ISSUE #7
BEAM FROM THE BOOTH | GRAND RAPIDS FILM SOCIETY
[EDITED BY: GRIFFIN SHERIDAN]
Welcome to another installment of BEAM FROM THE BOOTH brought to you by GRAND RAPIDS FILM SOCIETY!
First, a big thank you to those who joined us for All the Beauty and the Bloodshed this past Sunday! It was a powerful screening that we were so grateful to share with all of you (if you missed the screening, we highly encourage you to check out the film, which is now streaming on HBO Max or available for rent/purchase).
And with that event, we have officially wrapped our March programming! We truly appreciate you all coming out to support GRFS, and we look forward to providing more events for you to continue to do so very soon. Speaking of which…
Our full April programming will be revealed next week, it’s set to include a couple screenings and some community building events that we are quite excited about. But the big reveal from earlier this week was our upcoming event:
“TITANIC: AN EVENING AT SEA.”
Mark your calendars for Friday, APRIL 14th, when we’ll be hosting a formal affair and screening of James Cameron’s 1997 epic TITANIC.
Upon arrival, pick up your special ticket at our box office, grab a drink from the bar (with membership), and enjoy live music from award-winning cellist Jordan Hamilton, who will be performing classical music on our historic stage before the screening and during intermission. We highly encourage you to pull out your fanciest suit or evening gown and join us!
Be sure to check back for more details about this event and our other April programming in the coming weeks. But for now, on with the newsletter…
FILMMAKER SPOTLIGHT:
TYLER APPEL
[BY: LAUREN PATCHETT]
I met Tyler last year. I was one foot out of a job where I was working as a cook at a cafe in town, and he happened to be there on a meeting with a client for video work. It started with my question of “Where’d you get your shirt?” and his admittance of “I hate that it’s Abercrombie and Fitch” (shirt is pictured in this article!).
Nowadays I see him adjacently, enjoying a cup of Madcap coffee, or more recently some matcha for spring, while we work on our individual projects and visit with the baristas and other regulars.
Beyond being a filmmaker, Tyler is “a home cook and a home bartender. He’s married, he has a sweet baby boy. He enjoys doing big runs and eating and drinking anything good,” according to the man himself! Because he travels often, I can always count on him for a solid recommendation when it comes to the good places to eat or drink in many major cities.
This week, Tyler invited me to be apart of an upcoming music video, and I asked him to be interviewed for this Beam From the Booth issue. The original plan was to meet for coffee, but if you know Tyler, you know how busy he can be. Plans changed, so we did this interview over the phone with myself at home and Tyler at a coffee shop in Kalamazoo.
Throughout, I could hear various background sounds - chatter and the like, broken up by people stopping to say hello to Tyler. Examples being: *A car honks 6 times in quick succession* “Thats my buddy, Jake. Hi Jake! …wow, every single person I know is here in this coffee shop,” said through laughs.
*****
Hey, Tyler! What is your job?
I am a director and a cinematographer. Most of the work that I do is pretty varied. I work in documentary…so - short form, branded content documentary work. I also do music videos and corporate/commercial work.
I both DP and direct all of that stuff depending on the project. I am full-time freelance, and I don’t run a production company. So other production companies will hire me to fill both of those roles.
How did you get into it?
I started in high school. I was thinking I would be a graphic designer. I ended up interning and then eventually working at a church doing graphic design. I learned some live production stuff and also the basics of video editing. I played music all through high school. I enjoyed the combining of images and music and even just the feeling of being on a couple sets. I loved the feeling of the challenge…of the one day to do something. So I just kept learning from that.
I never went to film school. I just kinda kept making shit.
I eventually jumped over to a production company which is where I feel like I really earned my stripes. I went from making cool little intro videos for church sermons to having to light corporate interviews in bad locations and learn more of the craft of filmmaking. Especially doing it professionally for clients… it has a very different need set. So yeah, I feel like that’s where I really learned to be a professional inside of that.
It sounds like working at a production company taught you to wear a bunch of different hats. Do you see yourself continuing to do so? Or is there a direction you’d like to focus your career going forward?
I like doing both. When you work for a company, like a smaller production company, you have to do a lot of different stuff. You have to jump in where you’re needed. I kinda like having both sides. Part of me loves to work under another director with a different skill set than I do. To be able to support their idea visually is a lot of fun because it takes the pressure of the whole project off of just me. I get to go okay, someone else is worried more about the whole story, so I can really focus in on making images that support that vision.
