:21:53.470 --> 01:21:56.520 for example, with one arm or doing jujitsu. One 01:21:56.520 --> 01:21:59.319 arm, that's it. So, you know, I think this is 01:21:59.319 --> 01:22:01.840 a beautiful time to really, you know, elevate 01:22:01.840 --> 01:22:05.699 everyone up because it's, you know, if that group 01:22:05.699 --> 01:22:09.119 of people can show what is possible, then the 01:22:09.119 --> 01:22:11.260 rest of us that are pretty much being given most 01:22:11.260 --> 01:22:14.140 things on a plate can be just nudged back onto 01:22:14.140 --> 01:22:16.500 the straight and narrow and start, you know, 01:22:16.520 --> 01:22:18.640 owning our fitness, our mental health. And like 01:22:18.640 --> 01:22:21.180 you said, then focusing on performance, using 01:22:21.180 --> 01:22:23.939 it as the hope of a better version of yourself 01:22:23.939 --> 01:22:27.050 rather than this. kind of doom and gloom sad 01:22:27.050 --> 01:22:30.310 message that i think you know initiated this 01:22:30.310 --> 01:22:32.069 mental health conversation but we need to get 01:22:32.069 --> 01:22:35.029 past now like there is a better version of you 01:22:35.029 --> 01:22:37.270 waiting on the other side of whatever your own 01:22:37.270 --> 01:22:42.229 unique toolbox is yeah no it's it's 100 and as 01:22:42.229 --> 01:22:45.409 i said if if the the initial issue could be framed 01:22:45.409 --> 01:22:49.189 that way um that that that would be definitely 01:22:49.189 --> 01:22:52.390 a start off or um to get people's make it easier 01:22:52.390 --> 01:22:54.970 for them to talk about um but just just bring 01:22:54.970 --> 01:22:56.729 it back to the film that's that's hopefully what 01:22:56.729 --> 01:22:58.770 we we want to do with the film we want to start 01:22:58.770 --> 01:23:01.729 the conversation we want people to see it and 01:23:01.729 --> 01:23:04.369 um as i said this is a proof of concept so we 01:23:04.369 --> 01:23:06.489 will want it to be a feature film and reach even 01:23:06.489 --> 01:23:12.470 more people um but um yeah we um the obviously 01:23:12.470 --> 01:23:15.710 the proof of concept is slightly of that tone 01:23:15.710 --> 01:23:20.529 it is a drama after all um but uh you know we 01:23:21.239 --> 01:23:23.560 I do think you're right. It is important that 01:23:23.560 --> 01:23:26.460 these things aren't done through this lens of 01:23:26.460 --> 01:23:30.199 all doom and gloom and no help. And that's one 01:23:30.199 --> 01:23:32.180 thing we was hoping to achieve with the film. 01:23:34.159 --> 01:23:37.260 Obviously the ending being that there is hope. 01:23:37.359 --> 01:23:39.840 There is a way that we can move forward with 01:23:39.840 --> 01:23:43.460 this. Absolutely. So talk to me about what needs 01:23:43.460 --> 01:23:45.539 to happen. You've got proof of concept now. You 01:23:45.539 --> 01:23:48.640 were kind enough to send me a copy to watch. 01:23:49.479 --> 01:23:52.500 How do you get from there to the feature film 01:23:52.500 --> 01:23:57.239 and how can people listening help? So the initial 01:23:57.239 --> 01:24:00.579 thing is as a short film, it's doing what it 01:24:00.579 --> 01:24:03.699 needs to do now. We're out in the film festival 01:24:03.699 --> 01:24:08.300 world. We were in two film festivals, Brighton 01:24:08.300 --> 01:24:11.079 International Film Festival and coming up with 01:24:11.079 --> 01:24:14.220 Worcester as well. And they're both British independent 01:24:14.220 --> 01:24:18.770 film. awards qualifying so we have now put the 01:24:18.770 --> 01:24:22.250 film forward for its um consideration for the 01:24:22.250 --> 01:24:25.369 biffers and hopefully we'll do well there so 01:24:25.369 --> 01:24:27.750 as a short film it's performing kind of how it 01:24:27.750 --> 01:24:30.130 wants to do it but there is only so much reach 01:24:30.130 --> 01:24:33.489 for that as the proof of concept is also working 01:24:33.489 --> 01:24:36.329 is that um you know if we can take this forward 01:24:36.329 --> 01:24:40.890 to a feature um and we can say okay this is what 01:24:41.340 --> 01:24:43.340 this is how the feature film is going to look, 01:24:43.399 --> 01:24:45.659 but it's going to have more threads. It's going 01:24:45.659 --> 01:24:47.399 to have more of this. Then we'll be able to make 01:24:47.399 --> 01:24:49.720 the film as a feature film and reach more people 01:24:49.720 --> 01:24:53.880 and, and move forward there. So anyone listening, 01:24:53.960 --> 01:24:57.239 you know, if, if, if there was a way of helping 01:24:57.239 --> 01:25:01.460 us raise the money or get into the studio system 01:25:01.460 --> 01:25:03.699 and get this film in front of the right eyes, 01:25:03.800 --> 01:25:08.180 that could all help. And, you know, if, if. When 01:25:08.180 --> 01:25:13.800 we do release it, reviews on IMDb always help 01:25:13.800 --> 01:25:19.880 more than you can know. We've got very positive 01:25:19.880 --> 01:25:23.020 reviews on it of everyone who's seen it. So, 01:25:23.039 --> 01:25:25.899 yeah, that'll be it for the moment. If anyone 01:25:25.899 --> 01:25:27.920 is listening who can help us take it to that 01:25:27.920 --> 01:25:32.260 next step, that'll be great. And we're sharing 01:25:32.260 --> 01:25:34.939 it to a lot of people here. Obviously, the issue 01:25:34.939 --> 01:25:40.659 with our film is it is a drama. Yeah. And it 01:25:40.659 --> 01:25:42.760 goes back to this capitalist nature that we live 01:25:42.760 --> 01:25:48.579 in. A lot of distributors and funders have loved 01:25:48.579 --> 01:25:52.659 the film, but they're only really interested 01:25:52.659 --> 01:25:56.779 in horror or action or the films that make money. 01:25:56.819 --> 01:25:59.180 And, you know, that is always going to be an 01:25:59.180 --> 01:26:04.460 issue because, you know. this is a business at 01:26:04.460 --> 01:26:06.539 the end of the day and people are going to invest 01:26:06.539 --> 01:26:09.199 in stuff that is guaranteed to make them the 01:26:09.199 --> 01:26:12.939 money back and that is those genre films and 01:26:12.939 --> 01:26:16.520 unfortunately a drama that highlights a social 01:26:16.520 --> 01:26:19.600 issue is always going to be a little bit more 01:26:19.600 --> 01:26:24.840 risky than the other money making genres should 01:26:24.840 --> 01:26:28.279 we say but That's what we're hoping that there's 01:26:28.279 --> 01:26:30.000 going to be the people out there who want to 01:26:30.000 --> 01:26:33.079 take the risk and, you know, help us take it 01:26:33.079 --> 01:26:35.939 to that next level. And we believe there's an 01:26:35.939 --> 01:26:38.579 audience for it. So hopefully watch this space. 01:26:38.720 --> 01:26:41.420 We're speaking to a lot of people. And as I said, 01:26:41.420 --> 01:26:43.439 anybody who hears this who believes they can 01:26:43.439 --> 01:26:46.079 help, please, please get in touch as well. But 01:26:46.079 --> 01:26:48.239 yeah, that'll be the next steps to the film. 01:26:50.220 --> 01:26:52.220 That's about the third time I've heard someone 01:26:52.220 --> 01:26:55.739 say that. horror is the most demanded genre at 01:26:55.739 --> 01:26:58.920 the moment why do you think that is that that's 01:26:58.920 --> 01:27:02.300 always been the case um and um you know that 01:27:02.300 --> 01:27:04.840 is always going to be a challenge that you have 01:27:04.840 --> 01:27:07.699 to overcome if you are making any drama and that's 01:27:07.699 --> 01:27:10.880 not just someone you know independent like myself 01:27:10.880 --> 01:27:14.539 uh studios will be the same um you know when 01:27:14.539 --> 01:27:17.930 they put a film out that's you know, slightly 01:27:17.930 --> 01:27:23.109 more probably award -led or drama -based or social 01:27:23.109 --> 01:27:25.430 conscience. They're always going to have those 01:27:25.430 --> 01:27:27.449 challenges that you're not going to have the 01:27:27.449 --> 01:27:33.350 audience for them as much. But with horror, it's 01:27:33.350 --> 01:27:39.210 always been the case. A, because you don't need 01:27:39.210 --> 01:27:42.529 any stars to make it. You don't need, you know. 01:27:43.319 --> 01:27:46.840 Horror fans don't care if, you know, they know 01:27:46.840 --> 01:27:49.260 the lead or if it's Brad Pitt. You know what 01:27:49.260 --> 01:27:51.699 I mean? They don't care. They're going to be 01:27:51.699 --> 01:27:56.380 scared. So that genre can be made at sort of 01:27:56.380 --> 01:27:59.000 a kind of a cheaper level. And it's always going 01:27:59.000 --> 01:28:00.760 to have that audience of people just wanting 01:28:00.760 --> 01:28:02.859 this. It's kind of basic, right? Everyone likes 01:28:02.859 --> 01:28:06.779 being scared, jumping out and making people jump 01:28:06.779 --> 01:28:10.579 and all of that. And if they're going to cinema, 01:28:10.659 --> 01:28:13.899 most people are looking for a good time, not 01:28:13.899 --> 01:28:17.420 a time where they've got to think or, you know, 01:28:17.460 --> 01:28:21.399 actually start a debate. So horror is always 01:28:21.399 --> 01:28:24.199 going to be the most in -demand genre because 01:28:24.199 --> 01:28:28.350 of that. But hopefully, you know, there is the 01:28:28.350 --> 01:28:32.470 audience out there for the right people. And 01:28:32.470 --> 01:28:35.989 yeah, it's just finding it. But it does take 01:28:35.989 --> 01:28:38.189 a little bit longer, unfortunately. That's always 01:28:38.189 --> 01:28:39.810 been the case. And it's just a challenge that 01:28:39.810 --> 01:28:42.250 we're left to overcome, like every other filmmaker 01:28:42.250 --> 01:28:45.909 on the planet. What's interesting, because I've 01:28:45.909 --> 01:28:49.090 actually, one of the groups that I've, a friend 01:28:49.090 --> 01:28:51.229 of mine who's kind of in the horror world, he 01:28:51.229 --> 01:28:52.890 was working on The Walking Dead a lot in the 01:28:52.890 --> 01:28:55.840 makeup side. um that's the group that he's been 01:28:55.840 --> 01:28:58.899 trying to reach out to and as i can learn more 01:28:58.899 --> 01:29:02.359 about that whole area i didn't realize that stephen 01:29:02.359 --> 01:29:05.340 king also wrote shawshank redemption and the 01:29:05.340 --> 01:29:11.170 green mile but in that you know but those two 01:29:11.170 --> 01:29:13.050 human stories i wouldn't put running man in there 01:29:13.050 --> 01:29:15.550 with those but uh you know you've got this very 01:29:15.550 --> 01:29:18.689 violent you know horror genre but then he's written 01:29:18.689 --> 01:29:21.409 some beautifully humanistic stories and the life 01:29:21.409 --> 01:29:23.750 of chuck is another one from from a horror director 01:29:23.750 --> 01:29:27.250 so you know it's interesting how that world you 01:29:27.250 --> 01:29:29.029 know i look at that world maybe that would be 01:29:29.029 --> 01:29:31.350 the good one to help with mine because you need 01:29:31.350 --> 01:29:35.930 that rawness that is the gore because You know, 01:29:35.930 --> 01:29:38.489 the darkness of the world that we inhabit, you 01:29:38.489 --> 01:29:40.869 can't Disney -fy that shit. You just can't. You've 01:29:40.869 --> 01:29:42.869 got to make it, you know, dark because it is 01:29:42.869 --> 01:29:45.949 dark. But then that human side is like, well, 01:29:46.010 --> 01:29:48.430 you know, they're also, they, I think, are dying 01:29:48.430 --> 01:29:51.090 to make something else because all they do is 01:29:51.090 --> 01:29:53.630 teenagers in a cabin getting slaughtered. They're 01:29:53.630 --> 01:29:55.789 like, okay, for the love of God, can we write 01:29:55.789 --> 01:29:59.260 something light once in a while? I'm curious 01:29:59.260 --> 01:30:01.939 to see if we can use the horror world because 01:30:01.939 --> 01:30:03.640 you don't, like you said, if you've got a good 01:30:03.640 --> 01:30:05.699 story, you don't need stars. That's my opinion. 01:30:05.840 --> 01:30:07.600 No one should be getting millions and millions 01:30:07.600 --> 01:30:10.100 of dollars when there's some incredibly talented 01:30:10.100 --> 01:30:13.159 younger actors or lesser known actors that will 01:30:13.159 --> 01:30:15.000 be able to deliver just as good in a performance 01:30:15.000 --> 01:30:18.619 for a much smaller role, but actually deliver 01:30:18.619 --> 01:30:21.500 something that has the kind of stomach turning 01:30:21.500 --> 01:30:25.430 element of gore. It's not a horror dude running 01:30:25.430 --> 01:30:27.310 around with a chainsaw story. It's actually a 01:30:27.310 --> 01:30:29.369 story that is occurring down the street from 01:30:29.369 --> 01:30:31.270 where you live, which I think is even more terrifying. 01:30:31.829 --> 01:30:35.630 Yeah. Well, I think that has definitely happened 01:30:35.630 --> 01:30:41.930 in recent years. There is always going to be 01:30:41.930 --> 01:30:44.470 the part of horror films, especially that do 01:30:44.470 --> 01:30:46.989 the cabin in the woods, people getting slaughtered. 01:30:47.340 --> 01:30:50.560 but if you look at there's a lot of horror in 01:30:50.560 --> 01:30:53.439 definitely in recent years that has merged that 01:30:53.439 --> 01:30:57.520 social commentary versus um that the horror element 01:30:57.520 --> 01:31:00.699 so if you look at like stuff like jordan pelle's 01:31:00.699 --> 01:31:04.439 doing like get out stuff like that uh films like 01:31:04.439 --> 01:31:07.340 us um i'm just trying to think of other horror 01:31:07.340 --> 01:31:10.300 films recently that have that that there was 01:31:10.300 --> 01:31:14.470 a film called um relic I believe it was. And 01:31:14.470 --> 01:31:18.109 it was, it was not kind of a monster film, but 01:31:18.109 --> 01:31:20.649 it was actually about losing a parent to dementia 01:31:20.649 --> 01:31:26.670 was the under current, the undertone from a PTSD. 01:31:27.029 --> 01:31:30.350 There was a film many years ago about PTSD, but 01:31:30.350 --> 01:31:32.069 it was called Jacob's ladder and it was kind 01:31:32.069 --> 01:31:36.840 of done as a, a horror movie. So, so. it's definitely 01:31:36.840 --> 01:31:40.000 possible to merge the two and because that whole 01:31:40.000 --> 01:31:43.560 audience is so widespread when it does happen 01:31:43.560 --> 01:31:48.159 they do that they do love it even more um and 01:31:48.159 --> 01:31:52.260 um uh i i watched a film uh if if the film weapons 01:31:52.260 --> 01:31:55.979 uh which is at the box at the moment yeah yeah 01:31:55.979 --> 01:32:01.119 i mean you That's got a lot of undercurrents 01:32:01.119 --> 01:32:07.079 of grief, of alcohol, of drugs and how we're 01:32:07.079 --> 01:32:09.659 not in control of, you know. So there's all these 01:32:09.659 --> 01:32:14.060 underlying elements to horror that can be used 01:32:14.060 --> 01:32:18.039 for the audience. And because, as you said, because 01:32:18.039 --> 01:32:21.380 they don't need the big stars, because they don't 01:32:21.380 --> 01:32:24.199 need the big budgets, whole audiences are usually 01:32:24.199 --> 01:32:28.880 very open to... to fit to feeling a new experience 01:32:28.880 --> 01:32:33.399 and looking deeper into it um but it it does 01:32:33.399 --> 01:32:36.779 take some doing unfortunately to merge the two 01:32:36.779 --> 01:32:42.439 and um not getting the message lost um and that's 01:32:42.439 --> 01:32:45.460 why i mentioned people like uh jordan peli uh 01:32:45.460 --> 01:32:50.180 jordan pills i um who does have this um ability 01:32:50.180 --> 01:32:56.060 to uh keep both those things on track um i mean 01:32:56.060 --> 01:33:00.399 i i would i would highlight and champion the 01:33:00.399 --> 01:33:03.979 film get out till the end of time i i thought 01:33:03.979 --> 01:33:07.100 it was amazing from the day i see it to the day 01:33:07.100 --> 01:33:09.899 and there's still bits i watch on it now and 01:33:09.899 --> 01:33:13.810 go ah yeah you know so and i just suddenly get 01:33:13.810 --> 01:33:16.550 realized what was being said there uh picking 01:33:16.550 --> 01:33:19.890 new bits out every time so so yeah there's definitely 01:33:19.890 --> 01:33:23.710 the way to merge the two and um and i think that's 01:33:23.710 --> 01:33:27.270 where the um many filmmakers do love horror that 01:33:27.270 --> 01:33:30.890 it does have so many areas that you can explore 01:33:30.890 --> 01:33:34.699 absolutely Well, I want to throw some closing 01:33:34.699 --> 01:33:37.840 questions at you before I let you go. I can spit 01:33:37.840 --> 01:33:40.340 that sentence out. The first one I'd love to 01:33:40.340 --> 01:33:42.420 ask, is there a book or are there books that 01:33:42.420 --> 01:33:44.579 you'd love to recommend? It can be related to 01:33:44.579 --> 01:33:46.479 our discussion today or completely unrelated. 