Whereas when I am directing, I also love the feeling of okay, this is on me to hold true to the vision we set out to create. If it’s something more creative, it means more freedom. I get to decide what we are gonna do and work with the client or the artist to make it happen. But I also like the challenge of bringing a team together, all working together cohesively to make sure the vision of what we are making comes true.
That sounds insane, Tyler.
It’s…I don’t know, I like the challenge. With directing, especially if you have more than one person under you, you have to assemble [a team.] Filmmaking is so collaborative that you have to trust the people you are collaborating with, otherwise it’s only as good as your own ability. So it feels fun that every time I get a project, I get to assemble a crew or work with an existing crew or work with mostly friends, then add in a couple different people and figure out their strengths and where we can all work together to make something we are proud of.
What is your favorite part of your job and your least favorite part of your job?
Favorite part - I looooove, I love being on set. Being together with a group of people, and we have a set amount of time to capture something. Whether everything is going right or everything is going wrong, you just have to keep pressing on. That feeling of like: we’ve got today, that’s it, that’s what we’ve got. It’s kind of addicting. It’s still high stress, but it’s high reward too. If you can actually get it done, then it just feels so good. Like - we did it. And you’re looking at the monitor with your friends all around you, and you’re going - look what we made, look! It’s beautiful, we are happy with this…and we are high-fiving, like…that feels the best.
Least favorite - honestly, some of the more minute things…I am not naturally a type-A person. So, I know what I need to be able to do to make stuff happen for myself, but I don’t find joy in some of those details.
Are there any particular films or filmmakers that you are inspired by?
I liked movies fine, but as much as anyone likes movies. I think when it really clicked for me — that I really want to make stuff — was watching stuff on Vimeo and seeing music videos and cool commercials…that kind of thing. I was way more drawn to that than I was actual narrative filmmaking.
I remember specifically a couple, there’s Solomon Ligthelm…now he’s directing really beautiful, really interesting, cool stuff. I just remember being so drawn to that.
Another filmmaker, Eliot Rausch. I remember seeing Last Minutes with ODEN. Which is a short documentary about a guy who is [spending] his last few hours with his dog. It was beautiful…a short form documentary, just about a person. It wrecked me. I’ve got a dog, I really love my dog [his dog’s name is Fuji! - ed. ]. It floored me. That combo…some of it was “proper documentary,” but some of it was just him riding his bike. It fully immersed me. [Before that] documentaries were just boring stuff I would watch at school. Those two things really drew me to that…but you know, I love Wes Anderson and David Fincher. Hold on one second…*puts me on mute*…..…Okay, I’m back. That was my friend Jake. He’s a DP!
Alright, alright. Next question: If you had an unlimited budget - what would you make?
If I had an unlimited budget I think I would…realistically with my specialties, I would create longer form documentaries about musicians. Think Chef’s Table but with interviews of artists and singer/song process. Creating not true documentary, but [adding] visual metaphor elements to put in that are more produced. I love music a lot, I love beautiful things.
Last one! Would you mind sharing something you love about yourself?
That I love about myself? I’m cool as hell, dude! Haha…uhh…what do I love about myself in terms of filmmaking?
In terms of anything!
What do I love about myself? Haha, and I start crying…
Yes, I know, this is therapy now.
What do I love about myself? I love….can you put that he hemmed and hawed for about six minutes before he ever actually gave an answer?
Yeah, of course.
What do I love about myself? Umm…I love my ability to connect with people. That is something I pride myself on. It intertwines with the type of work that I do too.
*****
After this interview concluded, Tyler probably went on having a coffee or maybe he went on to hangout with Jake the DP, I’m not sure.
If you want to see more of Tyler and his work, check him out on Instagram (@tylerappel) or on his website.
Otherwise, I’m sure you’ll see him soon… either having a “bevvy” at any of his local stops or at a Wealthy Theatre event.
ECHOES
[BY: SPENCER EVERHART]
Echoes is an exclusively-visual column based on the MUBI Notebook series of the same name - a fun way to find the repetitions, reverberations, and recapitulations in images throughout cinema history.
two parables:
They Caught the Ferry (Carl Theodor Dreyer, 1948)
Neighbours (Norman McLaren, 1952)
ARE MOVIES BETTER WHEN RELEASED IN THE RIGHT SEASON?
[BY: GRIFFIN SHERIDAN]
A few weeks ago, we ran a poll in this very newsletter asking if movies were “better” if released in the “appropriate” season. Before we follow up on any of that, here are the results of said poll:
21 of you voted. Of that 21, 43% of you agreed with the statement, 33% said it didn’t matter to you in the slightest, and the remaining 24% had no idea what I was talking about. So, I suppose, let us start with some clarification.