01:33:48.439 --> 01:33:57.899 Oh, that's a good one. So books I like, I do 01:33:57.899 --> 01:34:04.220 like one's... that have that underlying message, 01:34:04.520 --> 01:34:08.439 should we speak, say. I mean, most of the books 01:34:08.439 --> 01:34:11.260 I read are usually boring filmmaking biographies 01:34:11.260 --> 01:34:16.000 and stuff like that. But, you know, I love The 01:34:16.000 --> 01:34:18.760 Beach. I think The Beach is a fantastic book. 01:34:18.899 --> 01:34:21.359 I'm rereading that again as we speak, which is 01:34:21.359 --> 01:34:23.380 why that one's on my mind. What do you think 01:34:23.380 --> 01:34:25.359 about the film of that? Because I love that. 01:34:25.779 --> 01:34:30.039 I love the book, the Alex Garner one. It's hard 01:34:30.039 --> 01:34:32.920 because, funnily enough, because I was reading 01:34:32.920 --> 01:34:36.100 the book again, I did stick the film on again 01:34:36.100 --> 01:34:39.840 the other day. Danny Boyle will always be my 01:34:39.840 --> 01:34:43.800 hero to the end of time. But the second half 01:34:43.800 --> 01:34:46.680 of the film doesn't quite work for me. I don't 01:34:46.680 --> 01:34:49.479 think it works as well if he's not English, not 01:34:49.479 --> 01:34:51.680 British, because there's that whole the Americans 01:34:51.680 --> 01:34:54.060 are coming thing. Well, if the leader's American, 01:34:54.399 --> 01:34:56.859 you've just lost that completely. Yeah, that 01:34:56.859 --> 01:35:01.979 always does feel like an odd choice, to be honest. 01:35:03.020 --> 01:35:07.539 And, yeah, and obviously being a Brit who's travelled 01:35:07.539 --> 01:35:12.359 Thailand as well, the book always did have a 01:35:12.359 --> 01:35:16.180 little bit of relationship with me, especially 01:35:16.180 --> 01:35:19.159 as I read that. when traveling around Asia as 01:35:19.159 --> 01:35:24.159 well. So yeah, again, I would never say anything 01:35:24.159 --> 01:35:28.060 bad about a Danny Boyle film. It's just, I don't 01:35:28.060 --> 01:35:30.899 have that in me, but I do prefer the book. And 01:35:30.899 --> 01:35:35.520 another book that I always go back to, have you 01:35:35.520 --> 01:35:39.060 ever read Brighton Rock? I haven't, no. Yeah, 01:35:39.180 --> 01:35:45.699 Brighton Rock is a fantastic book about... crime 01:35:45.699 --> 01:35:51.260 in brighton i think it was 19 like 1930s time 01:35:51.260 --> 01:35:56.609 um but the um as evil as the lead character is, 01:35:56.689 --> 01:35:59.890 he's, he's very religious. And so is the girl 01:35:59.890 --> 01:36:04.529 he's dating as well. And it, it just, that, that's 01:36:04.529 --> 01:36:08.810 a fantastic book. I always love that. But yeah, 01:36:08.970 --> 01:36:11.569 it's a question that's thrown me to be honest, 01:36:11.670 --> 01:36:18.069 but from, from, yeah, it's a more recent, that's 01:36:18.069 --> 01:36:20.399 the two books I'd always go back to. The Beach 01:36:20.399 --> 01:36:23.579 and Brighton Rock from a fiction point of view. 01:36:24.600 --> 01:36:27.319 I am actually writing a book myself at the moment. 01:36:27.439 --> 01:36:32.060 So I'm trying to sort of stay away from too many 01:36:32.060 --> 01:36:36.279 comparisons, which just to keep my mind a little 01:36:36.279 --> 01:36:39.340 bit clear. Which genre? I won't go too deep, 01:36:39.340 --> 01:36:43.479 but which genre are you writing? It's crime thriller. 01:36:44.500 --> 01:36:51.579 So it's... The Beach Meets Savages is my sales 01:36:51.579 --> 01:36:56.680 elevator pitch. But yeah, it's very crime thriller. 01:36:58.159 --> 01:37:01.920 I've never written a book before. So this is, 01:37:01.920 --> 01:37:06.060 so screenplays, I... find quite comfortable with 01:37:06.060 --> 01:37:09.899 this was way out of my comfort zone but I've 01:37:09.899 --> 01:37:12.039 really enjoyed the process of it to be honest 01:37:12.039 --> 01:37:15.279 because maybe when you know being a filmmaker 01:37:15.279 --> 01:37:18.319 when you write a screenplay you put pressure 01:37:18.319 --> 01:37:20.960 on yourself for it to be good because I'd never 01:37:20.960 --> 01:37:23.800 written a novel that pressure was completely 01:37:23.800 --> 01:37:27.180 gone and you're kind of allowing yourself to 01:37:27.180 --> 01:37:30.500 be a bit shit really and just get it out and 01:37:30.500 --> 01:37:35.220 you know and be quiet quite freeing so i've really 01:37:35.220 --> 01:37:37.460 enjoyed the process of that we get into more 01:37:37.460 --> 01:37:41.659 of an edit in stage now so um yeah that's that's 01:37:41.659 --> 01:37:43.380 going to be where it starts to become a bit serious 01:37:43.380 --> 01:37:46.720 but um yeah really enjoyed the process of that 01:37:46.720 --> 01:37:49.840 i'm doing the opposite at the moment i'm taking 01:37:49.840 --> 01:37:52.260 kinder and i'm writing the pilot's already written 01:37:52.260 --> 01:37:54.180 and it's out and about but i'm writing the rest 01:37:54.180 --> 01:37:56.699 of the script now and it's funny because you 01:37:56.699 --> 01:37:59.380 realize how different those two are you know 01:37:59.380 --> 01:38:01.460 you've got a kind of almost narration element 01:38:01.460 --> 01:38:04.670 to a book But now all of a sudden it's either 01:38:04.670 --> 01:38:06.890 in the scene that they're in or you've got to 01:38:06.890 --> 01:38:10.130 weave that into dialogue now. So it's kind of 01:38:10.130 --> 01:38:12.489 fun to get to do a completely different genre 01:38:12.489 --> 01:38:15.270 and take this one format and be like, okay, well, 01:38:15.329 --> 01:38:17.930 that's his inner monologue. Well, how can I get 01:38:17.930 --> 01:38:22.050 that out into just the scene now? So, yeah, I 01:38:22.050 --> 01:38:24.029 can see how that would be challenging doing it 01:38:24.029 --> 01:38:25.630 in the reverse as well. You've always written 01:38:25.630 --> 01:38:29.420 the dialogue and the scenes and now. Now you're 01:38:29.420 --> 01:38:32.300 having to create the entire world purely through 01:38:32.300 --> 01:38:38.840 narration and the scenes in a novel setting now 01:38:38.840 --> 01:38:42.140 instead of an actual screen. Yeah, it's just 01:38:42.140 --> 01:38:44.720 what you're comfortable with as well, isn't it? 01:38:45.100 --> 01:38:47.239 But I think as long as you just keep telling 01:38:47.239 --> 01:38:50.319 yourself that storytelling is storytelling, be 01:38:50.319 --> 01:38:53.939 it visual or be it on the page. And, you know, 01:38:53.979 --> 01:38:59.180 there's rules and ways you can do that. So as 01:38:59.180 --> 01:39:01.020 long as you just keep saying, well, I'm telling 01:39:01.020 --> 01:39:05.579 this story, you can't really go wrong, to be 01:39:05.579 --> 01:39:08.840 honest. So, yeah, good luck with the screenplay, 01:39:08.939 --> 01:39:12.460 mate. As I said, it is a different way of telling 01:39:12.460 --> 01:39:14.560 a story because you do have to think visually 01:39:14.560 --> 01:39:17.579 then. And as you said, not in a monologue. Yeah. 01:39:18.399 --> 01:39:21.300 Exactly. Well, you told me about some of the 01:39:21.300 --> 01:39:23.220 films that you recommend. What about documentaries? 01:39:24.920 --> 01:39:28.939 Documentaries. Right. Okay. So I'm going to have 01:39:28.939 --> 01:39:32.579 to get my mind back here. I'll go blank when 01:39:32.579 --> 01:39:36.560 I'm on the spot. Documentaries I've watched recently. 01:39:37.079 --> 01:39:43.979 I did watch the Woodstock 99 one on Netflix. 01:39:46.039 --> 01:39:49.119 That one threw me a little bit. The reason being 01:39:49.119 --> 01:39:52.760 is, I mean, it's a great documentary if anybody 01:39:52.760 --> 01:39:55.939 sees it, but one of the things that I did notice 01:39:55.939 --> 01:40:00.300 about it, and it threw me back to 1999 and how 01:40:00.300 --> 01:40:05.460 bad the culture was back then at festivals like 01:40:05.460 --> 01:40:11.859 that. And it wasn't as shocking as it was thinking 01:40:11.859 --> 01:40:15.529 back when you was at festivals. how easily that 01:40:15.529 --> 01:40:19.750 powder keg could have been, um, lit at that time. 01:40:20.149 --> 01:40:23.010 Um, so yeah, so that one for me a little bit, 01:40:23.050 --> 01:40:26.430 um, there's a, um, documentary I always love, 01:40:26.569 --> 01:40:30.649 um, which is, um, uh, just remember the name 01:40:30.649 --> 01:40:34.069 of it now, uh, imposter. Have you seen imposter? 01:40:34.630 --> 01:40:38.449 Um, I don't know if I have actually. Imposter 01:40:38.449 --> 01:40:42.399 is a, um, yeah, the story of a, uh, A kid went 01:40:42.399 --> 01:40:48.199 missing. And then years later, a French Albanian 01:40:48.199 --> 01:40:50.659 kid who looked nothing like the kid that went 01:40:50.659 --> 01:40:53.319 missing said he was the kid and it was all accepted. 01:40:54.279 --> 01:41:01.079 But it's the narrator of the documentary is the 01:41:01.079 --> 01:41:06.590 imposter. He basically admits to it in the first 01:41:06.590 --> 01:41:10.270 few moments. So I do love that one. And if you 01:41:10.270 --> 01:41:14.149 want a mixture of the two, of a documentary and 01:41:14.149 --> 01:41:19.329 a film, then the film called American Animals, 01:41:19.569 --> 01:41:24.109 I absolutely adore. Brilliant. I haven't heard 01:41:24.109 --> 01:41:26.970 any of those recommended before, so I'll have 01:41:26.970 --> 01:41:29.409 to look them up. The other few documentaries 01:41:29.409 --> 01:41:32.170 I really did like, and again, it was always stuff 01:41:32.170 --> 01:41:35.100 that you could relate to. As a kid. I remember 01:41:35.100 --> 01:41:37.819 going to Florida when I was a kid and going to 01:41:37.819 --> 01:41:42.239 SeaWorld, yeah, and seeing Shamu do the big dives 01:41:42.239 --> 01:41:45.460 and all of that and being blown away by it. And 01:41:45.460 --> 01:41:47.500 then years later I watched a documentary called 01:41:47.500 --> 01:41:52.979 Blackfish. Oh, yeah, that kind of made me regret 01:41:52.979 --> 01:41:56.859 ever going to SeaWorld, weirdly. So there was 01:41:56.859 --> 01:42:03.399 that. Senna is a great documentary. Amy about 01:42:03.399 --> 01:42:06.279 Amy Winehouse and I think all by the same director 01:42:06.279 --> 01:42:09.800 the Diego Maradona one I thought was great as 01:42:09.800 --> 01:42:12.659 well I watched the Maradona one that really was 01:42:12.659 --> 01:42:14.760 because again you know especially if you're British 01:42:14.760 --> 01:42:16.500 or you're thinking of as a hand of God and this 01:42:16.500 --> 01:42:19.220 coked up you know lunatic on the field but then 01:42:19.220 --> 01:42:21.800 you look again generational trauma and his upbringing 01:42:21.800 --> 01:42:24.640 and lo and behold of course you know this young 01:42:24.640 --> 01:42:27.579 kid is and really really rough you know childhood 01:42:27.579 --> 01:42:31.060 and then he's thrust into stardom and you know 01:42:31.060 --> 01:42:33.460 expected to perform and you know you see this 01:42:33.460 --> 01:42:37.359 downward spiral but um the uh oh my goodness 01:42:37.359 --> 01:42:38.739 what was the other one you just mentioned oh 01:42:38.739 --> 01:42:41.810 yeah blackfish I took my dad to see the Diego 01:42:41.810 --> 01:42:44.630 Maradona one because even though my dad couldn't 01:42:44.630 --> 01:42:46.750 get over the hand of God, it was his favourite 01:42:46.750 --> 01:42:49.449 footballer of all time. So we went to the cinema 01:42:49.449 --> 01:42:52.310 with a Q &A with the director to see that one. 01:42:53.130 --> 01:42:58.069 And yeah, it's a great film. And I think a lot 01:42:58.069 --> 01:43:00.250 of those ones I mentioned, I believe are the 01:43:00.250 --> 01:43:07.250 same director. Senna, Amy and the Diego Maradona 01:43:07.250 --> 01:43:10.579 one. You mentioned blackfish as well. One of 01:43:10.579 --> 01:43:13.000 my friends was on the crew that responded when 01:43:13.000 --> 01:43:16.659 the orca ate the trainer. They were the station 01:43:16.659 --> 01:43:18.739 next to that. So this is the other side of it 01:43:18.739 --> 01:43:21.399 too. You've obviously got the animals in captivity 01:43:21.399 --> 01:43:24.800 and it's undeniable. I mean, this is common sense. 01:43:24.920 --> 01:43:27.979 This is a creature that roams the oceans and 01:43:27.979 --> 01:43:30.920 it's in a swimming pool. And then you add these... 01:43:31.449 --> 01:43:33.909 humans around it and then there's a tragedy and 01:43:33.909 --> 01:43:36.109 now the local responders have got that in their 01:43:36.109 --> 01:43:38.510 heads for the rest of their lives so so yeah 01:43:38.510 --> 01:43:40.750 that that i was really glad to see that because 01:43:40.750 --> 01:43:43.029 i know that you know sea world organization does 01:43:43.029 --> 01:43:46.810 some good when it comes to environmental elements 01:43:46.810 --> 01:43:50.109 but you can still have a great theme park but 01:43:50.109 --> 01:43:52.829 not have blooming orcas for crying out loud have 01:43:52.829 --> 01:43:55.550 smaller fish and all that stuff but there's a 01:43:55.550 --> 01:43:57.630 certain point where like this is just unethical 01:43:57.630 --> 01:44:01.710 now Yeah. One thing that I haven't finished watching 01:44:01.710 --> 01:44:05.789 it yet, just a timing issue, but there is a documentary 01:44:05.789 --> 01:44:10.289 on Netflix at the moment about Grenfell. Yes, 01:44:10.289 --> 01:44:13.399 very good. I've seen it. Is it good? Is it? Yeah. 01:44:13.460 --> 01:44:15.800 I like the, I think I watched like the first 01:44:15.800 --> 01:44:20.539 half of it. Um, and yeah, it was, um, one of 01:44:20.539 --> 01:44:24.939 those things that annoys you. Um, but, um, I 01:44:24.939 --> 01:44:27.840 watched that and, um, for a bit of a politically 01:44:27.840 --> 01:44:31.460 charged one, um, Louis Farooz, recent one about 01:44:31.460 --> 01:44:37.319 settlers in Israel. Yeah. That's, that's quite 01:44:37.319 --> 01:44:40.260 eyeopening as well. I'm going to have to look 01:44:40.260 --> 01:44:44.119 that up. Yeah, I mean, that's something. Totally 01:44:44.119 --> 01:44:46.579 understanding the backstory of the back and forth. 01:44:46.699 --> 01:44:50.319 And I've always compared this. You've got mainland 01:44:50.319 --> 01:44:53.479 UK. When I was young, the IRA were bombing us. 01:44:53.600 --> 01:44:55.960 And I literally was right next to an MOD base, 01:44:56.100 --> 01:44:58.020 my farm. So we would have to sweep the car for 01:44:58.020 --> 01:45:00.180 bombs before we go to school. So again, very 01:45:00.180 --> 01:45:02.819 visceral, very real. Not like I lived in Belfast, 01:45:02.819 --> 01:45:06.699 but still the threat was there as a child. And 01:45:06.699 --> 01:45:08.460 so, you know, understanding that there's the 01:45:08.460 --> 01:45:10.539 British, you know, British soldiers, at least 01:45:10.539 --> 01:45:13.039 perspective where they are thrown in and now 01:45:13.039 --> 01:45:14.640 they're in Northern Ireland and they are being 01:45:14.640 --> 01:45:16.800 shot at and blown up. And, you know, and then, 01:45:16.800 --> 01:45:18.739 you know, the equal and opposite response from 01:45:18.739 --> 01:45:21.319 from the IRA and some of the other groups there. 01:45:21.460 --> 01:45:23.960 So there's this conflict and it was created by 01:45:23.960 --> 01:45:26.100 people other than than those people, you know, 01:45:26.100 --> 01:45:29.460 and they're left to fight it. But there was never 01:45:29.460 --> 01:45:31.659 like a complete annihilation. I've said imagine 01:45:31.659 --> 01:45:33.640 if there was a mainland bombing in England and 01:45:33.640 --> 01:45:37.829 then the UK just. smited the city of belfast 01:45:37.829 --> 01:45:40.510 off the map you know how long would the world 01:45:40.510 --> 01:45:43.470 sit by before they would intervene and so this 01:45:43.470 --> 01:45:46.029 is what's been so sickening about the gaza thing 01:45:46.029 --> 01:45:47.930 i've i mean i've been talking about this for 01:45:47.930 --> 01:45:50.189 over a year now i've had people that were you 01:45:50.189 --> 01:45:52.689 know over there as doctors that came over you 01:45:52.689 --> 01:45:55.689 know it's like at what point do you start saying 01:45:55.689 --> 01:45:58.090 okay something is really wrong here and i know 01:45:58.090 --> 01:46:00.750 finally now people are starting to turn you know 01:46:01.000 --> 01:46:03.039 actually acknowledge it and push against it but 01:46:03.039 --> 01:46:06.220 we're talking almost two years later 60 000 dead 01:46:06.220 --> 01:46:09.180 