The initial premise of the question mostly revolved around matching the tone of a film with the season which it is released in. An adrenaline-fueled work like Mad Max: Fury Road feels like it demands to be seen in the middle of a sweltering summer rather than the dead of winter. Likewise, horror movies tend to work best in the fall or winter. Edgar Wright actually describes what I’m talking about quite well in this note he wrote regarding the release of his most recent film Last Night in Soho:
Wright deliberately pushed back the release date of the film so as to curate a moviegoing experience that extends even beyond the theater. Your personal thoughts on this particular film aside, I truly appreciate Wright’s mindset and wish more filmmakers/distributors would think like this.
I understand that, for some people, all this may not affect their viewing all that much, if at all. For me, it does.
***
To be completely honest, when I began writing this, I quickly realized there wasn’t too much to say in regards to the original premise. In fact, what you read above is about all I had. This was all based on a question I have posed to people occasionally over the years, just for fun, to see how people respond (the poll results reflect those real life interactions quite well). However, in trying to find what this piece was, I stumbled upon a plethora of thoughts concerning the moviegoing experience and our perception of films in tandem with our emotional states and how the seasons may play a role in that…
First, I found myself considering that here in Michigan, we have four quite defined seasons. And so, the question of releasing a film in the “appropriate season” can only even exist in a place where there even are multiple seasons. For those in, say, the southwest Untied States, every movie may as well be released in the summer. And for our friends in the Southern Hemisphere, the Hollywood summer blockbuster season is actually more of a winter blockbuster season, and always has been. I assume some of you are reading this and shrugging your shoulders, which is fair. I just find it interesting because, looking back on my nearly quarter century of seeing films in theaters, so many screenings are tied to the time they occurred in my life, the events surrounding them, and the memories I have of that period. That feeling of getting out on the last day of school, in the middle of June, and racing off to the local multiplex. I remember the excitement of summer starting and how Spider-Man 2 was there to kick it off (I’m still chasing that high). Or the feeling of returning to theaters after they had been closed due to the pandemic. If you adore the moviegoing experience as much as I do, you could have seen anything for that first film back, and I feel like it would have been a magical experience. For me, it was Godzilla vs Kong, and it was fucking incredible.
Then, I also had to consider that I, as someone who lives with depression and anxiety (as so many of us do today), have a skewed mindset about the whole idea of “appropriate seasons.” Winter is terrible for me, and not just because of the inconvenience of cold weather or snow. My emotional state plummets in the winter and spends about four months in what feels like a free fall, and this can sometimes affect my perception of a film. Movies I see in the middle of winter, when my depression is typically at its worst, are often victim to the complete and total flattening of the emotional experience that accompanies these kinds of conditions. Some are redeemed by later viewings, while others remain in a perpetual state of mediocrity in my memory. That could certainly be considered poor media literacy, but I don’t think so.
It is my own philosophy that “art” (film being included in this umbrella term, of course) is not the work itself, but rather the act of someone experiencing said work. Art occurs when an artist— or group of artists— have created something and an audience takes it in. And members of the audience are free to bring along whatever mindset/mood/headspace they may be in and make that part of their interpretation of the art to create something new, the version of the work that will exist in their mind. Sometimes we share those thoughts and find others feel the same way or completely different…and that’s okay.
So, I’ll wrap this up by posing another question that may be more clear than the initial one that got us here:
Was this the piece I expected to write? Not really. Was it what you were expecting to read in this issue? Maybe not. But I do hope it has, in some way, asked you to consider the experience of watching a film and that you found something interesting to think about in that.
I’ll follow up on this new poll in the near future! Stay tuned.
UPCOMING EVENTS
TITANIC: AN EVENING AT SEA
WHAT: An all-out event featuring live music, a commemorative ticket, and a screening of James Cameron’s 1997 epic, TITANIC. *Formal wear highly encouraged.*
WHEN: Friday, April 14th, 6:00pm (Film start: 7:00pm)
WHERE: The Wealthy Theatre
And so we’ve arrived at the end of another BEAM FROM THE BOOTH! We appreciate you taking the time to read it and truly hope you’ll continue to do so. Be sure to SUBSCRIBE to get each issue in your inbox every FRIDAY and stay up-to-date on all things GRFS!
Plus, join us on social media! We’d love to chat with everyone and hear YOUR OWN thoughts on everything above. (You can also hop in the comments section below!)
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Look for ISSUE #8 in your inbox NEXT FRIDAY, 3/31!
Until then, friends…