of which 20 000 are children you know this is 01:46:09.180 --> 01:46:10.600 something that needs to be talked about because 01:46:10.600 --> 01:46:13.300 that's nothing about the you know the jewish 01:46:13.300 --> 01:46:16.460 faith it's about these individuals that are committing 01:46:16.460 --> 01:46:19.960 these atrocities under the flag of israel it 01:46:19.960 --> 01:46:22.720 doesn't reflect every israeli person so that 01:46:22.720 --> 01:46:26.020 separation has to be made yeah well you know 01:46:26.020 --> 01:46:31.180 you can be against hamas and not blame the Palestinian 01:46:31.180 --> 01:46:34.539 people and vice versa. You can be against Benjamin 01:46:34.539 --> 01:46:37.300 Netanyahu and the IDF and not blame the Jewish 01:46:37.300 --> 01:46:42.020 people. The two things can, again, you don't 01:46:42.020 --> 01:46:45.979 have to pick a side. You can look at the atrocities 01:46:45.979 --> 01:46:50.500 for what they are. It's been very annoying here, 01:46:50.659 --> 01:46:54.609 to be honest, because obviously. Our prime minister 01:46:54.609 --> 01:46:57.409 at the moment is Keir Starmer. It seems like 01:46:57.409 --> 01:47:00.829 he's done everything he can to just not be Jeremy 01:47:00.829 --> 01:47:05.229 Corbyn. So it seems like he's been on the wrong 01:47:05.229 --> 01:47:11.170 side of this all the way through it. And he was 01:47:11.170 --> 01:47:13.170 obviously, it seemed he was very scared at the 01:47:13.170 --> 01:47:16.010 beginning to say anything against Israel and 01:47:16.010 --> 01:47:20.109 therefore was live on radio saying, oh, yeah, 01:47:20.149 --> 01:47:22.430 they've got a right to cut off water and electricity. 01:47:23.659 --> 01:47:27.199 oh, come on. And now they're still on the wrong 01:47:27.199 --> 01:47:30.699 side of it. They're slowly getting there that, 01:47:30.699 --> 01:47:34.659 you know, maybe genocide's wrong. You know what 01:47:34.659 --> 01:47:36.539 I mean? That's their position at the moment. 01:47:36.720 --> 01:47:39.539 You know what I mean? Oh, yeah, maybe killing 01:47:39.539 --> 01:47:42.000 that many people is probably bad. You know what 01:47:42.000 --> 01:47:44.220 I mean? That seems to be their current stance. 01:47:45.640 --> 01:47:49.859 But, yeah, it's, you know, you don't have to. 01:47:50.619 --> 01:47:51.920 It goes back to what we said at the beginning. 01:47:52.060 --> 01:47:54.520 It doesn't have to be a football match. It doesn't 01:47:54.520 --> 01:47:58.180 have to be, you know, the people my team kill 01:47:58.180 --> 01:48:01.380 is okay. And, you know, I mean, it doesn't have 01:48:01.380 --> 01:48:06.159 to be like that. And, you know, if you was truly 01:48:06.159 --> 01:48:09.659 an ally of Israel, you would have probably had 01:48:09.659 --> 01:48:11.220 a word with them and stopped them from doing 01:48:11.220 --> 01:48:14.399 their current course of action at the beginning. 01:48:14.899 --> 01:48:19.810 But, yeah, you know. it's it's very strange it's 01:48:19.810 --> 01:48:22.989 um yeah it's it's terrible at the moment and 01:48:22.989 --> 01:48:26.229 um every day you just look on the news and um 01:48:26.229 --> 01:48:30.970 yeah it just seems to be getting worse i've always 01:48:30.970 --> 01:48:33.149 been so proud to be british you know and again 01:48:33.149 --> 01:48:35.430 i i live here now and i'm american as well and 01:48:35.430 --> 01:48:37.369 i think that you can you don't have to choose 01:48:37.369 --> 01:48:39.750 like i'm both i've got two passports it is what 01:48:39.750 --> 01:48:42.250 it is deal with it and i'm really a member of 01:48:42.250 --> 01:48:45.119 planet earth i mean again i don't see Anyone 01:48:45.119 --> 01:48:47.359 is not part of the same race, the human race. 01:48:48.420 --> 01:48:52.560 And but I'm really disgusted with how cowardly 01:48:52.560 --> 01:48:54.680 the British leadership has been. I'm even more 01:48:54.680 --> 01:48:56.479 disgusted with America where we're, you know, 01:48:56.479 --> 01:48:59.039 arming and supporting what's going on. I mean, 01:48:59.060 --> 01:49:02.779 it's nauseating. But again, it's that again, 01:49:02.840 --> 01:49:04.680 that censored voice standing in the middle going, 01:49:04.840 --> 01:49:08.739 hey, you're both wrong. You know, innocent people 01:49:08.739 --> 01:49:10.399 are being killed on both sides. But now, oh, 01:49:10.399 --> 01:49:12.939 Jesus Christ, it's gone way, way beyond on this 01:49:12.939 --> 01:49:15.340 side. And now you realize, wait a second, you're 01:49:15.340 --> 01:49:18.199 bulldozing everything. This isn't about, you 01:49:18.199 --> 01:49:20.439 know, retaliation of war. This is about ownership 01:49:20.439 --> 01:49:24.539 of land, you know. And so this is what's so disgusting 01:49:24.539 --> 01:49:27.279 is where is that courage of our grandparents? 01:49:28.199 --> 01:49:31.020 that went over and this very thing, they threw 01:49:31.020 --> 01:49:34.199 on a uniform and went and fought this exact thing. 01:49:34.359 --> 01:49:37.000 How the fuck would they feel looking at their 01:49:37.000 --> 01:49:39.800 grandchildren, great -grandchildren that are 01:49:39.800 --> 01:49:43.359 doing nothing? In some cases, arming and supporting 01:49:43.359 --> 01:49:46.800 the very atrocity that so many of those men and 01:49:46.800 --> 01:49:49.720 women lost their lives fighting in the 1940s. 01:49:49.760 --> 01:49:52.520 So this is what appalls me. It's not about the 01:49:52.520 --> 01:49:55.600 nation. It's not about the flag. It's about the 01:49:55.600 --> 01:49:58.600 atrocities towards human beings, regardless of 01:49:58.600 --> 01:50:01.899 what nation they're in. And the cowardice that 01:50:01.899 --> 01:50:05.640 I see now fucking nauseates me. Because if you 01:50:05.640 --> 01:50:09.760 are, in our case, a man, you stand up against 01:50:09.760 --> 01:50:12.500 things when they're wrong. Period. Point blank. 01:50:12.539 --> 01:50:15.640 Regardless of religion, skin color, sexual orientation, 01:50:16.279 --> 01:50:20.340 right is right and wrong is wrong. Yeah. No, 01:50:20.479 --> 01:50:26.680 you're 100 % right. I feel like me when you watch 01:50:26.680 --> 01:50:31.880 the Justin Theroux, Louis Theroux, sorry, documentary 01:50:31.880 --> 01:50:36.640 about settlers. Yeah, you might feel that anger 01:50:36.640 --> 01:50:43.359 building a little bit more because, yeah, I don't 01:50:43.359 --> 01:50:46.520 think the settlers over there can claim any. 01:50:48.510 --> 01:50:51.710 any good in them so to speak what they are doing 01:50:51.710 --> 01:50:55.750 is is just out and out evil they don't even have 01:50:55.750 --> 01:50:58.869 the excuse of retaliation or anything like that 01:50:58.869 --> 01:51:01.850 well even i mean again bringing it back on us 01:51:01.850 --> 01:51:04.109 if you look at what the british empire did and 01:51:04.109 --> 01:51:05.909 all the damage it's done around the world that 01:51:05.909 --> 01:51:08.569 sometimes is the origin story for some of the 01:51:08.569 --> 01:51:11.010 troubles in iraq some of the troubles in you 01:51:11.010 --> 01:51:13.829 know even you know the gaza story so you can 01:51:13.829 --> 01:51:15.770 go back and back and back and realize well it's 01:51:15.770 --> 01:51:17.350 their fault actually no it's their fault actually 01:51:17.350 --> 01:51:19.640 it's their fault So the only thing we can actually 01:51:19.640 --> 01:51:23.960 do is say, today, enough is enough. Again, this 01:51:23.960 --> 01:51:27.220 multigenerational trauma, these dominoes, it 01:51:27.220 --> 01:51:29.239 affects the household and the military family, 01:51:29.439 --> 01:51:31.880 and it affects an entire nation in this particular 01:51:31.880 --> 01:51:37.220 case. So stopping blaming the past and just saying, 01:51:37.220 --> 01:51:38.890 all right, well. you know, what's happened has 01:51:38.890 --> 01:51:41.310 happened. What do we do today? And that's, what's 01:51:41.310 --> 01:51:44.130 really exciting is I think it was like half a 01:51:44.130 --> 01:51:46.850 million Israelis were in the streets protesting 01:51:46.850 --> 01:51:50.090 a few days ago. That is, and one of my guests 01:51:50.090 --> 01:51:51.890 said exactly that. I said, you know, what is 01:51:51.890 --> 01:51:52.989 it going to take? And he said, it's going to 01:51:52.989 --> 01:51:55.569 take the Israeli people to step up. And I think 01:51:55.569 --> 01:51:57.329 we're starting to see that now because they realized 01:51:57.329 --> 01:51:59.949 it was never about the hostages. You know what 01:51:59.949 --> 01:52:02.930 I mean? So hopefully we will see the end of this 01:52:02.930 --> 01:52:05.180 soon, but it's just. just absolutely heartbreaking. 01:52:05.500 --> 01:52:07.239 And after that, there's going to be a reflection 01:52:07.239 --> 01:52:10.479 of, you know, South Africa and Ireland that stood 01:52:10.479 --> 01:52:12.680 up right from the beginning. And then who are 01:52:12.680 --> 01:52:14.659 the people like the US that was supporting this 01:52:14.659 --> 01:52:17.520 until the very last breath. So, you know, there's 01:52:17.520 --> 01:52:20.840 going to be a very powerful retrospective look 01:52:20.840 --> 01:52:24.600 at the leaders and the cowards. Yeah. And as 01:52:24.600 --> 01:52:30.460 I said, I don't think that being this soft and 01:52:30.460 --> 01:52:33.640 weak on it is going to help. It's definitely, 01:52:33.739 --> 01:52:36.220 you know, this isn't helping Jewish people or 01:52:36.220 --> 01:52:39.779 Muslim people or people who see themselves as 01:52:39.779 --> 01:52:42.619 Palestinian. In fact, this is just increasing 01:52:42.619 --> 01:52:45.460 anti -Semitism. This is just creating Islamophobia 01:52:45.460 --> 01:52:50.939 because you're not saying, okay, right, forget 01:52:50.939 --> 01:52:55.850 sides. That is what is wrong. And yeah, it is 01:52:55.850 --> 01:52:57.770 a shame. And as you said, just about sort of 01:52:57.770 --> 01:53:00.369 our British history as well, I feel we've got 01:53:00.369 --> 01:53:02.710 to stop being offended by it being pointed out 01:53:02.710 --> 01:53:07.050 as well. You know what I mean? It's when someone 01:53:07.050 --> 01:53:09.590 says the British done this in the past, this 01:53:09.590 --> 01:53:11.890 caused the problem, they're not having to go 01:53:11.890 --> 01:53:14.550 at me. They're not having to go at you. It's 01:53:14.550 --> 01:53:17.800 just pointing it out that that happened. you 01:53:17.800 --> 01:53:20.939 know i mean it's um so but you do get a lot of 01:53:20.939 --> 01:53:23.239 people who seem to take offense at that and feel 01:53:23.239 --> 01:53:26.239 like you know that's having to go with our culture 01:53:26.239 --> 01:53:30.119 our flag or whatever it be um yeah we've got 01:53:30.119 --> 01:53:32.539 to stop take we've got to take emotion out of 01:53:32.539 --> 01:53:36.039 those type things i was curious a few months 01:53:36.039 --> 01:53:41.659 ago about the impact of slavery on the average 01:53:41.659 --> 01:53:45.010 british person Because you hear this thing about, 01:53:45.109 --> 01:53:47.409 well, you all benefited from slavery. So I'm 01:53:47.409 --> 01:53:49.869 like, well, let me see. At the height of slavery, 01:53:49.890 --> 01:53:52.430 when the British were trading slaves with African 01:53:52.430 --> 01:53:55.529 chiefs and all the people they were getting the 01:53:55.529 --> 01:53:57.670 actual slaves from, and then they were going 01:53:57.670 --> 01:53:59.649 to America and they were switching the slaves 01:53:59.649 --> 01:54:02.430 with tobacco and cotton and all these other things. 01:54:02.590 --> 01:54:04.689 So therefore, they came home with clean hands. 01:54:05.909 --> 01:54:09.369 Let me see economically where Britain was doing. 01:54:09.550 --> 01:54:12.050 And it was in one of our deepest levels of poverty. 01:54:13.100 --> 01:54:15.199 So this is what we've also got to understand. 01:54:15.939 --> 01:54:19.420 Some people made a shitload of money on slavery. 01:54:19.619 --> 01:54:22.539 Some people gained a shitload of power through 01:54:22.539 --> 01:54:26.220 slavery. But your average person didn't. And 01:54:26.220 --> 01:54:28.159 you might argue, oh, you know, with the empire, 01:54:28.380 --> 01:54:29.859 everyone kind of gained. But yeah, but the average 01:54:29.859 --> 01:54:31.720 person didn't. In fact, the average person was 01:54:31.720 --> 01:54:34.000 over there having to fight, you know, wondering 01:54:34.000 --> 01:54:35.420 what the hell they were doing in this other land. 01:54:36.029 --> 01:54:38.090 Stabbed by a Maori or whatever was happening. 01:54:38.670 --> 01:54:41.750 So we've also got to say, yeah, it was our history, 01:54:41.829 --> 01:54:45.189 but it wasn't the entire nation either. The common 01:54:45.189 --> 01:54:48.609 denominator throughout history is when a few 01:54:48.609 --> 01:54:52.750 people get together and they, in this case, set 01:54:52.750 --> 01:54:55.369 people amongst each other. They do their fighting 01:54:55.369 --> 01:54:58.329 for them and they are the ones that actually 01:54:58.329 --> 01:55:01.510 gain. So like one of my guests said, when you're 01:55:01.510 --> 01:55:04.550 in a medieval village and you've got the villagers 01:55:04.550 --> 01:55:06.560 fighting with each other, where are they not 01:55:06.560 --> 01:55:09.859 looking at the castle you know and this is exactly 01:55:09.859 --> 01:55:12.000 it we got to realize that whether it was hitler 01:55:12.000 --> 01:55:15.359 or netanyahu or whoever the tyrant is i mean 01:55:15.359 --> 01:55:18.119 even freaking trump and biden on a lesser scale 01:55:18.119 --> 01:55:21.619 these people are dividing a nation and setting 01:55:21.619 --> 01:55:24.619 people against each other it's the same algorithm 01:55:24.619 --> 01:55:28.119 every single time the few ruin it for the masses 01:55:28.119 --> 01:55:30.960 once we have that awakening i think we really 01:55:30.960 --> 01:55:34.210 turn human history around Well, it's the same 01:55:34.210 --> 01:55:37.329 now, isn't it? You touched on it there. What 01:55:37.329 --> 01:55:42.130 is it? How many people in the world actually 01:55:42.130 --> 01:55:43.909 have the same amount of wealth as the rest of 01:55:43.909 --> 01:55:47.229 the world? It's like, I don't know, 20, is it? 01:55:47.590 --> 01:55:57.390 Where people like Elon Musk, the amount of money 01:55:57.390 --> 01:56:00.600 he's valued at. I mean, what's the point in someone 01:56:00.600 --> 01:56:02.739 being that rich? There is no point in anybody 01:56:02.739 --> 01:56:06.500 being that rich. But you have a go at a billionaire 01:56:06.500 --> 01:56:10.319 or say they should be taxed. You know, you'll 01:56:10.319 --> 01:56:13.520 have people from working class backgrounds defending 01:56:13.520 --> 01:56:15.859 them and saying, you know, oh, my God, how dare 01:56:15.859 --> 01:56:19.979 you have a go at the billionaire? It's the same 01:56:19.979 --> 01:56:22.220 now. And it goes back to what you were saying. 01:56:22.340 --> 01:56:25.359 You know, slave owners are protected as British 01:56:25.359 --> 01:56:28.890 people or, you know, billionaires are. being 01:56:28.890 --> 01:56:33.229 protected but you know generally how how does 01:56:33.229 --> 01:56:36.090 them having all that money really affect us now 01:56:36.090 --> 01:56:39.170 it doesn't it's you know we're we're fighting 01:56:39.170 --> 01:56:40.789 over something that we're not going to see a 01:56:40.789 --> 01:56:45.449 share of it was hilarious watching the yo -yoing 01:56:45.449 --> 01:56:50.539 of anti then support of teslas Originally, it 01:56:50.539 --> 01:56:54.659 was a lefty, you know, hippie car. And then Elon 01:56:54.659 --> 01:56:56.939 joins Trump and all of a sudden everyone wants 01:56:56.939 --> 01:56:59.420 a Tesla Cybertruck now. Then he leaves and now 01:56:59.420 --> 01:57:00.979 they don't want it anymore and they're burning 01:57:00.979 --> 01:57:04.000 it. And it's like, oh, my God, really? It's exactly 01:57:04.000 --> 01:57:06.399 to your point. Like this person that doesn't 01:57:06.399 --> 01:57:08.960 give a flying fuck about you makes a fortune 01:57:08.960 --> 01:57:11.739 on these electric cars. And you guys are crying 01:57:11.739 --> 01:57:14.079 over whether you're supposed to have one or not. 01:57:14.199 --> 01:57:16.140 And now you're burning it out of protest from 01:57:16.140 --> 01:57:19.170 a person that doesn't give a shit. Yeah, that 01:57:19.170 --> 01:57:21.710 you spent your hard -earned money on buying in 01:57:21.710 --> 01:57:24.750 the first place. Yeah. One thing I will say about 01:57:24.750 --> 01:57:28.029 the UK on that, we never really had that divide, 01:57:28.250 --> 01:57:31.970 luckily. Elon Musk was always pretty much hated 01:57:31.970 --> 01:57:36.090 from all sides. I've never met anybody in the 01:57:36.090 --> 01:57:39.090 UK who's liked him on the left or the right. 01:57:39.250 --> 01:57:44.229 So that one's been pretty universal. All right, 01:57:44.270 --> 01:57:47.130 we're going to the closing questions. unlike 01:57:47.130 --> 01:57:49.909 the people that we just talked about is there 01:57:49.909 --> 01:57:52.090 a person that you'd recommend to come on this 01:57:52.090 --> 01:57:55.069 podcast as a guest to speak to the first responders 01:57:55.069 --> 01:57:57.409 military and associated professions of the world 01:57:57.409 --> 01:58:00.609 oh yeah that's that's that's a good one so um 01:58:01.100 --> 01:58:02.520 Yeah, there's probably quite a few, actually. 01:58:02.600 --> 01:58:06.239 Obviously, my colleague who's gone through this 01:58:06.239 --> 01:58:09.840 with me, Dr. Kasia Wilk, she's got some very 01:58:09.840 --> 01:58:13.380 interesting ideas on how we can help all based 01:58:13.380 --> 01:58:15.800 around choice, which I said at the start of this. 01:58:16.600 --> 01:58:20.659 She talks about this stuff really well. And, 01:58:20.760 --> 01:58:25.220 yeah, there's quite a few people who we've spoke 01:58:25.220 --> 01:58:29.560 to throughout this process, veterans I know. 01:58:31.469 --> 01:58:35.810 yeah, they would definitely be interesting people 01:58:35.810 --> 01:58:40.250 to have on as guests. But yeah, there would be 01:58:40.250 --> 01:58:43.289 definitely people who I feel could add value 01:58:43.289 --> 01:58:47.270 from a first responder point of view. Fantastic. 01:58:47.550 --> 01:58:49.310 All right. Well, then the last question before 01:58:49.310 --> 01:58:50.989 we make sure everyone knows where to find you 01:58:50.989 --> 01:58:56.270 in the film, what do you do to decompress? Me 01:58:56.270 --> 01:59:01.920 personally? Yes. Oh, okay. Very, very boring. 01:59:02.479 --> 01:59:07.220 I'm a cinema person. So that's my happy place. 01:59:07.779 --> 01:59:13.659 We'll always go to the cinema. you know sometimes 01:59:13.659 --> 01:59:16.199 well this week has been three times a week but 01:59:16.199 --> 01:59:20.100 um that that is my decompression zone um a filmmaker 01:59:20.100 --> 01:59:21.960 saying they go to the cinema a lot and watch 01:59:21.960 --> 01:59:24.659 movies is probably not the the most interesting 01:59:24.659 --> 01:59:28.060 answer but but that's that's what it is for us 01:59:28.060 --> 01:59:32.539 um that and uh travel as much as we can i'm a 01:59:32.539 --> 01:59:35.420 big believer in travel uh does broaden the mind 01:59:35.420 --> 01:59:39.619 um so yeah um get out and do that as much as 01:59:39.619 --> 01:59:43.310 possible How has the British cinema industry 01:59:43.310 --> 01:59:50.050 recovered post -COVID? It hasn't really, if I'm 01:59:50.050 --> 01:59:55.729 being completely honest. It's quite dire for 01:59:55.729 --> 02:00:02.850 people in the industry. We've not really had 02:00:02.850 --> 02:00:07.439 a film industry. that relies off its own back 02:00:07.439 --> 02:00:11.539 here for many years. Yeah, that is one of the 02:00:11.539 --> 02:00:17.199 big issues with the British film industry. I 02:00:17.199 --> 02:00:19.880 think Ray Winston spoke about it recently. And 02:00:19.880 --> 02:00:22.819 it's also why I spoke so highly about Danny Boyle 02:00:22.819 --> 02:00:27.279 earlier. If you look at Danny Boyle films, they're 02:00:27.279 --> 02:00:31.689 very British. I won't give away the ending of 02:00:31.689 --> 02:00:36.069 28 Years Later at a cinema at the moment, but 02:00:36.069 --> 02:00:39.590 the ending, I don't know if the rest of the world 02:00:39.590 --> 02:00:41.729 are going to get it, to be absolutely honest 02:00:41.729 --> 02:00:45.229 with you. And that's why Danny Ball has always 02:00:45.229 --> 02:00:47.489 been up there for me. He makes films that are 02:00:47.489 --> 02:00:50.829 very British for British audiences. However, 02:00:50.989 --> 02:00:53.590 we don't have enough of that. If you look at 02:00:53.590 --> 02:00:57.510 Korean cinema. you have a very distinct, that's 02:00:57.510 --> 02:01:00.310 a Korean style film. French have their own style. 02:01:00.569 --> 02:01:02.970 Even German have their own expressionism and 02:01:02.970 --> 02:01:05.229 their type of movies, Spanish, everything. We 02:01:05.229 --> 02:01:09.289 don't really have that. We make films that are 02:01:09.289 --> 02:01:14.750 American and for American audiences. So we don't 02:01:14.750 --> 02:01:19.489 really have our own sense of, you know, British 02:01:19.489 --> 02:01:23.670 film. That becomes a problem that when the American 02:01:23.670 --> 02:01:27.890 industry has issues, our studios have issues. 02:01:28.869 --> 02:01:33.550 When nobody's making billion -dollar, was it 02:01:33.550 --> 02:01:37.810 10 Marvel movies a year, that's nine movies that 02:01:37.810 --> 02:01:41.630 aren't filmed here. So we do have those issues 02:01:41.630 --> 02:01:46.550 that kind of hold over. So, yeah, if the American 02:01:46.550 --> 02:01:50.069 industry is struggling, we're struggling. as 02:01:50.069 --> 02:01:54.930 a crew point of view. Also, and, you know, I'm 02:01:54.930 --> 02:01:57.930 very conscious of not being too politically charged. 02:01:58.810 --> 02:02:04.270 A lot of our crews are from Europe. And since 02:02:04.270 --> 02:02:09.529 2016, should we say, you know, their freedom 02:02:09.529 --> 02:02:14.890 of work here isn't as strong as it was because 02:02:14.890 --> 02:02:19.020 visas and whatnot. You're saying Brexit fucked 02:02:19.020 --> 02:02:20.659 it up? Am I reading between the lines? Brexit 02:02:20.659 --> 02:02:24.119 fucked it up, yeah. You've got to be careful 02:02:24.119 --> 02:02:25.600 because otherwise you're just going to have a 02:02:25.600 --> 02:02:30.380 stream of hate on the comment section. And that 02:02:30.380 --> 02:02:33.579 goes vice versa. Obviously, there was a lot of 02:02:33.579 --> 02:02:37.619 British crews that I knew that would go and work 02:02:37.619 --> 02:02:41.539 in France, would go and work in Germany, in Bosnia, 02:02:41.539 --> 02:02:44.260 wherever it be. That isn't an option as much 02:02:44.260 --> 02:02:47.979 anymore because... Why are you going to give 02:02:47.979 --> 02:02:52.140 a visa to, you know, a crew member that you could 02:02:52.140 --> 02:02:57.039 get from Europe? You know what I mean? So, yeah, 02:02:57.180 --> 02:03:00.180 so it hasn't really recovered. It's obviously 02:03:00.180 --> 02:03:04.100 different for me because being a director and 02:03:04.100 --> 02:03:08.520 a writer and a producer. I've always had to create 02:03:08.520 --> 02:03:12.939 my own work. But yeah, many crew people who I 02:03:12.939 --> 02:03:15.859 speak to who worked on Unseen Scars as well, 02:03:15.920 --> 02:03:20.180 it's not a great environment out there at the 02:03:20.180 --> 02:03:24.079 moment. There was a very funny comment on, obviously 02:03:24.079 --> 02:03:26.880 I'm a BAFTA member, so on one of the BAFTA WhatsApp 02:03:26.880 --> 02:03:30.640 groups, they did actually mention, someone did 02:03:30.640 --> 02:03:33.789 actually say... The in memoriam bit at the BAFTAs 02:03:33.789 --> 02:03:35.829 this year, they wondered if they were going to 02:03:35.829 --> 02:03:40.829 have job security and mortgage repayments as 02:03:40.829 --> 02:03:46.689 part of that gone but not forgotten. So, yeah, 02:03:46.810 --> 02:03:50.350 it's not recovering well. But as I said, I'm 02:03:50.350 --> 02:03:57.930 hoping a hard times create something. What I 02:03:57.930 --> 02:04:01.930 will say is that's across the whole board. I 02:04:01.930 --> 02:04:05.710 do think Brexit. I do think lack of job security 02:04:05.710 --> 02:04:08.350 and opportunities and the world being as bad 02:04:08.350 --> 02:04:10.590 as it is. I'm hoping there's going to be some 02:04:10.590 --> 02:04:14.170 sort of punk revival, should we say. There's 02:04:14.170 --> 02:04:17.930 always creativity is always born out of those 02:04:17.930 --> 02:04:21.529 hard times. the music industry has been on its 02:04:21.529 --> 02:04:24.729 knees for years. We're seeing a lot of kind of 02:04:24.729 --> 02:04:28.890 punk bands kind of, and a lot of new music start 02:04:28.890 --> 02:04:31.590 to spring up. So I hope the film industry is 02:04:31.590 --> 02:04:34.390 going to follow suit and we're going to have, 02:04:34.390 --> 02:04:39.550 you know, a lot more films sort of pop out of 02:04:39.550 --> 02:04:44.970 nowhere and, you know, do that kind of, that 02:04:44.970 --> 02:04:47.310 punk aesthetic of, right, we'll do it ourselves. 02:04:48.090 --> 02:04:50.949 going that route that's what i'm hoping um it 02:04:50.949 --> 02:04:53.590 seems to be happening in australia quite a little 02:04:53.590 --> 02:04:57.090 bit so um yeah i'm hoping that britain will follow 02:04:57.090 --> 02:05:00.550 suit it's funny because if you look at the fashion 02:05:00.550 --> 02:05:03.670 um you know the music the interest of the the 02:05:03.670 --> 02:05:06.310 young people at the moment it's the 80s again 02:05:06.310 --> 02:05:09.670 80s and 90s and with some works for a store called 02:05:09.670 --> 02:05:12.550 hollister here and all their clothes are what 02:05:12.550 --> 02:05:16.020 we wore And one good thing about that is in the 02:05:16.020 --> 02:05:17.939 80s was also, and I've talked about it a minute 02:05:17.939 --> 02:05:22.579 ago, Blue Pia, where we were told, hey, there's 02:05:22.579 --> 02:05:24.920 this famine in Ethiopia. So we're all going to 02:05:24.920 --> 02:05:27.460 do jumble sales and bake sales and whatever. 02:05:27.619 --> 02:05:29.779 And we'll raise money at school and then we'll 02:05:29.779 --> 02:05:32.699 all send it as a nation over to Ethiopia and 02:05:32.699 --> 02:05:35.560 help with the starvation. We need to refine that 02:05:35.560 --> 02:05:39.220 too. So I think revisiting the AEs, that punk, 02:05:39.340 --> 02:05:41.260 because I've said the ultimate revolution right 02:05:41.260 --> 02:05:43.739 now, the ultimate rebellion is kindness, compassion, 02:05:43.840 --> 02:05:46.619 community. That's the most punk rock thing you 02:05:46.619 --> 02:05:49.560 can do right now is be a kind person. I mean, 02:05:49.579 --> 02:05:52.079 it is. Have you seen the new Superbad film, by 02:05:52.079 --> 02:05:54.859 the way? I haven't yet, no. There's actually 02:05:54.859 --> 02:05:58.439 a line in it where she says you see... the good 02:05:58.439 --> 02:06:01.239 and beautiful in everyone. And he says, maybe 02:06:01.239 --> 02:06:06.159 that's the real punk rock. There we go. That's 02:06:06.159 --> 02:06:09.579 actually a line for it. But yeah, I'm hoping, 02:06:09.859 --> 02:06:14.699 yeah, that will be it, that the anti -establishment 02:06:14.699 --> 02:06:18.229 becomes. the you know the being kind looking 02:06:18.229 --> 02:06:21.409 after your brother and sisters and and all of 02:06:21.409 --> 02:06:24.229 that that that that could be hopefully the way 02:06:24.229 --> 02:06:26.630 forward but but yeah i am hoping for that bit 02:06:26.630 --> 02:06:29.689 of revival it does seem to be happening in music 02:06:29.689 --> 02:06:32.590 a little bit so hopefully it'll happen in um 02:06:32.590 --> 02:06:37.149 yeah what do you call it um film as well When 02:06:37.149 --> 02:06:38.949 you talk about the Americanization, I noticed 02:06:38.949 --> 02:06:41.449 that a lot of the shows that I've watched recently, 02:06:41.550 --> 02:06:43.569 the British ones, or started to watch in some 02:06:43.569 --> 02:06:47.310 cases because I couldn't carry on. They are literally 02:06:47.310 --> 02:06:50.649 mimicking the American show. So you've got, you 02:06:50.649 --> 02:06:52.770 know, supposedly an English police officer and 02:06:52.770 --> 02:06:55.029 she's running around with a freaking Glock the 02:06:55.029 --> 02:06:56.810 whole time. It's like, you've already lost me. 02:06:56.869 --> 02:06:58.430 A, your finger's on the trigger the whole time. 02:06:58.449 --> 02:06:59.789 So no one's even showing you how to hold that 02:06:59.789 --> 02:07:02.350 thing. But secondly, police officers don't run 02:07:02.350 --> 02:07:05.890 around the UK. with you know holsters because 02:07:05.890 --> 02:07:08.970 that's our gun laws on like our our teams are 02:07:08.970 --> 02:07:11.329 specially trained and they're and you know they've 02:07:11.329 --> 02:07:14.090 had them on the show so the moment that you try 02:07:14.090 --> 02:07:16.550 and be like you know magnum pi on a freaking 02:07:16.550 --> 02:07:19.550 british tv show you've lost the audience right 02:07:19.550 --> 02:07:22.430 at the beginning yeah well funnily enough that's 02:07:22.430 --> 02:07:24.449 um one of the things that actually led us to 02:07:24.449 --> 02:07:27.510 make making unseen scars what we kind of wanted 02:07:27.510 --> 02:07:31.569 to do was um uh was make it as british as possible 02:07:31.569 --> 02:07:37.970 um There's many films about American soldiers 02:07:37.970 --> 02:07:42.250 coming home. But it is, okay, it's the same issue, 02:07:42.329 --> 02:07:45.829 but it is a different experience. And that's 02:07:45.829 --> 02:07:47.890 what we was hoping to capture in the film, the 02:07:47.890 --> 02:07:52.649 British version of that, rather than what you've 02:07:52.649 --> 02:07:55.869 seen a million times, be it, you know, the same 02:07:55.869 --> 02:07:59.289 issue, but for an American lens or for a British 02:07:59.289 --> 02:08:02.729 lens. So that's what we were trying to do. Absolutely. 02:08:02.930 --> 02:08:05.130 All right. Well then for people listening, where 02:08:05.130 --> 02:08:07.810 can they learn more about the film and then where 02:08:07.810 --> 02:08:11.090 can they find you online? Okay. Well, um, on, 02:08:11.210 --> 02:08:15.189 on, on the film, uh, it's, um, the website is 02:08:15.189 --> 02:08:18.810 our best starting point, which is unseen scars, 02:08:18.989 --> 02:08:25.770 film .com. Yep. And that could lead you to our 02:08:25.770 --> 02:08:31.039 Instagram and Facebook pages as well. it's usually 02:08:31.039 --> 02:08:34.539 at unseen scars film but um yeah if you go through 02:08:34.539 --> 02:08:38.420 the website you will find all updated news and 02:08:38.420 --> 02:08:41.439 everything there and and yeah please anybody 02:08:41.439 --> 02:08:44.640 listening who hasn't followed us again it means 02:08:44.640 --> 02:08:46.800 more it means more than than you actually know 02:08:46.800 --> 02:08:50.319 just that support of being following us or get 02:08:50.319 --> 02:08:52.819 trying to see the film or whatever it be, um, 02:08:52.979 --> 02:08:55.619 for any, uh, first responders, uh, listening, 02:08:55.779 --> 02:08:58.579 especially in the UK, there are resources on 02:08:58.579 --> 02:09:02.060 the website as well that can help help as well. 02:09:02.380 --> 02:09:07.640 So, um, yeah, we, we, um, we'd really appreciate 02:09:07.640 --> 02:09:11.260 any support we can get to spread this message 02:09:11.260 --> 02:09:15.090 far and wide. Beautiful. Well, I want to thank 02:09:15.090 --> 02:09:16.770 you so much. It's been an amazing conversation. 02:09:16.949 --> 02:09:18.470 We've gone all over the place. That's what I 02:09:18.470 --> 02:09:20.829 love about these organic long form podcasts. 02:09:21.149 --> 02:09:23.510 But yeah, I mean, like I said, I watched the 02:09:23.510 --> 02:09:25.890 film. I thought it was excellent. It really kind 02:09:25.890 --> 02:09:29.930 of points at several topics that need to be highlighted. 02:09:30.350 --> 02:09:32.329 Like you said, even kind of takes the Hollywood 02:09:32.329 --> 02:09:35.470 out of the whole, you know, soldier with PTSD 02:09:35.470 --> 02:09:38.029 running around like a psychopath was, you know, 02:09:38.029 --> 02:09:40.810 what we were seeing a few years ago. puts that 02:09:40.810 --> 02:09:44.029 raw issue in front of people. So, A, I urge people, 02:09:44.130 --> 02:09:45.670 if they have the opportunity to watch it, B, 02:09:45.750 --> 02:09:49.890 certainly go to the website, you know, like on 02:09:49.890 --> 02:09:52.189 Instagram or those other areas. But I want to 02:09:52.189 --> 02:09:54.109 thank you so much for being so generous with 02:09:54.109 --> 02:09:56.289 your time today and coming on the Behind the 02:09:56.289 --> 02:09:59.630 Shield podcast. No, James, real honor to be invited 02:09:59.630 --> 02:10:00.649 on. So thank you very much.